=pod

=head1 NAME

$_PROGRAM is a HTTP/FTP load tester and benchmarking utility.

=head1 SYNOPSIS

  $_PROGRAM [options]
  $_PROGRAM [options] <URL>
  $_PROGRAM [options] -g <URL>
  $_PROGRAM [options] -f urls.txt

=head1 DESCRIPTION

$_PROGRAM is a multi-threaded HTTP/FTP load tester and benchmarking 
utility. It supports most of the features detailed in RFCs 2616 (HTTP)
and 959 (FTP). Properties can be set both from the command line and in
a configuration file. When the same property is set in both locations,
the command line takes precedence.

The default configuration file is $HOME/.siege/siege.conf If you don't 
have a $HOME/.siege directory and a siege.conf and cookies.txt file, 
siege will generate a new config directory when it runs. You can 
generate your config directory with the following command: siege.config

=head1 OPTIONS

=head2 Option Syntax

$_PROGRAM supports long and short options. Short options look like this:
    -c 25
    -c25

Long options look like this:
    --concurrent=25

=head2 Option Values

=over

=item B<-V>, B<--version>

Displays the $_PROGRAM release version and copyright information.

=item B<-h>, B<--help>

Prints a help message describing $_PROGRAM's command-line options.

=item B<-C>, B<--config>

Prints a detailed summary of all the currently configured options, most
of which are sent in $HOME/.siege/siege.conf

=item B<-v>, B<--verbose>

This directive puts $_PROGRAM into verbose mode which is actually a 
default setting. This command-line option is useful when the config 
file is set to 'verbose = false' since it will allow you to override 
that.

By default $_PROGRAM's verbose output is displayed in a color-coded 
style.
  * HTTP 2xx is coded blue
  * HTTP 3xx is coded cyan
  * HTTP 4xx is coded magenta
  * HTTP 5xx is coded red
  * HTTP cached is coded black 

NOTE: You can turn off color in siege.conf like this: 'color = off'

=item B<-q>, B<--quiet>

This directive silences $_PROGRAM. It is mostly used for scripting and 
is often used in conjunction with -g/--get. You can detect the success 
or failure of the run with its exit code.

  siege --quiet -g www.joedog.org
  if [ $? -eq 0 ] ; then
    echo "Success"
  else
    echo "Failure"
  fi

=item B<-g URL>, B<--get=URL>

This option allows you to request a URL and watch the header 
transaction.  There is a corresponding config file directive that 
allows you to set the request method for these requests: 
gmethod = HEAD|GET

  $ siege -g "https://www.joedog.org/"
  HEAD / HTTP/1.0
  Host: www.joedog.org
  Accept: */*
  User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (unknown-x86_64-linux-gnu) Siege/4.0.0-beta5
  Connection: close

  HTTP/1.1 200 OK
  Server: cloudflare-nginx
  Date: Tue, 09 Feb 2016 18:18:41 GMT
  Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
  Connection: close
  Last-Modified: Wed, 25 Nov 2015 18:46:08 GMT
  Cache-Control: max-age=3, must-revalidate
  Expires: Tue, 09 Feb 2016 18:18:44 GMT
  Vary: Accept-Encoding,Cookie
  CF-RAY: 27219407eeff084a-IAD

NOTE: It's a best practice to quote the URL when it's passed to $_PROGRAM 
from the the command-line.

=item B<-p URL>, B<--print=URL>

This option is similar to -g / --get but it PRINTS the page it received 
from the server.

  $ siege -p http://www.joedog.org/
  GET / HTTP/1.0
  Host: www.joedog.org
  Accept: */*
  User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (unknown-x86_64-linux-gnu) Siege/4.0.3rc1
  Connection: close

  HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently
  Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2016 16:58:13 GMT
  Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
  Location: https://www.joedog.org/
  Server: cloudflare-nginx
  Connection: close


  <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML 2.0//EN">
  <html><head>
  <title>301 Moved Permanently</title>
  </head><body>
  <h1>Moved Permanently</h1>
  <p>The document has moved <a href="https://www.joedog.org/">here</a>.</p>
  <hr>
  <address>Apache/2.2.31 (Amazon) Server at www.joedog.org Port 80</address>
  </body></html>

=item B<-c NUM>, B<--concurrent=NUM>

This option allows you to set the concurrent number of users. The total 
number of users is technically limited to your computer's resources.

You should not configure more users than your web server is configured 
to handle. For example, the default apache configuration is capped at 
255 threads. If you run siege with -c 1024, then 769 siege users are 
left waiting for an apache handler.

For this reason, the default siege configuration is capped at 255 users.
You can increase that number inside siege.conf but if you make a mess, 
then please don't complain to us.

=item B<-r NUM>, B<--reps=NUM|once>

This option tells each siege user how many times it should run. The value 
should generally be a number greater than zero but it may be the keyword
'once'.

