# Introduction

This is the manual for `obbench`, a tool for benchmarking the
[Obnam][] backup program. The obbench program is at least the fifth
generation of the tool: the author seems to have a big difficulty
trying to figure out how benchmarking should be done.

[Obnam]: http://obnam.org/

The obbench approach is that its operation is defined in a benchmark
specification file, rather than code. The code provides some primitive
operations, which can be combined in various ways in the specification
file. The goal is that new benchmarks can be specified easily, without
changing obbench itself.

Additionally, obbench measures various aspects of running Obnam and
the resulting backup repository, and generates a static website to
report the results.

## Installation

Obbench can be run from its git source tree (`./obbench`), without any
build steps required. Additionally, the author will provide Debian
packages on [code.liw.fi][].

[code.liw.fi]: http://liw.fi/code/