Apache JMeter

18.0 Introduction

Several test elements use JMeter properties to control their behaviour. These properties are normally resolved when the class is loaded. This generally occurs before the test plan starts, so it's not possible to change the settings by using the __setProperty() function.


18.1 Samplers

Samplers perform the actual work of JMeter. Each sampler (except Test Action) generates one or more sample results. The sample results have various attributes (success/fail, elapsed time, data size etc) and can be viewed in the various listeners.

18.1.1 FTP Request
This controller lets you send an FTP "retrieve file" or "upload file" request to an FTP server. If you are going to send multiple requests to the same FTP server, consider using a FTP Request Defaults Configuration Element so you do not have to enter the same information for each FTP Request Generative Controller. When downloading a file, it can be stored on disk (Local File) or in the Response Data, or both.

Latency is set to the time it takes to login (versions of JMeter after 2.3.1).

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No
Server Name or IP Domain name or IP address of the FTP server. Yes
Port Port to use. If this is >0, then this specific port is used, otherwise JMeter uses the default FTP port. No
Remote File: File to retrieve or name of destination file to upload. Yes
Local File: File to upload, or destination for downloads (defaults to remote file name). Yes, if uploading (*)
Local File Contents: Provides the contents for the upload, overrides the Local File property. Yes, if uploading (*)
get(RETR) / put(STOR) Whether to retrieve or upload a file. Yes
Use Binary mode ? Check this to use Binary mode (default Ascii) Yes
Save File in Response ? Whether to store contents of retrieved file in response data. If the mode is Ascii, then the contents will be visible in the Tree View Listener. Yes, if downloading
Username FTP account username. Usually
Password FTP account password. N.B. This will be visible in the test plan. Usually

See Also:


18.1.2 HTTP Request

This sampler lets you send an HTTP/HTTPS request to a web server. It also lets you control whether or not JMeter parses HTML files for images and other embedded resources and sends HTTP requests to retrieve them. The following types of embedded resource are retrieved:

  • images
  • applets
  • stylesheets
  • external scripts
  • frames, iframes
  • background images (body, table, TD, TR)
  • background sound

The default parser is htmlparser. This can be changed by using the property "htmlparser.classname" - see jmeter.properties for details.

If you are going to send multiple requests to the same web server, consider using an HTTP Request Defaults Configuration Element so you do not have to enter the same information for each HTTP Request.

Or, instead of manually adding HTTP Requests, you may want to use JMeter's HTTP Proxy Server to create them. This can save you time if you have a lot of HTTP requests or requests with many parameters.

There are two different screens for defining the samplers:

  • AJP/1.3 Sampler - uses the Tomcat mod_jk protocol (allows testing of Tomcat in AJP mode without needing Apache httpd) The AJP Sampler does not support multiple file upload; only the first file will be used.
  • HTTP Request - this has an implementation drop-down box, which selects the HTTP protocol implementation to be used:
    • Java - uses the HTTP implementation provided by the JVM. This has some limitations in comparison with the HttpClient implementations - see below.
    • HTTPClient3.1 - uses Apache Commons HttpClient 3.1. This is no longer being developed, and support for this may be dropped in a future JMeter release.
    • HTTPClient4 - uses Apache HttpComponents HttpClient 4.x.

The Java HTTP implementation has some limitations:

  • There is no control over how connections are re-used. When a connection is released by JMeter, it may or may not be re-used by the same thread.
  • The API is best suited to single-threaded usage - various settings (e.g. proxy) are defined via system properties, and therefore apply to all connections.
  • There is a bug in the handling of HTTPS via a Proxy (the CONNECT is not handled correctly). See Java bugs 6226610 and 6208335.
  • It does not support virtual hosts.

Note: the FILE protocol is intended for testing puposes only. It is handled by the same code regardless of which HTTP Sampler is used.

If the request requires server or proxy login authorization (i.e. where a browser would create a pop-up dialog box), you will also have to add an HTTP Authorization Manager Configuration Element. For normal logins (i.e. where the user enters login information in a form), you will need to work out what the form submit button does, and create an HTTP request with the appropriate method (usually POST) and the appropriate parameters from the form definition. If the page uses HTTP, you can use the JMeter Proxy to capture the login sequence.

In versions of JMeter up to 2.2, only a single SSL context was used for all threads and samplers. This did not generate the proper load for multiple users. A separate SSL context is now used for each thread. To revert to the original behaviour, set the JMeter property: 


https.sessioncontext.shared=true
By default, the SSL context is retained for the duration of the test. In versions of JMeter from 2.5.1, the SSL session can be optionally reset for each test iteration. To enable this, set the JMeter property: 

https.use.cached.ssl.context=false
Note: this does not apply to the Java HTTP implementation.

JMeter defaults to the SSL protocol level TLS. If the server needs a different level, e.g. SSLv3, change the JMeter property, for example: 


https.default.protocol=SSLv3

JMeter also allows one to enable additional protocols, by changing the property https.socket.protocols .

If the request uses cookies, then you will also need an HTTP Cookie Manager . You can add either of these elements to the Thread Group or the HTTP Request. If you have more than one HTTP Request that needs authorizations or cookies, then add the elements to the Thread Group. That way, all HTTP Request controllers will share the same Authorization Manager and Cookie Manager elements.

If the request uses a technique called "URL Rewriting" to maintain sessions, then see section 6.1 Handling User Sessions With URL Rewriting for additional configuration steps.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No
Server Domain name or IP address of the web server. e.g. www.example.com. [Do not include the http:// prefix.] Note: in JMeter 2.5 (and later) if the "Host" header is defined in a Header Manager, then this will be used as the virtual host name. Yes, unless provided by HTTP Request Defaults
Port Port the web server is listening to. Default: 80 No
Connect Timeout Connection Timeout. Number of milliseconds to wait for a connection to open. No
Response Timeout Response Timeout. Number of milliseconds to wait for a response. No
Server (proxy) Hostname or IP address of a proxy server to perform request. [Do not include the http:// prefix.] No
Port Port the proxy server is listening to. No, unless proxy hostname is specified
Username (Optional) username for proxy server. No
Password (Optional) password for proxy server. (N.B. this is stored unencrypted in the test plan) No
Implementation Java, HttpClient3.1, HttpClient4. If not specified (and not defined by HTTP Request Defaults), the default depends on the value of the JMeter property jmeter.httpsampler , failing that, the Java implementation is used. No
Protocol HTTP, HTTPS or FILE. Default: HTTP No
Method GET, POST, HEAD, TRACE, OPTIONS, PUT, DELETE, PATCH (not supported for JAVA implementation) Yes
Content Encoding Content encoding to be used (for POST, PUT, PATCH and FILE). This the the character encoding to be used, and is not related to the Content-Encoding HTTP header. No
Redirect Automatically Sets the underlying http protocol handler to automatically follow redirects, so they are not seen by JMeter, and thus will not appear as samples. Should only be used for GET and HEAD requests. The HttpClient sampler will reject attempts to use it for POST or PUT. Warning: see below for information on cookie and header handling. No
Follow Redirects This only has any effect if "Redirect Automatically" is not enabled. If set, the JMeter sampler will check if the response is a redirect and follow it if so. The initial redirect and further responses will appear as additional samples. The URL and data fields of the parent sample will be taken from the final (non-redirected) sample, but the parent byte count and elapsed time include all samples. The latency is taken from the initial response (versions of JMeter after 2.3.4 - previously it was zero). Note that the HttpClient sampler may log the following message:
"Redirect requested but followRedirects is disabled"
This can be ignored.
In versions after 2.3.4, JMeter will collapse paths of the form '/../segment' in both absolute and relative redirect URLs. For example http://host/one/../two => http://host/two. If necessary, this behaviour can be suppressed by setting the JMeter property httpsampler.redirect.removeslashdotdot=false 		No
Use KeepAlive JMeter sets the Connection: keep-alive header. This does not work properly with the default HTTP implementation, as connection re-use is not under user-control. It does work with the Apache HttpComponents HttpClient implementations. No
Use multipart/form-data for HTTP POST Use a multipart/form-data or application/x-www-form-urlencoded post request No
Browser-compatible headers When using multipart/form-data, this suppresses the Content-Type and Content-Transfer-Encoding headers; only the Content-Disposition header is sent. No
Path The path to resource (for example, /servlets/myServlet). If the resource requires query string parameters, add them below in the "Send Parameters With the Request" section. As a special case, if the path starts with "http://" or "https://" then this is used as the full URL. In this case, the server, port and protocol are ignored; parameters are also ignored for GET and DELETE methods. Yes
Send Parameters With the Request The query string will be generated from the list of parameters you provide. Each parameter has a name and value , the options to encode the parameter, and an option to include or exclude an equals sign (some applications don't expect an equals when the value is the empty string). The query string will be generated in the correct fashion, depending on the choice of "Method" you made (ie if you chose GET or DELETE, the query string will be appended to the URL, if POST or PUT, then it will be sent separately). Also, if you are sending a file using a multipart form, the query string will be created using the multipart form specifications. See below for some further information on parameter handling.

Additionally, you can specify whether each parameter should be URL encoded. If you are not sure what this means, it is probably best to select it. If your values contain characters such as the following then encoding is usually required.:

  • ASCII Control Chars
  • Non-ASCII characters
  • Reserved characters:URLs use some characters for special use in defining their syntax. When these characters are not used in their special role inside a URL, they need to be encoded, example : '$', '&', '+', ',' , '/', ':', ';', '=', '?', '@'
  • Unsafe characters: Some characters present the possibility of being misunderstood within URLs for various reasons. These characters should also always be encoded, example : ' ', '<', '>', '#', '%', ...

No
File Path: Name of the file to send. If left blank, JMeter does not send a file, if filled in, JMeter automatically sends the request as a multipart form request.

If it is a POST or PUT or PATCH request and there is a single file whose 'Parameter name' attribute (below) is omitted, then the file is sent as the entire body of the request, i.e. no wrappers are added. This allows arbitrary bodies to be sent. This functionality is present for POST requests after version 2.2, and also for PUT requests after version 2.3. See below for some further information on parameter handling.

