sftp/scp performance testing

Tobias Ringstrom
Tue, 08 Jan 2002 18:46:02 -0000

On Sun, 6 Jan 2002, Dan Kaminsky wrote:

> A small note --
>
>     My method for testing OpenSSH performance has been something along the
> lines of:
>
>     cat /dev/zero | ssh user at host "cat > /dev/null"
>
>     and then monitoring network traffic using another tool.  Something
like:
>
>     cat /dev/zero | cpipe | ssh user at host "cat > /dev/null"
>
>     would also work.  This method is useful because the zeronum generator
is
> faster than any randomizer, and it completely filters out disk I/O.

And just how would you test sftp using /dev/zero?  :-)
You can always write the file to /dev/null, of course, as in

	get big-file /dev/null
	put big-file /dev/null

One way to benchmark sftp is to put the line (get big-file /dev/null) in a
file (tmp.bat), and then run

	time sftp -b tmp.bat host

Subtract the time it takes to run

	sftp -b /dev/null host

and your result should be somewhat accurate.

/Tobias