HTTPBench

This is a Ruby Kata on implementing HTTPBench tool.

Original specification

The tool reads a list of URLs from a file, e.g.:

 http://www.google.com
 www.facebook.com:443
 https://twitter.com
 www.xkcd.com/443?foo=bar

For each URL, it executes GET request and measures the latency, writing all results into a JSON file, e.g.:

 [{"url": "http://www.google.com", "latency_ms": 3210},
  {"url": "https://www.facebook.com:443", "latency_ms": 1232},
  {"url": "https://twitter.com", "latency_ms": 315},
  {"url": "http://www.xkcd.com/443?foo=bar", "latency_ms": 132}]

Modifications

Based on my own idea of a useful benchmarking tool, the following modifications have been made to the original spec.

The tool must be able to use either files, or stdin/stdout for data input/output.
The report must provide separate values for the connect and read time, as well as http status code received with the response.

Requirements

The tool itself has no runtime dependencies, except for Ruby - it runs on a standard installation of Ruby 2.2.

To run the test, minitest gem is required (bundled with Ruby as part of its stdlib, or available via rubygems).

Quick start

Assuming that URL file is at ~/Temp/urls path, and you want to see the report written to report file, execute this command:

    ./httpbench -i ~/Temp/urls

Omit -i and -o to use stdin/stdout instead.

See httpbench -h for a full list of options.

Running with docker

If you don't have Ruby installed, and don't want to have on installed - the tool is available as a standalone docker image. To run the image:

    $ docker pull morhekil/httpbenchrb
    $ alias hb='docker run -a stdout -a stdin -i --rm=true morhekil/httpbenchrb ./httpbench'
    $ cat ~/Temp/urls | hb

Note that docker container normally do not have access to your local filesystem, so you can either use stdin/stdout to pass data in and out, or mount a directory into the container to use the file-based operation mode.

Example of a final report

    [
      {
        "url": "www.xkcd.com/443?foo=bar",
        "connect_ms": 1270,
        "read_ms": 442,
        "status": "301"
      },
      {
        "url": "https://twitter.com",
        "connect_ms": 1523,
        "read_ms": 351,
        "status": "200"
      },
      {
        "url": "http://www.google.com",
        "connect_ms": 163,
        "read_ms": 10,
        "status": "302"
      },
      {
        "url": "www.facebook.com:443",
        "connect_ms": 1570,
        "read_ms": 600,
        "status": "200"
      },
      {
        "url": "1.0.0.2",
        "error": "#<Net::OpenTimeout: execution expired>"
      }
    ]

Executing tests

    rake tests

Through docker:

    docker run --rm=true morhekil/httpbenchrb rake test