How To Install Sysbench on Manjaro

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Sysbench on Manjaro. Sysbench is a powerful and versatile benchmarking tool that allows you to evaluate the performance of your system’s CPU, memory, file I/O, and database operations. Developed by Alexey Kopytov, Sysbench is designed to be modular, cross-platform, and multi-threaded, making it a valuable asset for system administrators, developers, and performance enthusiasts alike.

One of the key advantages of Sysbench is its ability to simulate various workloads and test scenarios, providing you with a comprehensive understanding of your system’s performance under different conditions. Whether you need to test the performance of your CPU with various computational workloads, measure the speed of your memory subsystem, or evaluate the throughput of your file system or database, Sysbench has you covered.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Sysbench benchmark tool on a Manjaro Linux.

Prerequisites

• A server or desktop running one of the following operating systems: Manjaro, and other Arch-based distributions.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A stable internet connection is crucial for downloading and installing packages. Verify your connection before proceeding.
• Access to a Manjaro Linux system with a non-root sudo user or root user.

Install Sysbench on Manjaro

Step 1. It’s always a good practice to keep your Manjaro system up to date before installing new software. Open the terminal and run the following command to update your system:

sudo pacman -Syu

Step 2. Installing Sysbench on Manjaro.

The first step in installing Sysbench is to download the source code from the official website. To download the source code, navigate to the desired directory where you want to extract the files and run the following command:

wget https://github.com/akopytov/sysbench/archive/refs/heads/master.zip

After verifying the integrity of the downloaded file, you can extract the source code archive using the following command:

unzip master.zip

This will create a new directory named sysbench-master containing the Sysbench source code and other necessary files.

Navigate to the extracted sysbench-master directory:

cd sysbench-master

Run the configure script to prepare the build environment. This script allows you to enable or disable specific features and set various options for the compilation process. For a basic installation, you can run the script without any additional options:

./configure

However, if you want to customize the installation or enable/disable specific features, you can use various options with the configure script. For example, to enable or disable database support, you can use the --with-mysql or --without-mysql options, respectively.

Once the configure script has finished running, you can proceed with the compilation process by running the make command:

make

After a successful compilation, you can install Sysbench on your system by running the make install command:

sudo make install

After completing the installation process, it’s essential to verify that Sysbench has been installed correctly and is ready for use. You can do this by running the sysbench --version command in your terminal:

sysbench --version

Step 3. Running Sysbench Benchmarks.

One of the key features of Sysbench is its ability to run various benchmarks to test the performance of your system’s CPU, memory, file I/O, and database operations. Let’s explore how to run these benchmarks and understand the different options available.

• CPU Benchmarks

To run a CPU benchmark with Sysbench, you can use the following command:

sysbench --test=cpu run

For example, to run a CPU benchmark with multiple threads, you can use the --num-threads option:

sysbench --test=cpu --num-threads=4 run

• Memory Benchmarks

Sysbench also allows you to test the performance of your system’s memory subsystem. To run a memory benchmark, use the following command:

sysbench --test=memory run

For example, to run a memory benchmark with a block size of 4 kilobytes and a total memory size of 1 gigabyte, you can use the following command:

sysbench --test=memory --memory-block-size=4K --memory-total-size=1G run

• File I/O Benchmarks

Sysbench also provides the ability to test the performance of your file system’s I/O operations. To run a file I/O benchmark, use the following command:

sysbench --test=fileio run

For example, to run a file I/O benchmark with a sequential write test mode, four threads, and a file size of 1 gigabyte, you can use the following command:

sysbench --test=fileio --file-test-mode=seqwr --num-threads=4 --file-total-size=1G run

• Database Benchmarks

In addition to CPU, memory, and file I/O benchmarks, Sysbench also supports database benchmarking. To run a database benchmark, you’ll need to have a supported database management system (DBMS) installed and configured on your system.

For example, to run an OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) benchmark against a MySQL database, you can use the following command:

sysbench --test=oltp --oltp-table-size=1000000 --mysql-db=test --mysql-user=root --mysql-password=yourpassword prepare
sysbench --test=oltp --oltp-table-size=1000000 --mysql-db=test --mysql-user=root --mysql-password=yourpassword run

Congratulations! You have successfully installed Sysbench. Thanks for using this tutorial to install the latest version of the Sysbench benchmark tool on the Manjaro system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official Sysbench website.