What are the best open source tools to stress-test a Linux system?

Question

What open sources tools do you recommend for stress-testing a Linux server?

Specifically, we're wanting to thrash the CPU, hard disk array and memory.

We have a 4-year-old IBM server that was freezing with it's Windows Server 2003 installation. We're wanting to verify that the issue is not hardware related by testing the major components under high load, with the view of re-purposing the hardware as a LAMP box.

One recommendation per response please.

Solution 1

To test individual components, I use memtest86+ for memory (burn ISO and boot from that for best results), iozone for disk benchmarking, and a prime number finder for CPU. As mentioned above, stress also rocks as an all-in-one utility.

Here's a great list of other utilities to try.

Solution 2

Might not be the tools for you if you are going to hit the hardware or OS level, but if you are going to stress through an web application there are quite a few alternatives.

Not open source, but Microsoft has a free (not GNU free) web stress tool if you are going to stress test an web application.

When it comes to open source tools, there is quite a few depending on your needs. The project I work in have used TestMaker. It is quite good, but the UI is a bit confusing. A more developer centric tool that I have used in the past is JMeter.

There is a fairly updated list of performance testing tools on this page.

Comments

[vonbrand]

Please add a bit of comment/summary.The link alone is of little use, and might break any time.

[Admin]

That page currently returns 404 Not Found. So I asked about how to install Stress, serverfault.com/questions/551604/…