Making JMeter work

[Daniel Quaroni <dq...@OpenRatings.com>]

Hello, everyone.

I just downloaded JMeter to performance test a web application we're
developing, and have found the documentation to be depressingly sparse.  Let
me explain what I want to accomplish, and maybe someone will know how to
make it work. :)

I want each thread in jmeter to simulate a typical use case.  That is, each
one should log into the webapp, submit some search requests, view the
results, and then log out.

What I've done so far:
I've managed to make JMeter successfully GET the login page, but I'm not
certain how to do the rest.  

I have a constant timer
I have the grapher visualizer (Works fine)
I have a Web Testing controller

The Web Testing controller has a URL sampler.  URL Samplers confuse me.
First of all, because their interface doesn't match up with the description
in the docs at docs/httpsamplercontroller.html.

It's also not clear to me what the name-value pairs are supposed to do.  The
docs imply that they can be used for POST requests, but not how I'm supposed
to name things.  Is it according to HTML tag name?


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Re: Making JMeter work

[Mike Stover <ms...@apache.org>]

My responses are below.  I've changed the order of your email to make some 
points clear. :-)

On Monday 25 June 2001 19:04, Daniel Quaroni wrote:
> Hello, everyone.
>
> I just downloaded JMeter to performance test a web application we're
> developing, and have found the documentation to be depressingly sparse. 
[reordering]
> First of all, because their interface doesn't match up with the description
> in the docs at docs/httpsamplercontroller.html.

Hmmm, that's an old, old doc page.  Did you download the latest JMeter 
version (1.6.1)?  If so, please go to docs/index.html, and then browse the 
links.  If still not working, go to jakarta.apache.org/jmeter.  The 
documentation still isn't great, but at least it will be relevant!

> I want each thread in jmeter to simulate a typical use case.  That is, each
> one should log into the webapp, submit some search requests, view the
> results, and then log out.

Sounds like what everyone wants.  JMeter does exactly this.  (Although, if 
you want to simulate, say, 50 unique users - as opposed to 50 instances of 
the same user, you'll have to be somewhat clever and persistent).

>
> What I've done so far:
> I've managed to make JMeter successfully GET the login page, but I'm not
> certain how to do the rest.
>
> I have a constant timer
> I have the grapher visualizer (Works fine)
> I have a Web Testing controller
>
> The Web Testing controller has a URL sampler.  URL Samplers confuse me.

Do you know HTTP?  HTML?  Knowledge of HTML is really helpful.  Let me know 
so I know how best to help you.

>
> It's also not clear to me what the name-value pairs are supposed to do. 
> The docs imply that they can be used for POST requests, but not how I'm
> supposed to name things.  Is it according to HTML tag name?

If your application expects a browser to POST a form, then, to simulate that, 
you select "POST" as the "method" of your sample, and then, you have to enter 
the parameters that the browser would normally send.  If you don't know what 
these parameters are, you can do two things.   Actually  three things.  

1.  View the source of the HTML, and pull out the <input...> tags and <select 
tags (ie - all the form tags), and decide what to send that way.
2.  Ask the developers of your application that you're testing.
3.  Learn how to use the proxy server that JMeter now comes with to "record" 
what your browser does.  Eeek.  I'm scared I've said this because it's only 
just gotten into CVS, and it's not in any released file yet.  If you are 
interested in this option, you have to understand I've only just thrown it 
together last week.  

>
>
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-- 
Mike Stover
mstover1@apache.org

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