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I am load testing an application that is essentially an upload/download request/reply. Upload a file, zip the file, send the zipped file somewhere. I want to load test it by sending files of X bytes to see where my limitations are. I'm creating files of the byte size I want, but due to the nature of zip, there's really no telling what that file size will be when it's zipped up and sent back down. So I'm sending a 400M file up, it's getting zipped down to, say, 170M and getting sent back. This doesn't really test the mechanism as I want it to. I want to be able to send up a 400M, let the zip happen, but still have 400M that gets sent down....

Basically, how can I create a data file, that cannot be zipped?

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  • For testing, run the zip step, and then just send the original file back.
    – waltinator
    Commented Oct 28, 2021 at 2:24

2 Answers 2

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dd if=/dev/urandom of=file bs=1M count=400

Will produce a file file which zip will not be able to compress at all. Zip will also not be able to compress previously compressed data, including video files.

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  • +1 I was going to say something similar: "Zip will also not be able to compress previously compressed data" — including (already) zip'ed files :-) But I like the idea of using video files, etc., over pre-zip'ing zip files for testing, since that's a better "real world" scenario.
    – michael
    Commented Oct 28, 2021 at 8:17
  • Thank you, that did it
    – MABeatty1978
    Commented Oct 28, 2021 at 11:34
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You can use a previously compressed or random file (but there is no guaranty It won't compress, especially if the files is small), but the most straightforward method is to use the -Z store option of the zip command which will simply store the files to the archive without compression (assuming you use the zip(1) command).

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