hackbench (8)

hackbench [-p|--pipe] [-s|--datasize <bytes>] [-l|--loops <num-loops>] [-g|--groups <num-groups>] [-f|--fds <num-fds>] [-T|--threads] [-P|--process] [--help]

Hackbench is both a benchmark and a stress test for the Linux kernel scheduler. It's main job is to create a specified number of pairs of schedulable entities (either threads or traditional processes) which communicate via either sockets or pipes and time how long it takes for each pair to send data back and forth.

These programs follow the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options starting with two dashes ("--").

A summary of options is included below.

-p, --pipe

Sends the data via a pipe instead of the socket (default)

-s, --datasize=<size in bytes>

Sets the amount of data to send in each message

-l, --loops=<number of loops>

How many messages each sender/receiver pair should send

-g, --groups=<number of groups>

Defines how many groups of senders and receivers should be started

-f, --fds=<number of file descriptors>

Defines how many file descriptors each child should use. Note that the effective number will be twice the amount you set here, as the sender and receiver children will each open the given amount of file descriptors.

-T, --threads

Each sender/receiver child will be a POSIX thread of the parent.

-P, --process

Hackbench will use fork() on all children (default behaviour)

--help

Shows a simple help screen

Running hackbench without any options will give default behaviour, using fork() and sending data between senders and receivers via sockets.

user@host: ~ $ hackbench

Running in process mode with 10 groups using 40 file descriptors each (== 400 tasks)

Each sender will pass 100 messages of 100 bytes

Time: 0.890

To use pipes between senders and receivers and using threads instead of fork(), run

user@host: ~ $ hackbench --pipe --threads (or hackbench -p -T)

Running in threaded mode with 10 groups using 40 file descriptors each (== 400 tasks)

Each sender will pass 100 messages of 100 bytes

Time: 0.497

Set the datasize to 512 bytes, do 200 messages per sender/receiver pairs and use 15 groups using 25 file descriptors per child, in process mode.

user@host: ~ $ hackbench -s 512 -l 200 -g 15 -f 25 -P

Running in process mode with 15 groups using 50 file descriptors each (== 750 tasks)

Each sender will pass 200 messages of 512 bytes

Time: 4.497

hackbench was written by Rusty Russell <[email protected]> with contributions from Yanmin Zhang <[email protected]>, Ingo Molnar <[email protected]> and David Sommerseth <[email protected]>

This manual page was written by Clark Williams <[email protected]> and David Sommerseth <[email protected]>

This version of hackbench is based on the code downloaded from http://people.redhat.com/mingo/cfs-scheduler/tools/hackbench.c. Yanmin Zhang merged the original hackbench code from

http://devresources.linuxfoundation.org/craiger/hackbench/src/hackbench.c which uses fork() and a modified version from

http://www.bullopensource.org/posix/pi-futex/hackbench_pth.c which uses pthread only and gave the possibility to change behaviour at run time. Hackbench have since then gone through some more rewriting to improve error handling and proper tracking of fork()ed children, to avoid leaving zombies on the system if hackbench stops unexpectedly.