If --reps=3 then each siege user will run three times before it exits. 
However, if --reps=once, then each user will run through the urls.txt 
file exactly one time.

For more information about the urls.txt file, see option -f <file>, 
--file=<file>

=item B<-t NUMm>, B<--time=NUMm>

This option is similar to --reps but instead of specifying the number 
of times each user should run, it specifies the amount of time each 
should run.

The value format is "NUMm", where "NUM" is an amount of time and the "m"
modifier is either S, M, or H for seconds, minutes and hours. To run 
$_PROGRAM for an hour, you could select any one of the following 
combinations: -t3600S, -t60M, -t1H.  The modifier is not case sensitive, 
but it does require no space between the number and itself.

=item B<-d NUM>, B<--delay=NUM>

This option instructs $_PROGRAM how long to delay between each page 
request.  The value NUM represents the number of seconds between each
one. This number can be a decimal value. In fact the default is half a
second (--delay=0.5).

The time between delay requests is NOT applied toward the transaction 
time. If two 0.1 second transactions have a 2 second delay between them,
their average transaction time is 0.1 seconds. It is applied toward the
total elapsed time. In this scenario, the elapsed time would be 2.2 
seconds.

NOTE: when the parser is enabled (see: -p/--parser), there is no delay
between the page and its elements, i.e., style sheets, javascripts, etc. 
The delay is only between page requests.

=item B<-b>, B<--benchmark>

This directive tells siege to go into benchmark mode. This means there 
is no delay between iterations.

=item B<-i>, B<--internet>

This option sets siege into what we call internet mode. It makes 
requests from the urls.txt file (see: -f <file> / --file=<file>) in 
random order.

=item B<-f FILE>, B<--file=FILE>

This option tells siege to work with a list of urls inside a text 
file. The URLs are listed one per line. Unlike URLs that are passed as
a command-line argument, the URLs in this file should not be quoted.

$_PROGRAM's urls.txt parser supports comments and variables. Since 
$_PROGRAM uses the dollar sign ($) as a prefix for scalar variables,
you should escape any variable you want to send to the server:

  https://$(HOST)/siege/jsoner.php POST {"price": "\$10 per mile"}

=item B<-R FILE>, B<--rc=FILE>

This directive allows you to set an alternative resource file. By 
default, the siegerc file is $HOME/.siege/siege.conf With this 
directive, you can override the default and use an alternative file.

=item B<-L FILE>, B<--log=FILE>

The default log file is $prefix/var/log/siege.log. This directive 
allows you to specify an alternative file for logging.

=item B<-m "string">, B<--mark="string">

This option allows you to log a message to the log file before your 
stats are written there. It is generally used to identify the 
proceding run. You could, for example, mark the file with your 
command-line parameters so it's understood what configuration 
generated the following data.

=item B<-H "header: value">, B<--header="Header: value">

This options allows you to set a custom header in the request. 
Generally speaking, this header will override an existing header. The
Cookie header is a special case.  If you set -H "Cookie: value" then 
siege will send that cookie in addition to the other ones.

=item B<-A "string">, B<--agent="string">

This option allows you to override the default user-agent with a custom 
one.

  siege --agent="JoeDog Jr. in da hizzle"

Will set this header:

  User-agent: JoeDog Jr. in da hizzle

Alternatively, you could set the User-agent with the -H/--header option 
above.

=item B<-T "text">, B<--content-type="text">

This is another set header shortcut. You use this option to override 
the default Content-type request header.

=item B<--no-parser>

Turn off the HTML parser. When siege downloads a page, it parses it for
additional page elements such as style-sheets, javascript and images. It 
will make additional requests for any elements it finds. With this option
enabled, siege will stop after it pulls down the main page.

=item B<--no-follow>

This directive instructs siege not to follow 3xx redirects.

=back

=head1 URL FORMAT

$_PROGRAM supports RFC 1738 URL formats but it takes pains to implement
commonly used shortcuts for your convenience. In addition to RFC 1738 
formats, siege introduces its own URL format to indicate protocol method.

An RFC 1738 URL looks like this:
  <scheme>://<username>:<password>@<hostname>:<port>/<path>;<params>?<query>#<frag>

A $_PROGRAM URL with a method indicator looks like this:
  <scheme>://<username>:<password>@<hostname>:<port>/<path> POST <query>

You can also post the contents of a file using the redirect character
like this:
  <scheme>://<username>:<password>@<hostname>:<port>/<path> POST </home/jeff/haha.txt

Here are two examples with the $_PROGRAM method indicator:
  http://www.joedog.org/ POST haha=papa&dada=mama
  ftp://ftp.armstrong.com/ PUT </home/jdfulmer/etc/tests/bbc.jpg

NOTE: If you set URLs with method indicators at the command-line, then 
you MUST quote the thing or your shell will treat it like three separate
arguments. If the URL is in a urls.txt file, then you shouldn't quote it.

