Banyan 6.2 Desktop Performance Setup



This page is a "how to" guide for running xperform. I'm not going to get into hand-holding details. After all, if you're debugging the OS you should be able to use it.

For a bit of background, xperform is a C program that simulates and observes X events. To launch applications it simulates mouse clicks. It follows a script which tells it where and when to click. To time an application's launch it watches for a certain number of MapNotify or ConfigureNotify X messages. The number is dependent on the application. As xperform runs it saves its timing information to the file "log". It also maintains its current location in the script file via the file ".xperform".

Xperform is run under the user "xperf". To eliminate confounding variables, we login before each test and logout afterward. In order to logout and login between runs there must be an /etc/autologin file storing the name of which user to autologin as and an /etc/autologin.on file marking that autologin is on. This file is removed after each login, so xperform recreates it during its run. Xperform is launched by the .sgisession file after a small sleep.

To start xperform, the .sgisession file must be present as well as a properly setup /etc/autologin and /etc/autologin.on. To stop xperform, simply rename .sgisession to sgisession.

  1. Mkfs the disk
  2. Install selected subsystems (listed in versions.html)
  3. Configure the machine to run on the network
  4. Make sure yp is chkconfig on (often must be done by hand) ("netless" has yp off)
  5. Make sure videod is chkconfig on (must be done by hand)
  6. Make a user called "xperf"
  7. Login as xperf
  8. Copy the files from guest@blana:/var/www/htdocs/SQA/xperform/scripts to xperf's home directory
  9. mv showcaserc .showcaserc
  10. mv sgisession .sgisession
  11. su
  12. For 5.3: mv dview53 /usr/bin/dview
  13. For 5.3: rm dview62
  14. For 6.2: mv dview62 /usr/bin/dview
  15. For 6.2: rm dview53
  16. /usr/etc/rqs -force_requickstart /usr/bin/dview
  17. Put "showcase", "MediaMail", "clock", "xcalc", and "dview" icons on the desktop
  18. Start MediaMail and select OK at the creation of xperf's mailbox
  19. rm /var/spool/cron/crontabs/*
  20. mv resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf (remove it for "netless")
  21. chown root xperform
  22. chmod 04755 xperform (sets suid)
  23. echo xperf > /etc/autologin
  24. echo > /etc/autologin.on
  25. With no windows open, select Desktop->Customize->Windows->Explicitly and click on Set Home Session
  26. Reboot ("netless" configurations turn off networking first)
New:
  1. rqs xperform under 6.2
  2. chkconfig sendmail off under 6.2
  3. decide about errnotify (/var/X11/xdm/Xsession.dt)
If you are using xperform for reasons other than true performance testing you need not mkfs and be so careful about installing the proper subsystems.

If you are going to compare against numbers generated by the SQA group, please contact jhunter@engr to be sure your hardware setup (CPU, hard drive, memory configuration, etc.) is identical.

Now available via ftp: the source code.

Questions or comments to jhunter@engr or jgrisham@engr.