The siege command is a small HTTP load tester: you give it a URL, a number of simulated users and a duration, and it prints how many requests the server handled. The old version of this post gave three commands and a config edit, but two details do not work as written on a current system. This rewrite runs the siege command 4.1.6 on Debian 13 against a local nginx, so you see the real output, the real error messages, and one result that is easy to misread. Scope: the target was a local nginx serving the default page, in the same container. The numbers (tens of thousands of requests per second) show how the tool behaves, not how fast any real server is. Test only sites that you own or have permission to test. Contents Install the siege command and find the config file Run a test with the siege command Save the siege command log Test several URLs with the siege command Read the results: a 404 is not a failure The user limit and common mistakes FAQ Install the siege command and find ...