As mentioned above, $_PROGRAM goes to great lengths to allow commonly 
used shortcuts that you're used to from most browser implementations. 
It treats many parts of the 1738 URL as optional. In this example, the 
parts in brackets are optional:
  [scheme://] host.domain.xxx [:port] [/path/file]

When $_PROGRAM receives a host name it builds the URL with default 
assumptions.  www.joedog.org becomes http://www.joedog.org:80/

=head1 URLS.txt FILE

From the section called Option Syntax above we learn that $_PROGRAM 
can take a URL as an argument. $_PROGRAM -c -r2 www.joedog.org will 
request the JoeDog index page twice.  But what if you want to hit
large portions of the site? $_PROGRAM will allow you to fill a file 
with URLs so that it can run through list.

The format for the file is one URL per line:
  https://www.joedog.org/
  https://www.joedog.org/haha/
  https://www.joedog.org/haha/ POST homer=simpson&marge=doestoo

The file also supports UNIX-style commenting:
  # Comment looks like this
  https://www.joedog.org/
  https://www.joedog.org/haha/
  https://www.joedog.org/haha/ POST homer=simpson&marge=doestoo

It supports shell-style variable declaration and references. This is 
convenient if you want to run the same test on two different tiers or
two different schemes:

  SCHEME=https
  HOST=bart.joedog.org
  $(SCHEME)://$(HOST)/
  $(SCHEME)://$(HOST)/haha/
  $(SCHEME)://$(HOST)/haha/ POST homer=simpson&marge=doestoo

You can tell siege about this file with the -f/--file option:
  siege -c1 -r50 -f /home/jeff/urls.txt

=head1 PERFORMANCE STATISTICS

When its run is complete, siege will gather performance data from all
its clients and summarize them after the run. (You can also choose to
log these numbers). The command-line output is modeled after Lincoln 
Stein's torture.pl script:

  Transactions:                   2000 hits
  Availability:                 100.00 %
  Elapsed time:                  58.57 secs
  Data transferred:               5.75 MB
  Response time:                  0.25 secs
  Transaction rate:              34.15 trans/sec
  Throughput:                     0.10 MB/sec
  Concurrency:                    8.45
  Successful transactions:        2000
  Failed transactions:               0
  Longest transaction:            4.62
  Shortest transaction:           0.00

  Transactions
      This number represents the total number of HTTP requests. In this
      example, we ran 25 simulated users [-c25] and each ran ten times
      [-r10]. Twenty-five times ten equals 250 so why is the transaction 
      total 2000? That's because $_PROGRAM counts every request. This run 
      included a META redirect, a 301 redirect and the page it requested 
      contained several elements that were also downloaded.

  Availability
      This is the percentage of socket connections successfully handled 
      by the server. It is the result of socket failures (including 
      timeouts) divided by the sum of all connection attempts. This 
      number does not include 400 and 500 level server errors which are
      recorded in "Failed transactions" described below.  

  Elapsed time
      The duration of the entire siege test. This is measured from the 
      time the user invokes $_PROGRAM until the last simulated user 
      completes its transactions. Shown above, the test took 14.67 
      seconds to complete.

  Data transferred
      The sum of data transferred to every siege simulated user. It 
      includes the header information as well as content. Because it
      includes header information, the number reported by siege will 
      be larger then the number reported by the server. In internet 
      mode, which hits random URLs in a configuration file, this 
      number is expected to vary from run to run.

  Response time
      The average time it took to respond to each simulated user's requests.

  Transaction rate
      The average number of transactions the server was able to handle
      per second, in a nutshell: it is the count of all transactions 
      divided by elapsed time.

  Throughput
      The average number of bytes transferred every second from the 
      server to all the simulated users.

  Concurrency
      This is the average number of simultaneous connections. The metric
      is calculated like this: the sum of all transaction times divided
      by elapsed time (how long siege ran) 

  Successful transactions
      The number of times the server responded with a return code < 400.

  Failed transactions
      The number of times the socket transactions failed which includes 
      socket timeouts.

  Longest transaction
      The greatest amount of time that any single transaction took, out 
      of all transactions.

  Shortest transaction
      The smallest amount of time that any single transaction took, out
      of all transactions.

=head1 AUTHOR

$_AUTHOR <$_EMAIL> is the primary author of $_PROGRAM. Numerous people 
throughout the globe also contributed to this program. Their 
contributions are noted in the source code ChangeLog

=head1 COPYRIGHT

Copyright $_YEARS by $_AUTHOR <$_EMAIL>

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the 
Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your 
option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but 
WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of 
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU 
General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along 
with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 
675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

=head1 AVAILABILITY

The most recent released version of $_PROGRAM is available by HTTP 
download:
  http://download.joedog.org/pub/siege

=head1 SEE ALSO

siege.config(1) bombardment(1) siege2csv(1)


