# sysbench — Multi-Threaded System Benchmark Tool

> sysbench is a scriptable multi-threaded benchmark tool for evaluating CPU, memory, file I/O, mutex, and database performance under configurable workloads.

## Install

Save as a script file and run:

# sysbench — Multi-Threaded System Benchmark Tool

## Quick Use
```bash
# Install
apt install sysbench   # or: brew install sysbench

# CPU benchmark (10 seconds, 4 threads)
sysbench cpu --threads=4 --time=10 run

# MySQL OLTP read-write benchmark
sysbench oltp_read_write --mysql-host=127.0.0.1 --mysql-user=root --mysql-db=sbtest prepare
sysbench oltp_read_write --mysql-host=127.0.0.1 --mysql-user=root --mysql-db=sbtest --threads=16 run
```

## Introduction
sysbench is a cross-platform command-line tool for running configurable benchmarks against CPUs, memory subsystems, file I/O, threading primitives, and relational databases. It is commonly used to compare hardware, validate database tuning, and establish performance baselines before and after infrastructure changes.

## What sysbench Does
- Runs CPU, memory, file I/O, and mutex contention benchmarks
- Provides built-in OLTP workloads for MySQL and PostgreSQL
- Supports custom Lua scripts to define arbitrary benchmark scenarios
- Scales workloads across configurable thread counts to test concurrency
- Reports latency percentiles, throughput, and event rates in real time

## Architecture Overview
sysbench is a C application that spawns a pool of worker threads, each executing a test-specific event loop. Built-in tests (cpu, memory, fileio, mutex) are compiled into the binary. Database and custom tests are defined as Lua scripts loaded at runtime. The reporting engine collects per-thread statistics and aggregates them into latency histograms and throughput summaries.

## Self-Hosting & Configuration
- Install via system package manager or compile from source with `make && make install`
- No daemon or configuration file needed — all options are CLI flags
- Database benchmarks require a target MySQL or PostgreSQL instance
- Use `prepare`, `run`, and `cleanup` subcommands to manage test data lifecycle
- Write custom Lua scripts in the `sysbench.hooks` API for specialized workloads

## Key Features
- Built-in tests for CPU, memory, file I/O, mutex, and OLTP database workloads
- Scriptable via Lua for custom benchmark scenarios beyond the defaults
- Thread-scalable from 1 to thousands of concurrent workers
- Reports latency distributions at p50, p95, p99 and beyond
- Cross-platform support for Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD

## Comparison with Similar Tools
- **fio** — Focused exclusively on storage I/O with deeper tuning knobs
- **pgbench** — PostgreSQL-specific TPC-B benchmark, no CPU or I/O tests
- **HammerDB** — GUI-based database benchmark with TPC-C and TPC-H workloads
- **stress-ng** — Kernel and hardware stress testing, not database-aware
- **YCSB** — Yahoo Cloud Serving Benchmark for NoSQL and key-value stores

## FAQ
**Q: Which databases does sysbench support?**
A: MySQL (and compatible forks like MariaDB and Percona) and PostgreSQL via built-in OLTP Lua scripts.

**Q: Can I benchmark networked services other than databases?**
A: Yes. Write a custom Lua script using the sysbench API to drive any TCP or HTTP workload.

**Q: How do I get reproducible results?**
A: Pin thread count, test duration, and table size. Disable CPU frequency scaling and run multiple iterations to average out variance.

**Q: Is sysbench suitable for production load testing?**
A: It is designed for synthetic benchmarks. For realistic production traffic replay, consider tools like Percona Playback or tcpreplay.

## Sources
- https://github.com/akopytov/sysbench
- https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Sysbench

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Source: https://tokrepo.com/en/workflows/asset-6d525004
Author: Script Depot