Getting started with PostMark

Intro

Postmark is a benchmark designed to simulate the behavior of mail servers. Postmark consists of three phases. In the first phase a pool of files are created. In the next phase four types of transactions are executed: files are created, deleted, read, and appended to. In the last phase, all files in the pool are deleted.

Installation

The PostMark can be run with phoronix-test-suite. Refer to this blog on how to install phoronix-test-suite.

The first run

When you have first run of PostMark, it will have the additional dependent packages installed automatically.

[root@vm1 phoronix-test-suite]# phoronix-test-suite benchmark postmark

    Evaluating External Test Dependencies ......

The following dependencies are needed and will be installed:

- gcc
- gcc-c++
- make
- autoconf
- automake
- patch
- expat-devel
- unzip
- bzip2

This process may take several minutes.
Please enter your SUDO password below:
Password:

[...]

Installed:
  autoconf.noarch 0:2.69-11.el7             automake.noarch 0:1.13.4-3.el7
  expat-devel.x86_64 0:2.1.0-15.el7_9       gcc.x86_64 0:4.8.5-44.el7
  gcc-c++.x86_64 0:4.8.5-44.el7             patch.x86_64 0:2.7.1-12.el7_7
  unzip.x86_64 0:6.0-24.el7_9

Dependency Installed:
  cpp.x86_64 0:4.8.5-44.el7
  glibc-devel.x86_64 0:2.17-326.el7_9
  glibc-headers.x86_64 0:2.17-326.el7_9
  kernel-headers.x86_64 0:3.10.0-1160.102.1.el7
  libmpc.x86_64 0:1.0.1-3.el7
  libstdc++-devel.x86_64 0:4.8.5-44.el7
  m4.x86_64 0:1.4.16-10.el7
  mpfr.x86_64 0:3.1.1-4.el7
  perl-Data-Dumper.x86_64 0:2.145-3.el7
  perl-Test-Harness.noarch 0:3.28-3.el7
  perl-Thread-Queue.noarch 0:3.02-2.el7

Dependency Updated:
  expat.x86_64 0:2.1.0-15.el7_9              glibc.x86_64 0:2.17-326.el7_9
  glibc-common.x86_64 0:2.17-326.el7_9

Complete!

Phoronix Test Suite v10.8.4

    To Install:    pts/postmark-1.1.2

    Determining File Requirements ........................................................................................................................................................................................................
    Searching Download Caches ............................................................................................................................................................................................................

    1 Test To Install
        1 File To Download [0.01MB]
        1MB Of Disk Space Is Needed
        2 Seconds Estimated Install Time

    pts/postmark-1.1.2:
        Test Installation 1 of 1
        1 File Needed [0.01 MB]
        Downloading: postmark_1.51.orig.tar.gz                                                                                                                                                                                    [0.01MB]
        Downloading ......................................................................................................................................................................................................................
        Approximate Install Size: 1 MB
        Estimated Install Time: 2 Seconds
        Installing Test @ 23:56:49
[...]

Result file location

By default, the result from benchmarking is saved under /var/lib/phoronix-test-suite.

[root@vm1 phoronix-test-suite]# ls -la /var/lib/phoronix-test-suite
total 20
drwxr-xr-x.  8 root root  167 Nov 14 03:07 .
drwxr-xr-x. 34 root root 4096 Nov 13 23:31 ..
-rw-------.  1 root root 8290 Nov 14 03:07 core.pt2so
-rw-r--r--.  1 root root  979 Nov 14 03:07 graph-config.json
drwxr-xr-x.  3 root root   17 Nov 13 23:32 installed-tests
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root    6 Nov 13 23:31 modules
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root root    6 Nov 13 23:31 modules-data
drwxr-xr-x.  6 root root   55 Nov 13 23:31 test-profiles
drwxr-xr-x.  3 root root   38 Nov 13 23:57 test-results
drwxr-xr-x.  4 root root   30 Nov 13 23:31 test-suites

This can be modified by editing /etc/phoronix-test-suite.xml

[root@vm1 phoronix-test-suite]# vim /etc/phoronix-test-suite.xml
<ResultsDirectory>/root/phoronix-test-suite/test-results/</ResultsDirectory>

Batch mode

If you don’t want to answer the prompted questions during the test execution, you can setup batch mode before test execution.

[root@vm1 phoronix-test-suite]# phoronix-test-suite batch-setup

These are the default configuration options for when running the Phoronix Test Suite in a batch mode (i.e. running phoronix-test-suite batch-benchmark universe). Running in a batch mode is designed to be as autonomous as possible, except for where you'd like any end-user interaction.

