I am looking for several ways to test Snort and compare it's overall speed when changing specific variables such as how many rules are ran, etc. What I am interested in is the best practice to obtain the raw data I am looking for. Do I simply use the time function in any standard Linux distro or are there specific programs capable of performing multiple tests and correlating the data as specified by my input.
To expand on this same question are there more general steps I can take to perform black box performance testing on a variety of other programs.
How do I obtain the raw data to begin with?