No
Parameter name: Value of the "name" web request parameter. No
MIME Type MIME type (for example, text/plain). If it is a POST or PUT or PATCH request and either the 'name' atribute (below) are omitted or the request body is constructed from parameter values only, then the value of this field is used as the value of the content-type request header. No
Retrieve All Embedded Resources from HTML Files Tell JMeter to parse the HTML file and send HTTP/HTTPS requests for all images, Java applets, JavaScript files, CSSs, etc. referenced in the file. See below for more details. No
Use as monitor For use with the Monitor Results listener. No
Save response as MD5 hash? If this is selected, then the response is not stored in the sample result. Instead, the 32 character MD5 hash of the data is calculated and stored instead. This is intended for testing large amounts of data. No
Embedded URLs must match: If present, this must be a regular expression that is used to match against any embedded URLs found. So if you only want to download embedded resources from http://example.com/, use the expression: http://example\.com/.* No
Use concurrent pool Use a pool of concurrent connections to get embedded resources. No
Size Pool size for concurrent connections used to get embedded resources. No
Source IP address: [Only for HTTP Request HTTPClient] Override the default local IP address for this sample. The JMeter host must have multiple IP addresses (i.e. IP aliases or network interfaces). If the property httpclient.localaddress is defined, that is used for all HttpClient requests. No

N.B. when using Automatic Redirection, cookies are only sent for the initial URL. This can cause unexpected behaviour for web-sites that redirect to a local server. E.g. if www.example.com redirects to www.example.co.uk. In this case the server will probably return cookies for both URLs, but JMeter will only see the cookies for the last host, i.e. www.example.co.uk. If the next request in the test plan uses www.example.com, rather than www.example.co.uk, it will not get the correct cookies. Likewise, Headers are sent for the initial request, and won't be sent for the redirect. This is generally only a problem for manually created test plans, as a test plan created using a recorder would continue from the redirected URL.

Parameter Handling:
For the POST and PUT method, if there is no file to send, and the name(s) of the parameter(s) are omitted, then the body is created by concatenating all the value(s) of the parameters. Note that the values are concatenated without adding any end-of-line characters. These can be added by using the __char() function in the value fields. This allows arbitrary bodies to be sent. The values are encoded if the encoding flag is set (versions of JMeter after 2.3). See also the MIME Type above how you can control the content-type request header that is sent.
For other methods, if the name of the parameter is missing, then the parameter is ignored. This allows the use of optional parameters defined by variables. (versions of JMeter after 2.3)


Since JMeter 2.6, you have the option to switch to Post Body when a request has only unnamed parameters (or no parameters at all). This option is useful in the following cases (amongst others):

  • GWT RPC HTTP Request
  • JSON REST HTTP Request
  • XML REST HTTP Request
  • SOAP HTTP Request
Note that once you leave the Tree node, you cannot switch back to the parameter tab unless you clear the Post Body tab of data.

In Post Body mode, each line will be sent with CRLF appended, apart from the last line. To send a CRLF after the last line of data, just ensure that there is an empty line following it. (This cannot be seen, except by noting whether the cursor can be placed on the subsequent line.)


Figure 1 - HTTP Request with one unnamed parameter


Figure 2 - Confirm dialog to switch


Figure 3 - HTTP Request using RAW Post body

Method Handling:
The POST, PUT and PATCH request methods work similarly, except that the PUT and PATCH methods do not support multipart requests or file upload. The PUT and PATCH method body must be provided as one of the following:

  • define the body as a file with empty Parameter name field; in which case the MIME Type is used as the Content-Type
  • define the body as parameter value(s) with no name
  • use the Post Body tab
If you define any parameters with a name in either the sampler or Http defaults then nothing is sent. PUT and PATCH require a Content-Type. If not using a file, attach a Header Manager to the sampler and define the Content-Type there. The GET and DELETE request methods work similarly to each other.

Upto and including JMeter 2.1.1, only responses with the content-type "text/html" were scanned for embedded resources. Other content-types were assumed to be something other than HTML. JMeter 2.1.2 introduces the a new property HTTPResponse.parsers , which is a list of parser ids, e.g. htmlParser and wmlParser . For each id found, JMeter checks two further properties:

  • id.types - a list of content types
  • id.className - the parser to be used to extract the embedded resources

See jmeter.properties file for the details of the settings. If the HTTPResponse.parser property is not set, JMeter reverts to the previous behaviour, i.e. only text/html responses will be scanned

Emulating slow connections (HttpClient only): 

# Define characters per second > 0 to emulate slow connections
#httpclient.socket.http.cps=0
#httpclient.socket.https.cps=0

Response size calculation
Optional properties to allow change the method to get response size:

  • Gets the real network size in bytes for the body response 
    sampleresult.getbytes.body_real_size=true
  • Add HTTP headers to full response size 
    sampleresult.getbytes.headers_size=true

The Java and HttpClient3 inplementations do not include transport overhead such as chunk headers in the response body size.
The HttpClient4 implementation does include the overhead in the response body size, so the value may be greater than the number of bytes in the response content.

Versions of JMeter before 2.5 returns only data response size (uncompressed if request uses gzip/defate mode).
To return to settings before version 2.5, set the two properties to false.

Retry handling
In version 2.5 of JMeter, the HttpClient4 and Commons HttpClient 3.1 samplers used the default retry count, which was 3. In later versions, the retry count has been set to 1, which is what the Java implementation appears to do. The retry count can be overridden by setting the relevant JMeter property, for example: 


httpclient4.retrycount=3
httpclient3.retrycount=3

See Also:


18.1.3 JDBC Request

This sampler lets you send an JDBC Request (an SQL query) to a database.

Before using this you need to set up a JDBC Connection Configuration Configuration element

If the Variable Names list is provided, then for each row returned by a Select statement, the variables are set up with the value of the corresponding column (if a variable name is provided), and the count of rows is also set up. For example, if the Select statement returns 2 rows of 3 columns, and the variable list is A,,C , then the following variables will be set up: 


A_#=2 (number of rows)
A_1=column 1, row 1
A_2=column 1, row 2
C_#=2 (number of rows)
C_1=column 3, row 1
C_2=column 3, row 2
If the Select statement returns zero rows, then the A_# and C_# variables would be set to 0, and no other variables would be set.

Old variables are cleared if necessary - e.g. if the first select retrieves 6 rows and a second select returns only 3 rows, the additional variables for rows 4, 5 and 6 will be removed.

Note: The latency time is set from the time it took to acquire a connection.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No
Variable Name Name of the JMeter variable that the connection pool is bound to. This must agree with the 'Variable Name' field of a JDBC Connection Configuration. Yes
Query Type Set this according to the statement type:
  • Select Statement
  • Update Statement - use this for Inserts as well
  • Callable Statement
  • Prepared Select Statement
  • Prepared Update Statement - use this for Inserts as well
  • Commit
  • Rollback
  • Autocommit(false)
  • Autocommit(true)
  • Edit - this should be a variable reference that evaluates to one of the above
Yes
SQL Query SQL query. Do not enter a trailing semi-colon. There is generally no need to use { and } to enclose Callable statements; however they mey be used if the database uses a non-standard syntax. [The JDBC driver automatically converts the statement if necessary when it is enclosed in {}]. For example:
  • select * from t_customers where id=23
  • CALL SYSCS_UTIL.SYSCS_EXPORT_TABLE (null,?, ?, null, null, null)
    • Parameter values: tablename,filename
    • Parameter types: VARCHAR,VARCHAR
    • The second example assumes you are using Apache Derby.
Yes
Parameter values Comma-separated list of parameter values. Use ]NULL[ to indicate a NULL parameter. (If required, the null string can be changed by defining the property "jdbcsampler.nullmarker".)
The list must be enclosed in double-quotes if any of the values contain a comma or double-quote, and any embedded double-quotes must be doubled-up, for example: 
"Dbl-Quote: "" and Comma: ,"
There must be as many values as there are placeholders in the statement. 		Yes, if a prepared or callable statement has parameters
Parameter types Comma-separated list of SQL parameter types (e.g. INTEGER, DATE, VARCHAR, DOUBLE). These are defined as fields in the class java.sql.Types, see for example: Javadoc for java.sql.Types . [Note: JMeter will use whatever types are defined by the runtime JVM, so if you are running on a different JVM, be sure to check the appropriate document] If the callable statement has INOUT or OUT parameters, then these must be indicated by prefixing the appropriate parameter types, e.g. instead of "INTEGER", use "INOUT INTEGER". If not specified, "IN" is assumed, i.e. "DATE" is the same as "IN DATE".
If the type is not one of the fields found in java.sql.Types, versions of JMeter after 2.3.2 also accept the corresponding integer number, e.g. since INTEGER == 4, you can use "INOUT 4".
There must be as many types as there are placeholders in the statement. 		Yes, if a prepared or callable statement has parameters
Variable Names Comma-separated list of variable names to hold values returned by Select statements, Prepared Select Statements or CallableStatement. Note that when used with CallableStatement, list of variables must be in the same sequence as the OUT parameters returned by the call. If there are less variable names than OUT parameters only as many results shall be stored in the thread-context variables as variable names were supplied. If more variable names than OUT parameters exist, the additional variables will be ignored No
Result Variable Name If specified, this will create an Object variable containing a list of row maps. Each map contains the column name as the key and the column data as the value. Usage:
columnValue = vars.getObject("resultObject").get(0).get("Column Name"); 		No

See Also:

Versions of JMeter after 2.3.2 use UTF-8 as the character encoding. Previously the platform default was used.

Ensure Variable Name is unique accross Test Plan.


18.1.4 Java Request

This sampler lets you control a java class that implements the org.apache.jmeter.protocol.java.sampler.JavaSamplerClient interface. By writing your own implementation of this interface, you can use JMeter to harness multiple threads, input parameter control, and data collection.

The pull-down menu provides the list of all such implementations found by JMeter in its classpath. The parameters can then be specified in the table below - as defined by your implementation. Two simple examples (JavaTest and SleepTest) are provided.

