Basics - jMeter

jMeter is an Open Source testing software. It is 100% pure

Java application for load and performance testing.
Basics - jMeter





Shubelal Kumar
What is jMeter?
Why jMeter?
How jMeter Works?
Test Plan
Thread Group
HTTP Request Sampler
jMeter Useful Resources
Topics
Basics - jMeter
JMeter is a software allowing to load test or performance oriented business (functional) test on different
protocols or technologies. Stefano Mazzocchi of the Apache Software Foundation was the original
developer of JMeter. He wrote it primarily to test the performance of Apache JServ (Now called as Apache
Tomcat project). Apache later redesigned JMeter to enhance the GUI and to add functional-testing
capabilities.

The protocols supported by jMeter are:

Web: HTTP, HTTPS sites 'web 1.0' web 2.0 (ajax, flex and flex-ws-amf)
Web Services: SOAP / XML-RPC
Database via JDBC drivers
Directory: LDAP
Messaging Oriented service via JMS
Service: POP3, IMAP, SMTP
FTP Service

What is jMeter?

Its free. Its an open source software.
It has simple and intuitive GUI.
JMeter can load and performance test many different server types: Web - HTTP, HTTPS, SOAP,
Database via JDBC, LDAP, JMS, Mail - POP3
It is platform-independent tool. On Linux/Unix, JMeter can be invoked by clicking on JMeter shell script.
On Windows it can be invoked by starting the jmeter.bat file.
It has full Swing and lightweight component support (precompiled JAR uses packages javax.swing.* ).
JMeter store its test plans in XML format. This means you can generate a test plan using a text editor.
It's full multi-threading framework allows concurrent sampling by many threads and simultaneous
sampling of different functions by separate thread groups.
It is highly Extensible.
Can also be used to perform automated and functional testing of your application.

Why jMeter?

jMeter simulates a group of users sending
requests to a target server, and return
statistics that show the
performance/functionality of the target server /
application via tables, graphs etc. The figure
below depicts this process:


How jMeter Works?

How JMeter Works
Test Plan : Only one test plan can be added per script. Saved for future use.

Thread Group: Represents one set of actions. Added under Test Plan and can simulate Multiple users
with same set of actions.

HTTP Request Sampler : Records requests to web server and receives response.

Terminology

Samplers

Name: we will change the name to reflect the action what we want to achieve
This will will name Visit Google Home Page

Server Name or IP: here we have to type the web server name
In out case it is http://www.google.com
Note http:// part is not written this is only the name of the server or its IP

Protocol: we will keep this blank
That will mean we want HTTP as the protocol

Path: we will type path as / (slash)
This means we want the root page of the server
This also means now the server will decide what page will be sent to us and it is the default page of
the web site

HTTP Request Sampler
Listeners are used to view the results in the form of graph, tree, numbers

View Results Tree: Shows data for each item with details. Request, Response and Transaction status
can be fetched through this listener

Summary Report: Entire Performance information, Simulated users and details in numbers for each
user.

Listeners
View Results Tree
Summary Report
Samples: A sample mean one sampler call. One request to web page in our case. It is web page
requests to the page http://www.google.com made by Jmeter

Average: This value is the average time taken to receive the web pages.

Min and Max: These are the minimum and maximum value of time required for receiving the web page.

Std. Dev: This shows how many exceptional cases were found which were deviating from the average
value of the receiving time. The lesser this value more consistent the time pattern is assumed.

Error %: This value indicated the percentage of error.
Summary Report Continued
The WorkBench simply provides a place to temporarily store test elements while not in use, for
copy/paste purposes, or any other purpose you desire. When you save your test plan, WorkBench items
are not saved with it.

Include / Exclude Patterns on Proxy Server using the pattern .*\.html , GIF, JPG, etc

Set Target Controller where your script needs to be saved

Work Bench & HTTP Proxy Server
Assertions are used to perform additional checks on samplers, and are processed after every sampler in
the same scope. To ensure that an Assertion is applied only to a particular sampler, add it as a child of the
sampler.

The response assertion control panel lets you add pattern strings to be compared against various fields of
the response. The pattern strings are:
Contains, Matches,Equals, Substring
Assertions
Response Assertion
CSV Data Set Config is used to read lines from a file, and split them into variables.
When you need to check for multiple logins this feature can be used.

Parameterization
There are various timers that can be used in Jmeter.
The most commonly used timer is the constant timer.
If you want to have each thread pause for the same amount of time between requests, use this timer.

Timers
Once all of the above steps are done, run your script.

How to Run a script
Add a Test Plan -> Thread Group
Add HTTP Proxy Server on WorkBench to include/exclude patterns
Add Listeners (View Results Tree, Summary Report), Assertions, timers if required
Start Proxy Server and do settings on Browser
Open the URL and record the script
Once done, stop the script
Save your test plan
Run the test plan and view results

Basic Requirements to Run a script
jMeter

http://www.tutorialspoint.com/jmeter/jmeter_overview.htm
http://jmeter.apache.org/usermanual/build-web-test-plan.html
https://jmeter.apache.org/usermanual/jmeter_distributed_testing_step_by_step.pdf
http://blazemeter.com/blog/jmeter-tutorial-video-series



Reference
Questions?
Thank you