JMeter can be run in two modes, with the more familiar GUI mode for designing tests. However, when running your load tests for production data gathering, it is recommended that it is run in non-GUI mode from a command line. This is in fact how load tests are run with RedLine13. But it is also possible to run JMeter in non-GUI mode on your local machine. There are instances where this is desirable, including debugging specializedRead More →
JMeter contains a built-in component that can assist in controlling the logical flow of a load test based on internal conditions. Using the If Controller, conditional logic can be set up to either run once for a group of elements, or optionally for each element within a set. Only if the specified condition is “true” will items within the If Controller be executed. Once added to a test plan, the If Controller acts as a containerRead More →
For certain k6 tests, we may want to vary the action taken based on content presented on the target test page. In order to accomplish this, we can use HTML elements to drive conditional logic within a k6 test plan. In this brief post, we will show you how to use k6 to dynamically evaluate HTML elements on a target test page. Importing Required Modules To read content from the page, we will need to importRead More →
Form submissions represent a common use case for performance tests. If your JMeter test needs to automatically fill out form fields from a data source, this is classically done with extractors and variable substitution. Depending on the number of fields in your form and the structure of your web page, this can become complicated. To simplify this process, we will show you how to use the HTTP Form Manager plugin. This component allows you to intuitivelyRead More →
It is not uncommon for network access rules to restrict traffic from undifferentiated traffic from major cloud providers. Such a practice for public-facing applications is a reasonable security measure. However, this can pose some challenges when performing load testing, especially with scale as these resources typically originate from within a large data center. In this brief article, we will show you how to set up X-Forwarded-For headers in JMeter to help navigate this issue and allow yourRead More →
When creating a load test, it is sometimes desirable to control how the rate of requests are scaled over time. k6 provides this behavior through the ramping-vus executor, which allows gradual scaling of virtual users over a specified duration. This enables realistic simulations of user traffic patterns as expected in real-world use cases. In this brief post, we will outline the basics of using this feature in k6. Example Script of Ramping VUs The following k6Read More →
Owing to an efficient design and low overhead, k6 tests have an inherent ability to scale well. Compared to other testing frameworks, users of k6 can often expect less resource utilization. As described in the official documentation, k6 tests scale well on single instances, lending to reduced requirements when performing distributed load testing. In this brief article, we will show you how cloud-based platforms like RedLine13 allow you scale your k6 tests across multiple load generatorRead More →
When creating your test plans in k6, it is a common practice to write the script with a bottom-up approach. In other words, each request is explicitly coded in sequence with a series of http request methods wrapped in flow control. While this method provides the ultimate means of control, tests can also be built using the k6 Browser Recorder. With this alternative, a browser plugin allows you to record a series of interactions with aRead More →
Building on the concept of extensibility, k6 has the ability to read variables set in the local environment and apply them to test scripts. Reusable scripts often only require minor changes to be used in different contexts, and k6 environment variables provide this. In addition, there are some k6 extensions that depend on environment variables to set their configuration. In this post, we will show you how to set k6 environment variables both in your localRead More →
In this brief post, we will cover how to add individual requests to groups using the tags feature of k6. This feature can be used to label thresholds for reporting on grouped requests. By separating result metrics generated by your k6 test, it can become possible to isolate the performance of individual or related requests. Suppose for a given test we have identified a performance issue; however the test is made up of several different requests.Read More →