The sys admin's daily grind – httpstat
My Point of View
Httpstat is a special stopwatch you can use to discover how long web servers take to serve up a static or dynamic HTML page. Visible performance lags indicate optimization potential for the server.
Httpstat is a Python script that wraps itself around cURL. Apart from Python 2 or 3 and cURL, it has no other dependencies. You can retrieve it from the GitHub repository and call it using:
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/reorx/httpstat/master/httpstat.py python httpstat.py <URL>
If the Python installer pip is present on your system, you also can pick up the script and call it with:
pip install httpstat httpstat <URL>
Although you can leave an http:// out of the URL, you cannot omit https:// for web pages secured with TLS.
Figure 1 shows httpstat measuring an unencrypted call. Four milliseconds for a DNS reply is a really good value, but I cheated: The name of the site is cached on my local Dnsmasq. As soon as my computer has to turn to my provider's DNS, the value rises to 80-200ms. The TCP handshake is 22ms, which is about par for the course.
Figure 1: The page that httpstat requests via HTTP, and receives quickly, is only an error message in reality.
The time the server needs to create the page (Server Processing) shows whether the web server has some tuning potential that I have not tapped. My example is not representative, because instead of HTML, the server simply outputs 301 Moved Permanently, which means I should have called the page using HTTPS. A browser would do that independently, but not cURL.
Figure 2 requests the same page using HTTPS. The lookup and TCP values remain the same, but the TLS Handshake takes forever for this static page. The value can go up to several seconds for a big site with a large volume of dynamic content and advertising banners.
Figure 2: When requested using HTTPS, the HTML page obviously takes longer to appear.
Httpstat is not controllable using command-line parameters because they would be fielded by cURL; however, you can influence the tool with environment variables. The line
export HTTPSTAT_SHOW_SPEED=true
tells httpstat to show how quickly the web page is delivered (e.g., speed_download: 219.6 KiB/s, speed_upload: 0.0 KiB/s). The httpstat website [1] explains all of the variables and has links to the httpstat implementation in Go, Bash, and PHP.
Infos
- httpstat: https://github.com/reorx/httpstat
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Wine 10 Includes Plenty to Excite Users
With its latest release, Wine has the usual crop of bug fixes and improvements, along with some exciting new features.
-
Linux Kernel 6.13 Offers Improvements for AMD/Apple Users
The latest Linux kernel is now available, and it includes plenty of improvements, especially for those who use AMD or Apple-based systems.
-
Gnome 48 Debuts New Audio Player
To date, the audio player found within the Gnome desktop has been meh at best, but with the upcoming release that all changes.
-
Plasma 6.3 Ready for Public Beta Testing
Plasma 6.3 will ship with KDE Gear 24.12.1 and KDE Frameworks 6.10, along with some new and exciting features.
-
Budgie 10.10 Scheduled for Q1 2025 with a Surprising Desktop Update
If Budgie is your desktop environment of choice, 2025 is going to be a great year for you.
-
Firefox 134 Offers Improvements for Linux Version
Fans of Linux and Firefox rejoice, as there's a new version available that includes some handy updates.
-
Serpent OS Arrives with a New Alpha Release
After months of silence, Ikey Doherty has released a new alpha for his Serpent OS.
-
HashiCorp Cofounder Unveils Ghostty, a Linux Terminal App
Ghostty is a new Linux terminal app that's fast, feature-rich, and offers a platform-native GUI while remaining cross-platform.
-
Fedora Asahi Remix 41 Available for Apple Silicon
If you have an Apple Silicon Mac and you're hoping to install Fedora, you're in luck because the latest release supports the M1 and M2 chips.
-
Systemd Fixes Bug While Facing New Challenger in GNU Shepherd
The systemd developers have fixed a really nasty bug amid the release of the new GNU Shepherd init system.