Getting Started with jMeter

Introduction

This document explains how to create a minimal performance test plan with jMeter to run performance tests agains a Plone site.

Step 1: Install jMeter

The easiest way to install jMeter ist to install it from the package sources of your distribution (e.g. on Debian/Ubuntu):

$ sudo apt-get install jmeter

Note

Further install options http://jmeter.apache.org/usermanual/get-started.html

Step 2 : Create a Test Plan

Once you’ve started jMeter (e.g. by typing “jmeter” into the command line or by clicking on the jMeter icon on your desktop) you will see an empty Testplan:

jMeter user interface with an emtpy test plan

A minimal jMeter testplan consists of the following elements:

• Thread Group:

  The root element of every test plan. It simulates the (concurrent) users than run all requests. Each thread simulates a single user.

• HTTP Request Default (Configuration Element):

  The default values for all HTTP requests within this thread group.

• HTTP Request (Sampler):

  An HTTP request that can be used to measure the time it takes to answer the request to a single URL.

• Aggregate Graph (Listener):

  An aggregate graph listener can be used to generate statistics about the HTTP requests that are used within a thread group.

Step 3: Create a Thread Group

In order to create a thread group, right-click on the Testplan in the left column of the jMeter GUI. Then choose “Add” and then “Threads (Users)” and “Thread-Group”. The titles might vary dependend on the jMeter version you are using:

Testplan > Add > Threads (Users) > Thread-Group

Fill out the right column with the following values:

Name: Users
Number of Threads (users): 2
Ramp-Up Period (in seconds): 1
Loop Count: 10

“Number of Threads (users)” is the number of concurrent users that jMeter will create to run the HTTP requests. The “Ramp-Up Period (in seconds)” are the seconds that jMeter waits between running the threads. The “Loop Count” describes how many times jMeter will run the tests.

Thread Group

Step 4: Create HTTP Request Defaults

In order to run performance tests on certain resources, jMeter fires up HTTP requests. jMeter allows to create default values for all HTTP requests within a test plan, so that we do not have to add those values for every single HTTP request in our plan.

To add a “HTTP Request Defaults” element, right-click on the “Testplan” in the left column of the jMeter GUI, choose “Users”, “Add”, “Config Element” and “HTTP Request Defaults”:

Testplan > Users > Add > Config Element > HTTP Request Defaults

We set the default HTTP request values to use a standard Plone site that needs to be available under “http://localhost:8080/Plone”:

Name: localhost:8080/Plone
Server Name or IP: localhost
Port Number: 8080
Path /Plone

HTTP Request Defaults

Step 5: Create an HTTP Request

In order to run a performance test on the front page of our Plone site, we create a “HTTP Request” element, by right-click on the “Testplan” in the left column of the jMeter GUI, choose “Users”, “Add”, “Sampler” and “HTTP Request”:

Testplan > Users > Add > Sampler > HTTP Request

We give the HTTP request a name and provide a path. We don’t have to fill out the server name or port number, since our “HTTP Request Defaults” element takes care of that:

Name: Front-page
Path: /Plone/front-page

Note

The values are just defaults, not prefixes. This means if you want to add an HTTP request for “front-page” it is not enough to use “/front-page”, you always have to provide the full path “/Plone/front-page”.

HTTP Request

Step 6: Aggregate Graph

In order to display the results of our HTTP requests, we have to add a listener in jMeter by right-clicking on the “Testplan” in the left column of the jMeter GUI, choose “Users”, “Add”, “Listener” and “Aggregate Graph”:

Testplan > Users > Add > Listener > Aggregate Graph

Step 7: Save Test Plan

Before we can run our jMeter test plan we should save it by choosing “Save Testplan as” from the “File” menu:

File > Save Testplan as

Step 8: Run Performance Tests

To run our test plan choose “Start” from the “Run” menu:

Run > Start

Next Steps

Creating a test plan:

http://jmeter.apache.org/usermanual/build-web-test-plan.html

Debug requests with “View Results Tree”:

Testplan > Users > Add > Listener > View Results Tree (optional)