The JavaTest example sampler can be useful for checking test plans, because it allows one to set values in almost all the fields. These can then be used by Assertions, etc. The fields allow variables to be used, so the values of these can readily be seen.

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Since JMeter 2.8, if the method teardownTest is not overriden by a subclass of AbstractJavaSamplerClient, its teardownTest method will not be called. This reduces JMeter memory requirements. This will not have any impact on existing Test plans.

The Add/Delete buttons don't serve any purpose at present.

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No
Classname The specific implementation of the JavaSamplerClient interface to be sampled. Yes
Send Parameters with Request A list of arguments that will be passed to the sampled class. All arguments are sent as Strings. See below for specific settings. No

The following parameters apply to the SleepTest and JavaTest implementations:

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Sleep_time How long to sleep for (ms) Yes
Sleep_mask How much "randomness" to add:
The sleep time is calculated as follows:
totalSleepTime = SleepTime + (System.currentTimeMillis() % SleepMask) 		Yes

The following parameters apply additionaly to the JavaTest implementation:

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Label The label to use. If provided, overrides Name No
ResponseCode If provided, sets the SampleResult ResponseCode. No
ResponseMessage If provided, sets the SampleResult ResponseMessage. No
Status If provided, sets the SampleResult Status. If this equals "OK" (ignoring case) then the status is set to success, otherwise the sample is marked as failed. No
SamplerData If provided, sets the SampleResult SamplerData. No
ResultData If provided, sets the SampleResult ResultData. No


18.1.5 SOAP/XML-RPC Request

This sampler lets you send a SOAP request to a webservice. It can also be used to send XML-RPC over HTTP. It creates an HTTP POST request, with the specified XML as the POST content. To change the "Content-type" from the default of "text/xml", use a HeaderManager. Note that the sampler will use all the headers from the HeaderManager. If a SOAP action is specified, that will override any SOAPaction in the HeaderManager. The primary difference between the soap sampler and webservice sampler, is the soap sampler uses raw post and does not require conformance to SOAP 1.1.

For versions of JMeter later than 2.2, the sampler no longer uses chunked encoding by default.
For screen input, it now always uses the size of the data.
File input uses the file length as determined by Java.
On some OSes this may not work for all files, in which case add a child Header Manager with Content-Length set to the actual length of the file.
Or set Content-Length to -1 to force chunked encoding.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No
URL The URL to direct the SOAP request to. Yes
Send SOAP action Send a SOAP action header? (overrides the Header Manager) No
Use KeepAlive If set, sends Connection: keep-alive, else sends Connection: close No
Soap/XML-RPC Data The Soap XML message, or XML-RPC instructions. Not used if the filename is provided. No
Filename If specified, then the contents of the file are sent, and the Data field is ignored No


18.1.6 WebService(SOAP) Request

This sampler has been tested with IIS Webservice running .NET 1.0 and .NET 1.1. It has been tested with SUN JWSDP, IBM webservices, Axis and gSoap toolkit for C/C++. The sampler uses Apache SOAP driver to serialize the message and set the header with the correct SOAPAction. Right now the sampler doesn't support automatic WSDL handling, since Apache SOAP currently does not provide support for it. Both IBM and SUN provide WSDL drivers. There are 3 options for the post data: text area, external file, or directory. If you want the sampler to randomly select a message, use the directory. Otherwise, use the text area or a file. The if either the file or path are set, it will not use the message in the text area. If you need to test a soap service that uses different encoding, use the file or path. If you paste the message in to text area, it will not retain the encoding and will result in errors. Save your message to a file with the proper encoding, and the sampler will read it as java.io.FileInputStream.

An important note on the sampler is it will automatically use the proxy host and port passed to JMeter from command line, if those fields in the sampler are left blank. If a sampler has values in the proxy host and port text field, it will use the ones provided by the user. This behavior may not be what users expect.

By default, the webservice sampler sets SOAPHTTPConnection.setMaintainSession (true). If you need to maintain the session, add a blank Header Manager. The sampler uses the Header Manager to store the SOAPHTTPConnection object, since the version of apache soap does not provide a easy way to get and set the cookies.

Note: If you are using CSVDataSet, do not check "Memory Cache". If memory cache is checked, it will not iterate to the next value. That means all the requests will use the first value.

Make sure you use <soap:Envelope rather than <Envelope. For example: 


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope 
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" 
xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
<soap:Body>
<foo xmlns="http://clients-xlmns"/>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

The SOAP library that is used does not support SOAP 1.2, only SOAP 1.1. Also the library does not provide access to the HTTP response code (e.g. 200) or message (e.g. OK). To get round this, versions of JMeter after 2.3.2 check the returned message length. If this is zero, then the request is marked as failed.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No
WSDL URL The WSDL URL with the service description. Versions of JMeter after 2.3.1 support the file: protocol for local WSDL files. No
Web Methods Will be populated from the WSDL when the Load WSDL button is pressed. Select one of the methods and press the Configure button to populate the Protocol, Server, Port, Path and SOAPAction fields. No
Protocol HTTP or HTTPS are acceptable protocol. Yes
Server Name or IP The hostname or IP address. Yes
Port Number Port Number. Yes
Timeout Connection timeout. No
Path Path for the webservice. Yes
SOAPAction The SOAPAction defined in the webservice description or WSDL. Yes
Soap/XML-RPC Data The Soap XML message Yes
Soap file File containing soap message No
Message(s) Folder Folder containing soap files. Files are choose randomly during test. No
Memory cache When using external files, setting this causes the file to be processed once and caches the result. This may use a lot of memory if there are many different large files. Yes
Read SOAP Response Read the SOAP reponse (consumes performance). Permit to have assertions or post-processors No
Use HTTP Proxy Check box if http proxy should be used No
Server Name or IP Proxy hostname No
Port Number Proxy host port No

Webservice Soap Sampler assumes that empty response means failure.


18.1.7 LDAP Request
This Sampler lets you send a different Ldap request(Add, Modify, Delete and Search) to an LDAP server.

If you are going to send multiple requests to the same LDAP server, consider using an LDAP Request Defaults Configuration Element so you do not have to enter the same information for each LDAP Request.

The same way the Login Config Element also using for Login and password.

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There are two ways to create test cases for testing an LDAP Server.

  1. Inbuilt Test cases.
  2. User defined Test cases.

There are four test scenarios of testing LDAP. The tests are given below:

  1. Add Test
    1. Inbuilt test :

      This will add a pre-defined entry in the LDAP Server and calculate the execution time. After execution of the test, the created entry will be deleted from the LDAP Server.

    2. User defined test :

      This will add the entry in the LDAP Server. User has to enter all the attributes in the table.The entries are collected from the table to add. The execution time is calculated. The created entry will not be deleted after the test.

  2. Modify Test
    1. Inbuilt test :

      This will create a pre-defined entry first, then will modify the created entry in the LDAP Server.And calculate the execution time. After execution of the test, the created entry will be deleted from the LDAP Server.

    2. User defined test

      This will modify the entry in the LDAP Server. User has to enter all the attributes in the table. The entries are collected from the table to modify. The execution time is calculated. The entry will not be deleted from the LDAP Server.

  3. Search Test
    1. Inbuilt test :

      This will create the entry first, then will search if the attributes are available. It calculates the execution time of the search query. At the end of the execution,created entry will be deleted from the LDAP Server.

    2. User defined test

      This will search the user defined entry(Search filter) in the Search base (again, defined by the user). The entries should be available in the LDAP Server. The execution time is calculated.

  4. Delete Test
    1. Inbuilt test :

      This will create a pre-defined entry first, then it will be deleted from the LDAP Server. The execution time is calculated.

    2. User defined test

      This will delete the user-defined entry in the LDAP Server. The entries should be available in the LDAP Server. The execution time is calculated.

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No
Server Name or IP Domain name or IP address of the LDAP server. JMeter assumes the LDAP server is listening on the default port(389). Yes
Port default port(389). Yes
root DN DN for the server to communicate Yes
Username LDAP server username. Usually
Password LDAP server password. (N.B. this is stored unencrypted in the test plan) Usually
Entry DN the name of the context to create or Modify; may not be empty Example: do you want to add cn=apache,ou=test you have to add in table name=cn, value=apache Yes
Delete the name of the context to Delete; may not be empty Yes
Search base the name of the context or object to search Yes
Search filter the filter expression to use for the search; may not be null Yes
add test this name, value pair to added in the given context object Yes
modify test this name, value pair to add or modify in the given context object Yes

See Also:


18.1.8 LDAP Extended Request
This Sampler can send all 8 different LDAP request to an LDAP server. It is an extended version of the LDAP sampler, therefore it is harder to configure, but can be made much closer resembling a real LDAP session.

If you are going to send multiple requests to the same LDAP server, consider using an LDAP Extended Request Defaults Configuration Element so you do not have to enter the same information for each LDAP Request.

Control Panel

There are nine test operations defined. These operations are given below:

  1. Thread bind

    2. Any LDAP request is part of an LDAP session, so the first thing that should be done is starting a session to the LDAP server. For starting this session a thread bind is used, which is equal to the LDAP "bind" operation. The user is requested to give a username (Distinguished name) and password, which will be used to initiate a session. When no password, or the wrong password is specified, an anonymous session is started. Take care, omitting the password will not fail this test, a wrong password will. (N.B. this is stored unencrypted in the test plan)

    Parameters

    AttributeDescriptionRequired
    Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No
    Servername The name (or IP-address) of the LDAP server. Yes
    Port The port number that the LDAP server is listening to. If this is omitted JMeter assumes the LDAP server is listening on the default port(389). No
    DN The distinguished name of the base object that will be used for any subsequent operation. It can be used as a starting point for all operations. You cannot start any operation on a higher level than this DN! No
    Username Full distinguished name of the user as which you want to bind. No
    Password Password for the above user. If omitted it will result in an anonymous bind. If is is incorrect, the sampler will return an error and revert to an anonymous bind. (N.B. this is stored unencrypted in the test plan) No


  2. Thread unbind

    3. This is simply the operation to end a session. It is equal to the LDAP "unbind" operation.

    Parameters

    AttributeDescriptionRequired
    Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No


  3. Single bind/unbind

    4. This is a combination of the LDAP "bind" and "unbind" operations. It can be used for an authentication request/password check for any user. It will open an new session, just to check the validity of the user/password combination, and end the session again.

