Why is it needed?
As a part of my workflow, I had to repeatedly hit the same REST API end points to simulate load on the system. A shell script works better and is a leaner solution on most Unix systems.
This is a simple script which allows you to do that with number of time stress test has to be done. The repetition is provided as an argument.
Usage Matrix
| Spec | Value |
|---|---|
| Operating System | Mac |
| Shell | zsh 5.8 |
| Curl Version | 7.77.0 |
Regular usage
Script
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#!/bin/zsh
echo "ZSH version ${ZSH_VERSION}..."
for i in {1..${1:-1}}
do
echo "Hitting the end point for ${i} time"
curl -X GET "https://httpbin.org/get" -H "accept: application/json"
done
Sample Response
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{
"args": {},
"headers": {
"Accept": "application/json",
"Host": "httpbin.org",
"User-Agent": "curl/7.77.0",
"X-Amzn-Trace-Id": "Root=1-6216f671-5be6917f342bba8e1610fb04"
},
"origin": "1.1.1.1",
"url": "https://httpbin.org/get"
}
Usage
Normal usage
By default the curl command hits the API endpoint only once
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./load-it.sh
Using for stress test
An argument of int type can be provided of your choice.
The script runs 100 times
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./load-it.sh 100
Getting some basic metrics for each API call
The above curl command is good for testing response of the API endpoints. To get some extra info out of each API call, you can format the curl response format.
To format the response with some additional information, create a file with format as *.txt.
Creating curl format file
Create a file called curl-format.txt
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{\n
"metrics" : {\n
"time_total": %{time_total}s,\n
"size_upload": %{size_upload} bytes,\n
"size_download": %{size_download} bytes,\n
}\n
}\n
The file represents a stringified JSON using delimiters like space and \n for formatting.
Updating the script
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#!/bin/zsh
echo "ZSH version ${ZSH_VERSION}..."
for i in {0..$1}
do
echo "Hitting the end point for ${i} time"
curl -w "@curl-format.txt" -X GET "https://httpbin.org/get" -H "accept: application/json"
echo -e "---\n\n\n"
done
Usage
The usage remains the same as before. Refer to Usage
Sample Response
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{
"args": {},
"headers": {
"Accept": "application/json",
"Host": "httpbin.org",
"User-Agent": "curl/7.77.0",
"X-Amzn-Trace-Id": "Root=1-62172079-6715cf5b1b79eb633684ab84"
},
"origin": "1.1.1.1",
"url": "https://httpbin.org/get"
}
{
"metrics" : {
"time_total": "1.028342s",
"size_upload": "0 bytes",
"size_download": "268 bytes",
}
}