The sys admin's daily grind – httpstat
My Point of View
Httpstat is a special stopwatch you can use to discover how long web servers take to serve up a static or dynamic HTML page. Visible performance lags indicate optimization potential for the server.
Httpstat is a Python script that wraps itself around cURL. Apart from Python 2 or 3 and cURL, it has no other dependencies. You can retrieve it from the GitHub repository and call it using:
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/reorx/httpstat/master/httpstat.py python httpstat.py <URL>
If the Python installer pip is present on your system, you also can pick up the script and call it with:
pip install httpstat httpstat <URL>
Although you can leave an http:// out of the URL, you cannot omit https:// for web pages secured with TLS.
Figure 1 shows httpstat measuring an unencrypted call. Four milliseconds for a DNS reply is a really good value, but I cheated: The name of the site is cached on my local Dnsmasq. As soon as my computer has to turn to my provider's DNS, the value rises to 80-200ms. The TCP handshake is 22ms, which is about par for the course.
The time the server needs to create the page (Server Processing) shows whether the web server has some tuning potential that I have not tapped. My example is not representative, because instead of HTML, the server simply outputs 301 Moved Permanently, which means I should have called the page using HTTPS. A browser would do that independently, but not cURL.
Figure 2 requests the same page using HTTPS. The lookup and TCP values remain the same, but the TLS Handshake takes forever for this static page. The value can go up to several seconds for a big site with a large volume of dynamic content and advertising banners.
Httpstat is not controllable using command-line parameters because they would be fielded by cURL; however, you can influence the tool with environment variables. The line
export HTTPSTAT_SHOW_SPEED=true
tells httpstat to show how quickly the web page is delivered (e.g., speed_download: 219.6 KiB/s, speed_upload: 0.0 KiB/s). The httpstat website [1] explains all of the variables and has links to the httpstat implementation in Go, Bash, and PHP.
Infos
- httpstat: https://github.com/reorx/httpstat
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Direct Download
Read full article as PDF:
Price $2.95
News
-
Purism Launches a Mini PC
The makers of the Librem line of Linux-based laptops have released a mini PC.
-
openSUSE Leap 15.2 Adds AI Machine Learning
With the new release of openSUSE Leap comes some exciting new features, including machine learning.
-
Google’s Nearby Sharing Could Work with Linux
Google’s answer to Apple’s AirDrop feature is rumored to work with the Linux desktop.
-
System76 Launches Ryzen-Powered Laptop
The new System76 Serval WS includes a powerful AMD Ryzen CPU.
-
Linux Mint Drops Snap
Linux Mint has officially dropped their support for Canonical’s snap packages.
-
Lenovo Upping Their Linux Support
Lenovo is now offering full certification and Linux preinstalled hardware.
-
LPI Launches FOSSlife Website
Linux Professional Institute launches FOSSlife, a website for the FOSS community.
-
Tuxedo Computers Joins the Ryzen Bandwagon
Tuxedo Computers has released the Tuxedo Boot BA15 with an AMD Ryzen 3500 CPU.
-
Linux Apps on Windows Is Coming
Linux GUI apps will be coming to Windows Subsystem for Linux.
-
Linux Usage Is on the Rise
According to NetMarketShare, Linux saw a significant bump in usage during April.