    Parameters

    AttributeDescriptionRequired
    Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No
    Username Full distinguished name of the user as which you want to bind. Yes
    Password Password for the above user. If omitted it will result in an anonymous bind. If is is incorrect, the sampler will return an error. (N.B. this is stored unencrypted in the test plan) No


  4. Rename entry

    5. This is the LDAP "moddn" operation. It can be used to rename an entry, but also for moving an entry or a complete subtree to a different place in the LDAP tree.

    Parameters

    AttributeDescriptionRequired
    Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No
    Old entry name The current distinguished name of the object you want to rename or move, relative to the given DN in the thread bind operation. Yes
    New distinguished name The new distinguished name of the object you want to rename or move, relative to the given DN in the thread bind operation. Yes


  5. Add test

    6. This is the ldap "add" operation. It can be used to add any kind of object to the LDAP server.

    Parameters

    AttributeDescriptionRequired
    Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No
    Entry DN Distinguished name of the object you want to add, relative to the given DN in the thread bind operation. Yes
    Add test A list of attributes and their values you want to use for the object. If you need to add a multiple value attribute, you need to add the same attribute with their respective values several times to the list. Yes


  6. Delete test

    7. This is the LDAP "delete" operation, it can be used to delete an object from the LDAP tree

    Parameters

    AttributeDescriptionRequired
    Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No
    Delete Distinguished name of the object you want to delete, relative to the given DN in the thread bind operation. Yes


  7. Search test

    8. This is the LDAP "search" operation, and will be used for defining searches.

    Parameters

    AttributeDescriptionRequired
    Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No
    Search base Distinguished name of the subtree you want your search to look in, relative to the given DN in the thread bind operation. No
    Search Filter searchfilter, must be specified in LDAP syntax. Yes
    Scope Use 0 for baseobject-, 1 for onelevel- and 2 for a subtree search. (Default=0) No
    Size Limit Specify the maximum number of results you want back from the server. (default=0, which means no limit.) When the sampler hits the maximum number of results, it will fail with errorcode 4 No
    Time Limit Specify the maximum amount of (cpu)time (in miliseconds) that the server can spend on your search. Take care, this does not say anything about the responsetime. (default is 0, which means no limit) No
    Attributes Specify the attributes you want to have returned, seperated by a semicolon. An empty field will return all attributes No
    Return object Whether the object will be returned (true) or not (false). Default=false No
    Dereference aliases If true, it will dereference aliases, if false, it will not follow them (default=false) No


  8. Modification test

    9. This is the LDAP "modify" operation. It can be used to modify an object. It can be used to add, delete or replace values of an attribute.

    Parameters

    AttributeDescriptionRequired
    Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No
    Entry name Distinguished name of the object you want to modify, relative to the given DN in the thread bind operation Yes
    Modification test The attribute-value-opCode triples. The opCode can be any valid LDAP operationCode (add, delete/remove or replace). If you don't specify a value with a delete operation, all values of the given attribute will be deleted. If you do specify a value in a delete operation, only the given value will be deleted. If this value is non-existent, the sampler will fail the test. Yes


  9. Compare

    10. This is the LDAP "compare" operation. It can be used to compare the value of a given attribute with some already known value. In reality this is mostly used to check whether a given person is a member of some group. In such a case you can compare the DN of the user as a given value, with the values in the attribute "member" of an object of the type groupOfNames. If the compare operation fails, this test fails with errorcode 49.

    Parameters

    AttributeDescriptionRequired
    Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No
    Entry DN The current distinguished name of the object of which you want to compare an attribute, relative to the given DN in the thread bind operation. Yes
    Compare filter In the form "attribute=value" Yes

See Also:


18.1.9 Access Log Sampler

(Alpha Code)

AccessLogSampler was designed to read access logs and generate http requests. For those not familiar with the access log, it is the log the webserver maintains of every request it accepted. This means every image, css file, javascript file, html file.... The current implementation is complete, but some features have not been enabled. There is a filter for the access log parser, but I haven't figured out how to link to the pre-processor. Once I do, changes to the sampler will be made to enable that functionality.

Tomcat uses the common format for access logs. This means any webserver that uses the common log format can use the AccessLogSampler. Server that use common log format include: Tomcat, Resin, Weblogic, and SunOne. Common log format looks like this:

127.0.0.1 - - [21/Oct/2003:05:37:21 -0500] "GET /index.jsp?%2Findex.jsp= HTTP/1.1" 200 8343

The current implementation of the parser only looks at the text within the quotes that contains one of the HTTP protocol methods (GET, PUT, POST, DELETE...). Everything else is stripped out and ignored. For example, the response code is completely ignored by the parser.

For the future, it might be nice to filter out entries that do not have a response code of 200. Extending the sampler should be fairly simple. There are two interfaces you have to implement:

  • org.apache.jmeter.protocol.http.util.accesslog.LogParser
  • org.apache.jmeter.protocol.http.util.accesslog.Generator

The current implementation of AccessLogSampler uses the generator to create a new HTTPSampler. The servername, port and get images are set by AccessLogSampler. Next, the parser is called with integer 1, telling it to parse one entry. After that, HTTPSampler.sample() is called to make the request. 


            samp = (HTTPSampler) GENERATOR.generateRequest();
            samp.setDomain(this.getDomain());
            samp.setPort(this.getPort());
            samp.setImageParser(this.isImageParser());
            PARSER.parse(1);
            res = samp.sample();
            res.setSampleLabel(samp.toString());
The required methods in LogParser are:
  • setGenerator(Generator)
  • parse(int)
Classes implementing Generator interface should provide concrete implementation for all the methods. For an example of how to implement either interface, refer to StandardGenerator and TCLogParser.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No
Server Domain name or IP address of the web server. Yes
Port Port the web server is listening to. No (defaults to 80)
Log parser class The log parser class is responsible for parsing the logs. Yes (default provided)
Filter The filter class is used to filter out certain lines. No
Location of log file The location of the access log file. Yes

The TCLogParser processes the access log independently for each thread. The SharedTCLogParser and OrderPreservingLogParser share access to the file, i.e. each thread gets the next entry in the log.

The SessionFilter is intended to handle Cookies across threads. It does not filter out any entries, but modifies the cookie manager so that the cookies for a given IP are processed by a single thread at a time. If two threads try to process samples from the same client IP address, then one will be forced to wait until the other has completed.

The LogFilter is intended to allow access log entries to be filtered by filename and regex, as well as allowing for the replacement of file extensions. However, it is not currently possible to configure this via the GUI, so it cannot really be used.


18.1.10 BeanShell Sampler

This sampler allows you to write a sampler using the BeanShell scripting language.

For full details on using BeanShell, please see the BeanShell website.

The test element supports the ThreadListener and TestListener interface methods. These must be defined in the initialisation file. See the file BeanShellListeners.bshrc for example definitions.

From JMeter version 2.5.1, the BeanShell sampler also supports the Interruptible interface. The interrupt() method can be defined in the script or the init file.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. The name is stored in the script variable Label No
Reset bsh.Interpreter before each call If this option is selected, then the interpreter will be recreated for each sample. This may be necessary for some long running scripts. For further information, see Best Practices - BeanShell scripting . Yes
Parameters Parameters to pass to the BeanShell script. This is intended for use with script files; for scripts defined in the GUI, you can use whatever variable and function references you need within the script itself. The parameters are stored in the following variables:
  • Parameters - string containing the parameters as a single variable
  • bsh.args - String array containing parameters, split on white-space
No
Script file A file containing the BeanShell script to run. The file name is stored in the script variable FileName No
Script The BeanShell script to run. The return value (if not null) is stored as the sampler result. Yes (unless script file is provided)

N.B. Each Sampler instance has its own BeanShell interpeter, and Samplers are only called from a single thread

If the property "beanshell.sampler.init" is defined, it is passed to the Interpreter as the name of a sourced file. This can be used to define common methods and variables. There is a sample init file in the bin directory: BeanShellSampler.bshrc.

If a script file is supplied, that will be used, otherwise the script will be used.

Before invoking the script, some variables are set up in the BeanShell interpreter:

The contents of the Parameters field is put into the variable "Parameters". The string is also split into separate tokens using a single space as the separator, and the resulting list is stored in the String array bsh.args.

The full list of BeanShell variables that is set up is as follows:

  • log - the Logger
  • Label - the Sampler label
  • FileName - the file name, if any
  • Parameters - text from the Parameters field
  • bsh.args - the parameters, split as described above
  • SampleResult - pointer to the current SampleResult
  • ResponseCode = 200
  • ResponseMessage = "OK"
  • IsSuccess = true
  • ctx - JMeterContext
  • vars - JMeterVariables - e.g. vars.get("VAR1"); vars.put("VAR2","value"); vars.remove("VAR3"); vars.putObject("OBJ1",new Object());
  • props - JMeterProperties (class java.util.Properties)- e.g. props.get("START.HMS"); props.put("PROP1","1234");

When the script completes, control is returned to the Sampler, and it copies the contents of the following script variables into the corresponding variables in the SampleResult:

  • ResponseCode - for example 200
  • ResponseMessage - for example "OK"
  • IsSuccess - true/false

The SampleResult ResponseData is set from the return value of the script. Since version 2.1.2, if the script returns null, it can set the response directly, by using the method SampleResult.setResponseData(data), where data is either a String or a byte array. The data type defaults to "text", but can be set to binary by using the method SampleResult.setDataType(SampleResult.BINARY).