    Save test results when in batch mode (Y/n): y
    Open the web browser automatically when in batch mode (y/N): n
    Auto upload the results to OpenBenchmarking.org (Y/n): n
    Prompt for test identifier (Y/n): n
    Prompt for test description (Y/n): n
    Prompt for saved results file-name (Y/n): n
    Run all test options (Y/n): n

Batch settings saved.

After setting up batch mode, you can run the test as below.

[root@vm1 phoronix-test-suite]#  phoronix-test-suite batch-benchmark pts/postmark

    Evaluating External Test Dependencies ......

Phoronix Test Suite v10.8.4

    Installed:     pts/postmark-1.1.2

System Information

  PROCESSOR:              2 x Intel Xeon Gold 5317 @ 3.60GHz
    Core Count:           24
    Thread Count:         48
    Extensions:           SSE 4.2
                          + AVX512_VNNI
                          + AVX512CD
                          + AVX2
                          + AVX
                          + RDRAND
                          + FSGSBASE
    Cache Size:           18 MB
    Microcode:            0xd000390
    Core Family:          Ice Lake
    Scaling Driver:       acpi-cpufreq conservative (Boost: Enabled)

  GRAPHICS:               ASPEED
    Screen:               1024x768

  MOTHERBOARD:            Supermicro X12DDW-A6 v1.01
    BIOS Version:         1.5
    Chipset:              Intel Device 0998
    Network:              2 x Mellanox MT27800 + 4 x Intel I350 + 2 x Mellanox MT2892

  MEMORY:                 8 x 64 GB DDR4-2933MT/s Samsung M393A8G40BB4-CWE

  DISK:                   4 x 1600GB Micron_7450_MTFDKCC1T6TFS + 6 x 1920GB Micron_5400_MTFD
    File-System:          xfs
    Mount Options:        attr2 inode64 logbsize=32k logbufs=8 noquota relatime rw seclabel
    Disk Scheduler:       NONE
    Disk Details:         Block Size: 4096

  OPERATING SYSTEM:       CentOS Linux 7
    Kernel:               5.7.12-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64 (x86_64)
    Compiler:             GCC 4.8.5 20150623
    Security:             SELinux
                          + itlb_multihit: Not affected
                          + l1tf: Not affected
                          + mds: Not affected
                          + meltdown: Not affected
                          + spec_store_bypass: Mitigation of SSB disabled via prctl and seccomp
                          + spectre_v1: Mitigation of usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
                          + spectre_v2: Mitigation of Enhanced IBRS IBPB: conditional RSB filling
                          + srbds: Not affected
                          + tsx_async_abort: Not affected

PostMark 1.51:
    pts/postmark-1.1.2
    Test 1 of 1
    Estimated Trial Run Count:    3
    Estimated Time To Completion: 3 Minutes [01:15 UTC]
        Started Run 1 @ 01:13:06
        Started Run 2 @ 01:14:02
        Started Run 3 @ 01:14:58

    Disk Transaction Performance:
        4901
        4807
        4901

    Average: 4870 TPS
    Deviation: 1.11%

Compare multiple runs

In the case you need to tweak some settings and run it again, and you want to compare the results for multipe runs. You can use the phoronix-test-suite merge-results command.

[root@vm1 phoronix-test-suite]# ls -ltr test-results/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x. 5 root root 88 Nov 14 01:15 2023-11-14-0113
drwxr-xr-x. 5 root root 88 Nov 14 01:25 2023-11-14-0122

[root@vm1 phoronix-test-suite]# phoronix-test-suite merge-results 2023-11-14-0113 2023-11-14-0122

Merged Results Saved To: /home/wali/phoronix-test-suite/test-results/merge-7632/composite.xml

    Do you want to view the test results? (Y/n): n

[root@vm1 phoronix-test-suite]# ls -ltr test-results/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x. 5 root root 88 Nov 14 01:15 2023-11-14-0113
drwxr-xr-x. 5 root root 88 Nov 14 01:25 2023-11-14-0122
drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 27 Nov 14 02:11 merge-7789

Export result

The test result can be exported to the following format.

[root@vm1 phoronix-test-suite]# phoronix-test-suite -h
[...]
    result-file-raw-to-csv [Test Result]
    result-file-to-csv     [Test Result]
    result-file-to-html    [Test Result]
    result-file-to-json    [Test Result]
    result-file-to-pdf     [Test Result]
    result-file-to-suite   [Test Result]
    result-file-to-text    [Test Result]

To export it as html, you can run the following command.

[root@vm1 phoronix-test-suite]# phoronix-test-suite result-file-to-html merge-7789

Reference

• https://openbenchmarking.org/test/pts/postmark
• https://www.filesystems.org/docs/auto-pilot/Postmark.html