NAME

       rabid - program to test POP server throughput.

SYNOPSIS

       rabid [-r max-connections-per-minute] [-p processes] [-l local-address] [-c messages-per-connection] [-a]
       [-s  ssl-percentage]  [-i  imap-percentage]  [-b  qmail-pop] [-d download-percentage[:delete-percentage]]
       [-[z|Z] debug-file] [-u] pop-server user-list-filename

DESCRIPTION

       This manual page documents briefly the rabid, program.

       It is designed to test the performance of POP  email  servers  by  reading  all  messages  from  randomly
       selected accounts as fast as possible.  A future version will support rate limiting to provide a constant
       load (for testing SMTP servers).

       The  pop-server  parameter  specifies  the  IP  address  or  name  of the mail server that the mail is to
       downloaded from.  If you want to specify a port other than port 110 then  enclose  the  host  address  in
       square  brackets  and  have  the  port address immidiately following.  If you want a DNS lookup for every
       connection (for testing round-robin DNS) then immediately preceed the host address with a '+' character.

       The user-list-filename is the name of a file  which  contains  a  list  of  user's  email  addresses  and
       passwords.   It  will  have  one  address  per  line and the password follows the address with a space to
       seperate.

       The processes parameter is the number of  processes  that  should  be  forked  off  to  attempt  seperate
       connections.   A well configured mail server won't accept an unlimited number of connections so make sure
       you don't specify a number larger than the number your mail server is configured  to  handle.   Also  for
       sensible  results  make sure that you don't use enough to make your server thrash as the results won't be
       representative of real-world use.

       The max-connections-per-minute parameter is for limiting the  number  of  connections  that  the  program
       makes.   This  is  designed  to  be used when you want to test the performance of other programs when the
       system is under load.  The default is 24000 connections per minute.

       The messages-per-connection parameter specifies the maximum number of messages to download  in  a  single
       POP session.  The default is -1 (unlimited).

       The  local-address  parameter  specifies  which  local  IP  address(es)  are  used  to  make the outbound
       connections.  Specified in the same way as the remote address.  This is good for  testing  LocalDirectors
       or other devices that perform differently depending on which source IP address was used.

       The  -a  command turns on all logging.  All message data received will be logged.  This will make it slow
       and it may not be able to saturate a fast Ethernet link...

       The -s switch specifies the percentage of connections which are to use TLS AKA SSL.  Use 0 for no SSL, or
       100 for always SSL, or any number in between.  Default is 0.

       The -i switch specifies the percentage of IMAP connections (default is POP).

       The -b switch allows you to specify breakage strings.  Currently the only option is for Qmail POP  server
       which  adds  an extra blank line at the end of each message.  -b qmail-pop means to not report this as an
       error.

       -d download-percentage[:delete-percentage] allows you to specify what  percentage  of  the  messages  are
       downloaded and what percentage of the downloaded messages are deleted.  Default is 100%.

       The  -u switch causes the domain of user-names to be ignored.  This allows you to have a single file with
       user-names and passwords which can be used by postal and rabid when using a server which doesn't accept a
       domain.  By default postal will ignore the password field, rabid may or may not need the domain depending
       on the configuration of the POP server.  The default is to use the domain (which is required if the  same
       user  is  present  in multiple domains), this switch causes the domain part to be stripped from the user-
       name field.

       The -z switch allows you to specify a debugging file base.  From this base one file is created  for  each
       thread  (with  a  ':'  and the thread number appended), each file is used to log all IO performed by that
       thread for debugging purposes.

       The -Z switch is the same but creates a separate file for each connection as well with an attitional  ':'
       appended followed by the connection number.

BUGS

       Doesn't actually do SSL or IMAP yet.

RETURN CODES

       0      No Error

       1      Bad Parameters

       2      System Error, lack of memory or some other resource

AUTHOR

       This   program,   it's   manual   page,   and   the   Debian   package  were  written  by  Russell  Coker
       <russell@coker.com.au>.

AVAILABILITY

       The source is available from http://doc.coker.com.au/projects/postal/ .

       See http://etbe.coker.com.au/category/benchmark for further information.

SEE ALSO

       postal(8),bhm(8)

russell@coker.com.au                                  0.70                                              rabid(8)