The SampleResult variable gives the script full access to all the fields and methods in the SampleResult. For example, the script has access to the methods setStopThread(boolean) and setStopTest(boolean). Here is a simple (not very useful!) example script: 


if (bsh.args[0].equalsIgnoreCase("StopThread")) {
    log.info("Stop Thread detected!");
    SampleResult.setStopThread(true);
}
return "Data from sample with Label "+Label;
//or, since version 2.1.2
SampleResult.setResponseData("My data");
return null;

Another example:
ensure that the property beanshell.sampler.init=BeanShellSampler.bshrc is defined in jmeter.properties. The following script will show the values of all the variables in the ResponseData field: 


return getVariables();

For details on the methods available for the various classes (JMeterVariables, SampleResult etc) please check the Javadoc or the source code. Beware however that misuse of any methods can cause subtle faults that may be difficult to find ...


18.1.11 BSF Sampler

This sampler allows you to write a sampler using a BSF scripting language.
See the Apache Bean Scripting Framework website for details of the languages supported. You may need to download the appropriate jars for the language; they should be put in the JMeter lib directory.

By default, JMeter supports the following languages:

  • javascript
  • jexl (JMeter version 2.3.2 and later)
  • xslt

Unlike the BeanShell sampler, the interpreter is not saved between invocations.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this sampler that is shown in the tree. No
Scripting Language Name of the BSF scripting language to be used. N.B. Not all the languages in the drop-down list are supported by default. The following are supported: jexl, javascript, xslt. Others may be available if the appropriate jar is installed in the JMeter lib directory. Yes
Script File Name of a file to be used as a BSF script No
Parameters List of parameters to be passed to the script file or the script. No
Script Script to be passed to BSF language Yes (unless script file is provided)

If a script file is supplied, that will be used, otherwise the script will be used.

Before invoking the script, some variables are set up. Note that these are BSF variables - i.e. they can be used directly in the script.

  • log - the Logger
  • Label - the Sampler label
  • FileName - the file name, if any
  • Parameters - text from the Parameters field
  • args - the parameters, split as described above
  • SampleResult - pointer to the current SampleResult
  • sampler - pointer to current Sampler
  • ctx - JMeterContext
  • vars - JMeterVariables - e.g. vars.get("VAR1"); vars.put("VAR2","value"); vars.remove("VAR3"); vars.putObject("OBJ1",new Object());
  • props - JMeterProperties (class java.util.Properties) - e.g. props.get("START.HMS"); props.put("PROP1","1234");
  • OUT - System.out - e.g. OUT.println("message")

The SampleResult ResponseData is set from the return value of the script. If the script returns null, it can set the response directly, by using the method SampleResult.setResponseData(data), where data is either a String or a byte array. The data type defaults to "text", but can be set to binary by using the method SampleResult.setDataType(SampleResult.BINARY).

The SampleResult variable gives the script full access to all the fields and methods in the SampleResult. For example, the script has access to the methods setStopThread(boolean) and setStopTest(boolean).

Unlike the Beanshell Sampler, the BSF Sampler does not set the ResponseCode, ResponseMessage and sample status via script variables. Currently the only way to changes these is via the SampleResult methods:

  • SampleResult.setSuccessful(true/false)
  • SampleResult.setResponseCode("code")
  • SampleResult.setResponseMessage("message")


18.1.11.1 JSR223 Sampler

The JSR223 Sampler allows JSR223 script code to be used to perform a sample. JSR223 related elements have a feature that increases highly their performances. To benefit from this feature use Script files instead of inlining them. This will make JMeter compile them if this feature is available on ScriptEngine and cache them. Cache size is controlled by the following jmeter property (jmeter.properties):

  • jsr223.compiled_scripts_cache_size=100
For details, see BSF Sampler .

Unlike the BeanShell sampler, the interpreter is not saved between invocations.

Since JMeter 2.8, JSR223 Test Elements using Script file are now Compiled if ScriptEngine supports this feature, this enables great performance enhancements.


18.1.12 TCP Sampler

The TCP Sampler opens a TCP/IP connection to the specified server. It then sends the text, and waits for a response.
If "Re-use connection" is selected, connections are shared between Samplers in the same thread, provided that the exact same host name string and port are used. Different hosts/port combinations will use different connections, as will different threads.
If an error is detected - or "Re-use connection" is not selected - the socket is closed. Another socket will be reopened on the next sample.
The following properties can be used to control its operation:

  • tcp.status.prefix - text that precedes a status number
  • tcp.status.suffix - text that follows a status number
  • tcp.status.properties - name of property file to convert status codes to messages
  • tcp.handler - Name of TCP Handler class (default TCPClientImpl) - only used if not specified on the GUI
The class that handles the connection is defined by the GUI, failing that the property tcp.handler. If not found, the class is then searched for in the package org.apache.jmeter.protocol.tcp.sampler.

Users can provide their own implementation. The class must extend org.apache.jmeter.protocol.tcp.sampler.TCPClient.

The following implementations are currently provided.

  • TCPClientImpl
  • BinaryTCPClientImpl
  • LengthPrefixedBinaryTCPClientImpl
The implementations behave as follows:

TCPClientImpl
This implementation is fairly basic. When reading the response, it reads until the end of line byte, if this is defined by setting the property tcp.eolByte , otherwise until the end of the input stream. You can control charset encoding by setting tcp.charset , which will default to Platform default encoding.

BinaryTCPClientImpl
This implementation converts the GUI input, which must be a hex-encoded string, into binary, and performs the reverse when reading the response. When reading the response, it reads until the end of message byte, if this is defined by setting the property tcp.BinaryTCPClient.eomByte , otherwise until the end of the input stream.

LengthPrefixedBinaryTCPClientImpl
This implementation extends BinaryTCPClientImpl by prefixing the binary message data with a binary length byte. The length prefix defaults to 2 bytes. This can be changed by setting the property tcp.binarylength.prefix.length .

Timeout handling If the timeout is set, the read will be terminated when this expires. So if you are using an eolByte/eomByte, make sure the timeout is sufficiently long, otherwise the read will be terminated early.

Response handling
If tcp.status.prefix is defined, then the response message is searched for the text following that up to the suffix. If any such text is found, it is used to set the response code. The response message is then fetched from the properties file (if provided).
For example, if the prefix = "[" and the suffix = "]", then the following repsonse:
[J28] XI123,23,GBP,CR
would have the response code J28.
Response codes in the range "400"-"499" and "500"-"599" are currently regarded as failures; all others are successful. [This needs to be made configurable!]

The login name/password are not used by the supplied TCP implementations.


Sockets are disconnected at the end of a test run.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
TCPClient classname Name of the TCPClient class. Defaults to the property tcp.handler, failing that TCPClientImpl. No
ServerName or IP Name or IP of TCP server Yes
Port Number Port to be used Yes
Re-use connection If selected, the connection is kept open. Otherwise it is closed when the data has been read. Yes
Connect Timeout Connect Timeout (milliseconds, 0 disables). No
Response Timeout Response Timeout (milliseconds, 0 disables). No
Set Nodelay See java.net.Socket.setTcpNoDelay(). If selected, this will disable Nagle's algorithm, otherwise Nagle's algorithm will be used. Yes
Text to Send Text to be sent Yes
Login User User Name - not used by default implementation No
Password Password - not used by default implementation (N.B. this is stored unencrypted in the test plan) No


18.1.13 JMS Publisher

BETA CODE - the code is still subject to change

JMS Publisher will publish messages to a given destination (topic/queue). For those not familiar with JMS, it is the J2EE specification for messaging. There are numerous JMS servers on the market and several open source options.


JMeter does not include any JMS implementation jar; this must be downloaded from the JMS provider and put in the lib directory

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
use JNDI properties file use jndi.properties. Note that the file must be on the classpath - e.g. by updating the user.classpath JMeter property. If this option is not selected, JMeter uses the "JNDI Initial Context Factory" and "Provider URL" fields to create the connection. Yes
JNDI Initial Context Factory Name of the context factory No
Provider URL The URL for the jms provider Yes, unless using jndi.properties
Destination The message destination (topic or queue name) Yes
Setup The destination setup type. With At startup, the destination name is static (i.e. always same name during the test), with Each sample, the destination name is dynamic and is evaluate at each sample (i.e. the destination name may be a variable) Yes
Authentication Authentication requirement for the JMS provider Yes
User User Name No
Password Password (N.B. this is stored unencrypted in the test plan) No
Number of samples to aggregate Number of samples to aggregate Yes
Message source Where to obtain the message Yes
Message type Text, Map or Object message Yes
Use non-persistent delivery mode? Whether to set DeliveryMode.NON_PERSISTENT (defaults to false) No
JMS Properties The JMS Properties are properties specific for the underlying messaging system. For example: for WebSphere 5.1 web services you will need to set the JMS Property targetService to test webservices through JMS. No

For the MapMessage type, JMeter reads the source as lines of text. Each line must have 3 fields, delimited by commas. The fields are:

  • Name of entry
  • Object class name, e.g. "String" (assumes java.lang package if not specified)
  • Object string value
For each entry, JMeter adds an Object with the given name. The value is derived by creating an instance of the class, and using the valueOf(String) method to convert the value if necessary. For example: 

name,String,Example
size,Integer,1234
This is a very simple implementation; it is not intended to support all possible object types.

The Object message is implemented since 2.7 and works as follow:
  • Put the JAR that contain you object and its dependencies in jmeter_home/lib/ folder
  • Serialize your object as XML using XStream
  • Either put result in a file suffixed with .txt or .obj or put XML content direclty in Text Area
Note that if message is in an file, replacement of properties will not occur while it will happen if you use Text Area.

The following table shows some values which may be useful when configuring JMS:

Apache ActiveMQ Value(s) Comment
Context Factory org.apache.activemq.jndi.ActiveMQInitialContextFactory .
Provider URL vm://localhost  
Provider URL vm:(broker:(vm://localhost)?persistent=false) Disable persistence
Queue Reference dynamicQueues/QUEUENAME Dynamically define the QUEUENAME to JNDI
Topic Reference dynamicTopics/TOPICNAME Dynamically define the TOPICNAME to JNDI


18.1.14 JMS Subscriber

BETA CODE - the code is still subject to change

JMS Publisher will subscribe to messages in a given destination (topic or queue). For those not familiar with JMS, it is the J2EE specification for messaging. There are numerous JMS servers on the market and several open source options.


