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MSTONE 4.2 Mstone is a mail server performance testing tool designed to simulate the different types and volume of mail traffic a mail server would experience during a peak activity period. Mstone was formerly known as Mailstone. A quick installation guide is available in INSTALL. The full Mailstone 4.15 user manual is available at http://developer.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/messaging.html Testing strategy ---------------- Mstone is capable of opening SMTP, POP3, IMAP4, and other protocol connections to mail servers. The number and type of connections made to the mail server is based on a weighted command list which provides the ability to test mail server implementation requirements. A series of perl script allow you to setup client machines, run tests, and then cleanup client machine files. Each client machine has a copy of the mailclient program and SMTP message files. When the test is run, the mailclient is started with the proper command line and work load. After experimenting with mstone loads, you will notice that there are a few factors that can distort server the byte and message throughput. You will find that the server byte throughput is related to the average SMTP message (file) size. Also, server throughput, in bytes and messages, is affected by larger than normal POP3/IMAP4 mailboxes. So it is important to approach the mstone command configuration with data collected from existing mail server implementations, for example, a customer might say "during our peak activity in the morning, we handle up to two thousand employees sending an average of 5 messages of 20K average size and receiving 25 messages of same size". With input like this, you can begin tuning mstone to generate relevant data. There are two important things to consider when reviewing the results of mstone performance analysis: Was the test run on target for simulating the type and volume of mail traffic; and did the server, both software and machine, handle the load within an acceptable margin? With this information, it can be determined: whether enough SMTP connections were made to the server during the run, and how many messages were downloaded over how many POP3/IMAP4 connections. If the number of SMTP connections is not in the acceptable range, then consider adding more client processes/machines or checking the server performance during the run. The message/connection ratio for POP3/IMAP4 should be checked for soundness, and adjustments should be made to the mailboxes before running the next test. Monitoring the server performance during test runs is crucial in understanding the results. If the number of client connections is not being achieved and the server cpu usage and process run queue is not settling down after the initial spike, then modifications to the server architecture could be in order. The analysis of mstone results is an iterative process of client (mstone client) and server tuning. The bottom line is to determine whether the messaging solution can handle the type of load expected in an acceptable manner. Server Log Tuning ----------------- The Messaging and Directory server ship with access logging enabled by default. This gives the most information about what is going on in the system, but can reduce performance. You should test the way the system will be run. Noticeable performance increases are often obtained by disabling access logging on the directory server and by reducing the logging level of the messaging servers from "Notice" to "Warning".