JMeter does not include any JMS implementation jar; this must be downloaded from the JMS provider and put in the lib directory

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
use JNDI properties file use jndi.properties. Note that the file must be on the classpath - e.g. by updating the user.classpath JMeter property. If this option is not selected, JMeter uses the "JNDI Initial Context Factory" and "Provider URL" fields to create the connection. Yes
JNDI Initial Context Factory Name of the context factory No
Provider URL The URL for the jms provider No
Destination the message destination (topic or queue name) Yes
Durable Subscription ID The ID to use for a durable subscription. On first use the respective queue will automatically be generated by the JMS provider if it does not exist yet. No
Client ID The Client ID to use when you you use a durable subscription. Be sure to add a variable like ${__threadNum} when you have more than one Thread. No
JMS Selector Message Selector as defined by JMS specification to extract only messages that respect the Selector condition. Syntax uses subpart of SQL 92. No
Setup The destination setup type. With At startup, the destination name is static (i.e. always same name during the test), with Each sample, the destination name is dynamic and is evaluate at each sample (i.e. the destination name may be a variable) Yes
Authentication Authentication requirement for the JMS provider Yes
User User Name No
Password Password (N.B. this is stored unencrypted in the test plan) No
Number of samples to aggregate number of samples to aggregate Yes
Read response should the sampler read the response. If not, only the response length is returned. Yes
Timeout Specify the timeout to be applied, in milliseconds. 0=none. This is the overall aggregate timeout, not per sample. Yes
Client Which client implementation to use. Both of them create connections which can read messages. However they use a different strategy, as described below:
  • MessageConsumer.receive() - calls receive() for every requested message. Retains the connection between samples, but does not fetch messages unless the sampler is active. This is best suited to Queue subscriptions.
  • MessageListener.onMessage() - establishes a Listener that stores all incoming messages on a queue. The listener remains active after the sampler completes. This is best suited to Topic subscriptions.
Yes
Stop between samples? If selected, then JMeter calls Connection.stop() at the end of each sample (and calls start() before each sample). This may be useful in some cases where multiple samples/threads have connections to the same queue. If not selected, JMeter calls Connection.start() at the start of the thread, and does not call stop() until the end of the thread. Yes
Separator Separator used to separate messages when there is more than one (related to setting Number of samples to aggregate). Note that \n, \r, \t are accepted. No

NOTE: JMeter 2.3.4 and earlier used a different strategy for the MessageConsumer.receive() client. Previously this started a background thread which polled for messages. This thread continued when the sampler completed, so the net effect was similar to the MessageListener.onMessage() strategy.


18.1.15 JMS Point-to-Point

BETA CODE - the code is still subject to change

This sampler sends and optionally receives JMS Messages through point-to-point connections (queues). It is different from pub/sub messages and is generally used for handling transactions.

Request Only will typically used to put load on a JMS System.
Request Response will be used when you want to test response time of a JMS service that processes messages sent to the Request Queue as this mode will wait for the response on the Reply queue sent by this service.

Versions of JMeter after 2.3.2 use the properties java.naming.security.[principal|credentials] - if present - when creating the Queue Connection. If this behaviour is not desired, set the JMeter property JMSSampler.useSecurity.properties=false


JMeter does not include any JMS implementation jar; this must be downloaded from the JMS provider and put in the lib directory

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
QueueConnection Factory The JNDI name of the queue connection factory to use for connecting to the messaging system. Yes
JNDI Name Request queue This is the JNDI name of the queue to which the messages are sent. Yes
JNDI Name Reply queue The JNDI name of the receiving queue. If a value is provided here and the communication style is Request Response this queue will be monitored for responses to the requests sent. No
JMS Selector Message Selector as defined by JMS specification to extract only messages that respect the Selector condition. Syntax uses subpart of SQL 92. No
Communication style The Communication style can be Request Only (also known as Fire and Forget) or Request Response :
  • Request Only will only send messages and will not monitor replies. As such it can be used to put load on a system.
  • Request Response will send messages and monitor the replies it receives. Behaviour depends on the value of the JNDI Name Reply Queue. If JNDI Name Reply Queue has a value, this queue is used to monitor the results. Matching of request and reply is done with the message id of the request and the correlation id of the reply. If the JNDI Name Reply Queue is empty, then temporary queues will be used for the communication between the requestor and the server. This is very different from the fixed reply queue. With temporary queues the sending thread will block until the reply message has been received. With Request Response mode, you need to have a Server that listens to messages sent to Request Queue and sends replies to queue referenced by message.getJMSReplyTo() .
Yes
Use alternate fields for message correlation These check-boxes select the fields which will be used for matching the response message with the original request.
  • Use Request Message Id - if selected, the request JMSMessageID will be used, otherwise the request JMSCorrelationID will be used. In the latter case the correlation id must be specified in the request.
  • Use Response Message Id - if selected, the response JMSMessageID will be used, otherwise the response JMSCorrelationID will be used.
There are two frequently used JMS Correlation patterns:
  • JMS Correlation ID Pattern - i.e. match request and response on their correlation Ids => deselect both checkboxes, and provide a correlation id.
  • JMS Message ID Pattern - i.e. match request message id with response correlation id => select "Use Request Message Id" only.
In both cases the JMS application is responsible for populating the correlation ID as necessary.

if the same queue is used to send and receive messages, then the response message will be the same as the request message. In which case, either provide a correlation id and clear both checkboxes; or select both checkboxes to use the message Id for correlation. This can be useful for checking raw JMS throughput.

Yes
Timeout The timeout in milliseconds for the reply-messages. If a reply has not been received within the specified time, the specific testcase failes and the specific reply message received after the timeout is discarded. Yes
Use non-persistent delivery mode? Whether to set DeliveryMode.NON_PERSISTENT. Yes
Content The content of the message. No
JMS Properties The JMS Properties are properties specific for the underlying messaging system. For example: for WebSphere 5.1 web services you will need to set the JMS Property targetService to test webservices through JMS. No
Initial Context Factory The Initial Context Factory is the factory to be used to look up the JMS Resources. No
JNDI properties The JNDI Properties are the specific properties for the underlying JNDI implementation. No
Provider URL The URL for the jms provider. No


18.1.16 JUnit Request
The current implementation supports standard Junit convention and extensions. It also includes extensions like oneTimeSetUp and oneTimeTearDown. The sampler works like the JavaSampler with some differences.
1. rather than use Jmeter's test interface, it scans the jar files for classes extending junit's TestCase class. That includes any class or subclass.
2. Junit test jar files should be placed in jmeter/lib/junit instead of /lib directory. In versions of JMeter after 2.3.1, you can also use the "user.classpath" property to specify where to look for TestCase classes.
3. Junit sampler does not use name/value pairs for configuration like the JavaSampler. The sampler assumes setUp and tearDown will configure the test correctly.
4. The sampler measures the elapsed time only for the test method and does not include setUp and tearDown.
5. Each time the test method is called, Jmeter will pass the result to the listeners.
6. Support for oneTimeSetUp and oneTimeTearDown is done as a method. Since Jmeter is multi-threaded, we cannot call oneTimeSetUp/oneTimeTearDown the same way Maven does it.
7. The sampler reports unexpected exceptions as errors. There are some important differences between standard JUnit test runners and JMeter's implementation. Rather than make a new instance of the class for each test, JMeter creates 1 instance per sampler and reuses it. This can be changed with checkbox "Create a new instance per sample".
The current implementation of the sampler will try to create an instance using the string constructor first. If the test class does not declare a string constructor, the sampler will look for an empty constructor. Example below:

Empty Constructor:
public class myTestCase {
public myTestCase() {}
}

String Constructor:
public class myTestCase {
public myTestCase(String text) {
super(text);
}
}
By default, Jmeter will provide some default values for the success/failure code and message. Users should define a set of unique success and failure codes and use them uniformly across all tests.
General Guidelines
If you use setUp and tearDown, make sure the methods are declared public. If you do not, the test may not run properly.
Here are some general guidelines for writing Junit tests so they work well with Jmeter. Since Jmeter runs multi-threaded, it is important to keep certain things in mind.

1. Write the setUp and tearDown methods so they are thread safe. This generally means avoid using static memebers.
2. Make the test methods discrete units of work and not long sequences of actions. By keeping the test method to a descrete operation, it makes it easier to combine test methods to create new test plans.
3. Avoid making test methods depend on each other. Since Jmeter allows arbitrary sequencing of test methods, the runtime behavior is different than the default Junit behavior.
4. If a test method is configurable, be careful about where the properties are stored. Reading the properties from the Jar file is recommended.
5. Each sampler creates an instance of the test class, so write your test so the setup happens in oneTimeSetUp and oneTimeTearDown.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Search for JUnit4 annotations Select this to search for JUnit 4 tests (@Test annotations) Yes
Package filter Comma separated list of packages to show. Example, org.apache.jmeter,junit.framework. No
Class name Fully qualified name of the JUnit test class. Yes
Constructor string String pass to the string constructor. If a string is set, the sampler will use the string constructor instead of the empty constructor. No
Test method The method to test. Yes
Success message A descriptive message indicating what success means. No
Success code An unique code indicating the test was successful. No
Failure message A descriptive message indicating what failure means. No
Failure code An unique code indicating the test failed. No
Error message A description for errors. No
Error code Some code for errors. Does not need to be unique. No
Do not call setUp and tearDown Set the sampler not to call setUp and tearDown. By default, setUp and tearDown should be called. Not calling those methods could affect the test and make it inaccurate. This option should only be used with calling oneTimeSetUp and oneTimeTearDown. If the selected method is oneTimeSetUp or oneTimeTearDown, this option should be checked. Yes
Append assertion errors Whether or not to append assertion errors to the response message. Yes
Append runtime exceptions Whether or not to append runtime exceptions to the response message. Only applies if "Append assertion errors" is not selected. Yes
Create a new Instance per sample Whether or not to create a new JUnit instance for each sample. Defaults to false, meaning JUnit TestCase is created one and reused. Yes

The following JUnit4 annotations are recognised:

  • @Test - used to find test methods and classes. The "expected" and "timeout" attributes are supported.
  • @Before - treated the same as setUp() in JUnit3
  • @After - treated the same as tearDown() in JUnit3
  • @BeforeClass, @AfterClass - treated as test methods so they can be run independently as required

Note that JMeter currently runs the test methods directly, rather than leaving it to JUnit. This is to allow the setUp/tearDown methods to be excluded from the sample time.


18.1.17 Mail Reader Sampler

The Mail Reader Sampler can read (and optionally delete) mail messages using POP3(S) or IMAP(S) protocols.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Server Type The protocol used by the provider: e.g. pop3, pop3s, imap, imaps. or another string representing the server protocol. For example file for use with the read-only mail file provider. The actual provider names for POP3 and IMAP are pop3 and imap Yes
Server Hostname or IP address of the server. See below for use with file protocol. Yes
Port Port to be used to connect to the server (optional) No
Username User login name No
Password User login password (N.B. this is stored unencrypted in the test plan) No
Folder The IMAP(S) folder to use. See below for use with file protocol. Yes, if using IMAP(S)
Number of messages to retrieve Set this to retrieve all or some messages Yes
Delete messages from the server If set, messages will be deleted after retrieval Yes
Store the message using MIME Whether to store the message as MIME. If so, then the entire raw message is stored in the Response Data; the headers are not stored as they are available in the data. If not, the message headers are stored as Response Headers. A few headers are stored (Date, To, From, Subject) in the body. Yes
Use no security features Indicates that the connection to the server does not use any security protocol. No
Use SSL Indicates that the connection to the server must use the SSL protocol. No
Use StartTLS Indicates that the connection to the server should attempt to start the TLS protocol. No
Enforce StartTLS If the server does not start the TLS protocol the connection will be terminated. No
Trust All Certificates When selected it will accept all certificates independent of the CA. No
Use local truststore When selected it will only accept certificates that are locally trusted. No
Local truststore Path to file containing the trusted certificates. Relative paths are resolved against the current directory.
Failing that, against the directory containing the test script (JMX file). 		No

Messages are stored as subsamples of the main sampler. In versions of JMeter after 2.3.4, multipart message parts are stored as subsamples of the message.

Special handling for "file" protocol:
The file JavaMail provider can be used to read raw messages from files. The server field is used to specify the path to the parent of the folder . Individual message files should be stored with the name n.msg , where n is the message number. Alternatively, the server field can be the name of a file which contains a single message. The current implementation is quite basic, and is mainly intended for debugging purposes.


18.1.18 Test Action
The Test Action sampler is a sampler that is intended for use in a conditional controller. Rather than generate a sample, the test element eithers pauses or stops the selected target.

This sampler can also be useful in conjunction with the Transaction Controller, as it allows pauses to be included without needing to generate a sample. For variable delays, set the pause time to zero, and add a Timer as a child.

The "Stop" action stops the thread or test after completing any samples that are in progress. The "Stop Now" action stops the test without waiting for samples to complete; it will interrupt any active samples. If some threads fail to stop within the 5 second time-limit, a message will be displayed in GUI mode. You can try using the Stop command to see if this will stop the threads, but if not, you should exit JMeter. In non-GUI mode, JMeter will exit if some threads fail to stop within the 5 second time limit. [This can be changed using the JMeter property jmeterengine.threadstop.wait ]

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Target Current Thread / All Threads (ignored for Pause) Yes
Action Pause / Stop / Stop Now / Go to next loop iteration Yes
Duration How long to pause for (milliseconds) Yes, if Pause is selected


18.1.19 SMTP Sampler

The SMTP Sampler can send mail messages using SMTP/SMTPS protocol. It is possible to set security propocols for the connection (SSL and TLS), as well as user authentication. If a security protocol is used a verification on the server certificate will occur.
Two alternatives to handle this verification are available:

  • Trust all certificates. This will ignore certificate chain verification
  • Use a local truststore. With this option the certificate chain will be validated against the local truststore file.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Server Hostname or IP address of the server. See below for use with file protocol. Yes
Port Port to be used to connect to the server. Defaults are: SMTP=25, SSL=465, StartTLS=587 No
Address From The from address that will appear in the e-mail Yes
Address To The destination e-mail address (multiple values separated by ";") Yes, unless CC or BCC is specified
Address To CC Carbon copy destinations e-mail address (multiple values separated by ";") No
Address To BCC Blind carbon copy destinations e-mail address (multiple values separated by ";") No
Address Reply-To Alternate Reply-To address (multiple values separated by ";") No
Use Auth Indicates if the SMTP server requires user authentication No
Username User login name No
Password User login password (N.B. this is stored unencrypted in the test plan) No
Use no security features Indicates that the connection to the SMTP server does not use any security protocol. No
Use SSL Indicates that the connection to the SMTP server must use the SSL protocol. No
Use StartTLS Indicates that the connection to the SMTP server should attempt to start the TLS protocol. No
Enforce StartTLS If the server does not start the TLS protocol the connection will be terminated. No
Trust All Certificates When selected it will accept all certificates independent of the CA. No
Use local truststore When selected it will only accept certificates that are locally trusted. No
Local truststore Path to file containing the trusted certificates. Relative paths are resolved against the current directory.
Failing that, against the directory containing the test script (JMX file). 		No
Subject The e-mail message subject. No
Suppress Subject Header If selected, the "Subject:" header is omitted from the mail that is sent. This is different from sending an empty "Subject:" header, though some e-mail clients may display it identically. No
Include timestamp in subject Includes the System.currentTimemilis() in the subject line. No
Add Header Additional headers can be defined using this button. No
Message The message body. No
Send plain body (i.e. not multipart/mixed) If selected, then send the body as a plain message, i.e. not multipart/mixed, if possible. If the message body is empty and there is a single file, then send the file contents as the message body. Note: If the message body is not empty, and there is at least one attached file, then the body is sent as multipart/mixed. No
Attach files Files to be attached to the message. No
Send .eml If set, the .eml file will be sent instead of the entries in the Subject, Message, and Attached files No
Calculate message size Calculates the message size and stores it in the sample result. No
Enable debug logging? If set, then the "mail.debug" property is set to "true" No


18.1.20 OS Process Sampler

The OS Process Sampler is a sampler that can be used to execute commands on the local machine.
It should allow execution of any command that can be run from the command line.
Validation of the return code can be enabled, and the expected return code can be specified.

Note that OS shells generally provide command-line parsing. This varies between OSes, but generally the shell will split parameters on white-space. Some shells expand wild-card file names; some don't. The quoting mechanism also varies between OSes. The sampler deliberately does not do any parsing or quote handling. The command and its parameters must be provided in the form expected by the executable. This means that the sampler settings will not be portable between OSes.

Many OSes have some built-in commands which are not provided as separate executables. For example the Windows DIR command is part of the command interpreter (CMD.EXE). These built-ins cannot be run as independent programs, but have to be provided as arguments to the appropriate command interpreter.

For example, the Windows command-line: DIR C:\TEMP needs to be specified as follows: 


command:   CMD
Param 1:   /C
Param 2:   DIR
Param 3:   C:\TEMP

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Command The program name to execute. Yes
Working directory Directory from which command will be executed, defaults to folder referenced by "user.dir" System property No
Command Parameters Parameters passed to the program name. No
Environment Parameters Key/Value pairs added to environment when running command. No
Standard input (stdin) Name of file from which input is to be taken (STDIN). No
Standard output (stdout Name of output file for standard output (STDOUT). If omitted, output is captured and returned as the response data. No
Standard error (stderr) Name of output file for standard error (STDERR). If omitted, output is captured and returned as the response data. No

If checked, sampler will compare return code with Expected Return Code. Expected return code for System Call, required if "Check Return Code" is checked.

^


18.2 Logic Controllers

Logic Controllers determine the order in which Samplers are processed.

18.2.1 Simple Controller

The Simple Logic Controller lets you organize your Samplers and other Logic Controllers. Unlike other Logic Controllers, this controller provides no functionality beyond that of a storage device.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this controller that is shown in the tree. No

Using the Simple Controller

Download this example (see Figure 6). In this example, we created a Test Plan that sends two Ant HTTP requests and two Log4J HTTP requests. We grouped the Ant and Log4J requests by placing them inside Simple Logic Controllers. Remember, the Simple Logic Controller has no effect on how JMeter processes the controller(s) you add to it. So, in this example, JMeter sends the requests in the following order: Ant Home Page, Ant News Page, Log4J Home Page, Log4J History Page. Note, the File Reporter is configured to store the results in a file named "simple-test.dat" in the current directory.


Figure 6 Simple Controller Example


18.2.2 Loop Controller

If you add Generative or Logic Controllers to a Loop Controller, JMeter will loop through them a certain number of times, in addition to the loop value you specified for the Thread Group. For example, if you add one HTTP Request to a Loop Controller with a loop count of two, and configure the Thread Group loop count to three, JMeter will send a total of 2 * 3 = 6 HTTP Requests.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this controller that is shown in the tree. No
Loop Count The number of times the subelements of this controller will be iterated each time through a test run.

Special Case: The Loop Controller embedded in the Thread Group element behaves slightly differently. Unless set to forever, it stops the test after the given number of iterations have been done.

Yes, unless "Forever" is checked

Looping Example

Download this example (see Figure 4). In this example, we created a Test Plan that sends a particular HTTP Request only once and sends another HTTP Request five times.


Figure 4 - Loop Controller Example

We configured the Thread Group for a single thread and a loop count value of one. Instead of letting the Thread Group control the looping, we used a Loop Controller. You can see that we added one HTTP Request to the Thread Group and another HTTP Request to a Loop Controller. We configured the Loop Controller with a loop count value of five.

JMeter will send the requests in the following order: Home Page, News Page, News Page, News Page, News Page, and News Page. Note, the File Reporter is configured to store the results in a file named "loop-test.dat" in the current directory.


18.2.3 Once Only Controller

The Once Only Logic Controller tells JMeter to process the controller(s) inside it only once per Thread, and pass over any requests under it during further iterations through the test plan.

The Once Only Controller will now execute always during the first iteration of any looping parent controller. Thus, if the Once Only Controller is placed under a Loop Controller specified to loop 5 times, then the Once Only Controller will execute only on the first iteration through the Loop Controller (ie, every 5 times). Note this means the Once Only Controller will still behave as previously expected if put under a Thread Group (runs only once per test per Thread), but now the user has more flexibility in the use of the Once Only Controller.

For testing that requires a login, consider placing the login request in this controller since each thread only needs to login once to establish a session.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this controller that is shown in the tree. No

Once Only Example

Download this example (see Figure 5). In this example, we created a Test Plan that has two threads that send HTTP request. Each thread sends one request to the Home Page, followed by three requests to the Bug Page. Although we configured the Thread Group to iterate three times, each JMeter thread only sends one request to the Home Page because this request lives inside a Once Only Controller.


Figure 5. Once Only Controller Example

Each JMeter thread will send the requests in the following order: Home Page, Bug Page, Bug Page, Bug Page. Note, the File Reporter is configured to store the results in a file named "loop-test.dat" in the current directory.

The behaviour of the Once Only controller under anything other than the Thread Group or a Loop Controller is not currently defined. Odd things may happen.


18.2.4 Interleave Controller

If you add Generative or Logic Controllers to an Interleave Controller, JMeter will alternate among each of the other controllers for each loop iteration.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
name Descriptive name for this controller that is shown in the tree. No
ignore sub-controller blocks If checked, the interleave controller will treat sub-controllers like single request elements and only allow one request per controller at a time. No

Simple Interleave Example

Download this example (see Figure 1). In this example, we configured the Thread Group to have two threads and a loop count of five, for a total of ten requests per thread. See the table below for the sequence JMeter sends the HTTP Requests.


Figure 1 - Interleave Controller Example 1

Loop Iteration Each JMeter Thread Sends These HTTP Requests
1 News Page
1 Log Page
2 FAQ Page
2 Log Page
3 Gump Page
3 Log Page
4 Because there are no more requests in the controller,
JMeter starts over and sends the first HTTP Request, which is the News Page.
4 Log Page
5 FAQ Page
5 Log Page

Useful Interleave Example

Download another example (see Figure 2). In this example, we configured the Thread Group to have a single thread and a loop count of eight. Notice that the Test Plan has an outer Interleave Controller with two Interleave Controllers inside of it.


Figure 2 - Interleave Controller Example 2

The outer Interleave Controller alternates between the two inner ones. Then, each inner Interleave Controller alternates between each of the HTTP Requests. Each JMeter thread will send the requests in the following order: Home Page, Interleaved, Bug Page, Interleaved, CVS Page, Interleaved, and FAQ Page, Interleaved. Note, the File Reporter is configured to store the results in a file named "interleave-test2.dat" in the current directory.


Figure 3 - Interleave Controller Example 3

If the two interleave controllers under the main interleave controller were instead simple controllers, then the order would be: Home Page, CVS Page, Interleaved, Bug Page, FAQ Page, Interleaved. However, if "ignore sub-controller blocks" was checked on the main interleave controller, then the order would be: Home Page, Interleaved, Bug Page, Interleaved, CVS Page, Interleaved, and FAQ Page, Interleaved.


18.2.5 Random Controller

The Random Logic Controller acts similarly to the Interleave Controller, except that instead of going in order through its sub-controllers and samplers, it picks one at random at each pass.

Interactions between multiple controllers can yield complex behavior. This is particularly true of the Random Controller. Experiment before you assume what results any given interaction will give

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this controller that is shown in the tree. No


18.2.6 Random Order Controller

The Random Order Controller is much like a Simple Controller in that it will execute each child element at most once, but the order of execution of the nodes will be random.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this controller that is shown in the tree. No


18.2.7 Throughput Controller

This controller is badly named, as it does not control throughput. Please refer to the Constant Throughput Timer for an element that can be used to adjust the throughput.

The Throughput Controller allows the user to control how often it is executed. There are two modes - percent execution and total executions. Percent executions causes the controller to execute a certain percentage of the iterations through the test plan. Total executions causes the controller to stop executing after a certain number of executions have occurred. Like the Once Only Controller, this setting is reset when a parent Loop Controller restarts.

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The Throughput Controller can yield very complex behavior when combined with other controllers - in particular with interleave or random controllers as parents (also very useful).

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this controller that is shown in the tree. No
Execution Style Whether the controller will run in percent executions or total executions mode. Yes
Throughput A number. for percent execution mode, a number from 0-100 that indicates the percentage of times the controller will execute. "50" means the controller will execute during half the iterations throught the test plan. for total execution mode, the number indicates the total number of times the controller will execute. Yes
Per User If checked, per user will cause the controller to calculate whether it should execute on a per user (per thread) basis. if unchecked, then the calculation will be global for all users. for example, if using total execution mode, and uncheck "per user", then the number given for throughput will be the total number of executions made. if "per user" is checked, then the total number of executions would be the number of users times the number given for throughput. No


18.2.8 Runtime Controller

The Runtime Controller controls how long its children are allowed to run.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this controller that is shown in the tree, and used to name the transaction. Yes
Runtime (seconds) Desired runtime in seconds Yes


18.2.9 If Controller

The If Controller allows the user to control whether the test elements below it (its children) are run or not.

Prior to JMeter 2.3RC3, the condition was evaluated for every runnable element contained in the controller. This sometimes caused unexpected behaviour, so 2.3RC3 was changed to evaluate the condition only once on initial entry. However, the original behaviour is also useful, so versions of JMeter after 2.3RC4 have an additional option to select the original behaviour.

Versions of JMeter after 2.3.2 allow the script to be processed as a variable expression, rather than requiring Javascript. It was always possible to use functions and variables in the Javascript condition, so long as they evaluated to "true" or "false"; now this can be done without the overhead of using Javascript as well. For example, previously one could use the condition: ${__jexl(${VAR} == 23)} and this would be evaluated as true/false, the result would then be passed to Javascript which would then return true/false. If the Variable Expression option is selected, then the expression is evaluated and compared with "true", without needing to use Javascript. Also, variable expressions can return any value, whereas the Javascript condition must return "true"/"false" or an error is logged.

No variables are made available to the script when the condition is interpreted as Javascript. If you need access to such variables, then select "Interpret Condition as Variable Expression?" and use a __javaScript() function call. You can then use the objects "vars", "log", "ctx" etc. in the script.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this controller that is shown in the tree. No
Condition (default Javascript) By default the condition is interpreted as Javascript code that returns "true" or "false", but this can be overriden (see below) Yes
Interpret Condition as Variable Expression? If this is selected, then the condition must be an expression that evaluates to "true" (case is ignored). For example, ${FOUND} or ${__jexl(${VAR} > 100)} . Unlike the Javascript case, the condition is only checked to see if it matches "true" (case is ignored). Yes
Evaluate for all children Should condition be evaluated for all children? If not checked, then the condition is only evaluated on entry. Yes

Examples (Javascript):

  • ${COUNT} < 10
  • "${VAR}" == "abcd"
  • ${JMeterThread.last_sample_ok} (check if last sample succeeded)
If there is an error interpreting the code, the condition is assumed to be false, and a message is logged in jmeter.log.

Examples (Variable Expression):

  • ${__jexl(${COUNT} < 10)}
  • ${RESULT}


18.2.10 While Controller

The While Controller runs its children until the condition is "false".

Possible condition values:

  • blank - exit loop when last sample in loop fails
  • LAST - exit loop when last sample in loop fails. If the last sample just before the loop failed, don't enter loop.
  • Otherwise - exit (or don't enter) the loop when the condition is equal to the string "false"

The condition can be any variable or function that eventually evaluates to the string "false". This allows the use of JavaScript, BeanShell, properties or variables as needed.


Note that the is evaluated twice, once before starting sampling children and once at end of children sampling, so putting non idempotent functions in Condition (like __counter) can introduce issues.


For example:
  • ${VAR} - where VAR is set to false by some other test element
  • ${__javaScript(${C}==10)}
  • ${__javaScript("${VAR2}"=="abcd")}
  • ${_P(property)} - where property is set to "false" somewhere else

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this controller that is shown in the tree, and used to name the transaction. Yes
Condition blank, LAST, or variable/function Yes


18.2.11 Switch Controller

The Switch Controller acts like the Interleave Controller in that it runs one of the subordinate elements on each iteration, but rather than run them in sequence, the controller runs the element defined by the switch value.

Note: In versions of JMeter after 2.3.1, the switch value can also be a name.

If the switch value is out of range, it will run the zeroth element, which therefore acts as the default for the numeric case. It also runs the zeroth element if the value is the empty string.

If the value is non-numeric (and non-empty), then the Switch Controller looks for the element with the same name (case is significant). If none of the names match, then the element named "default" (case not significant) is selected. If there is no default, then no element is selected, and the controller will not run anything.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this controller that is shown in the tree, and used to name the transaction. Yes
Switch Value The number (or name) of the subordinate element to be invoked. Elements are numbered from 0. Yes


18.2.12 ForEach Controller

A ForEach controller loops through the values of a set of related variables. When you add samplers (or controllers) to a ForEach controller, every sample sample (or controller) is executed one or more times, where during every loop the variable has a new value. The input should consist of several variables, each extended with an underscore and a number. Each such variable must have a value. So for example when the input variable has the name inputVar, the following variables should have been defined:

  • inputVar_1 = wendy
  • inputVar_2 = charles
  • inputVar_3 = peter
  • inputVar_4 = john

Note: the "_" separator is now optional.

When the return variable is given as "returnVar", the collection of samplers and controllers under the ForEach controller will be executed 4 consecutive times, with the return variable having the respective above values, which can then be used in the samplers.

It is especially suited for running with the regular expression post-processor. This can "create" the necessary input variables out of the result data of a previous request. By omitting the "_" separator, the ForEach Controller can be used to loop through the groups by using the input variable refName_g, and can also loop through all the groups in all the matches by using an input variable of the form refName_${C}_g, where C is a counter variable.

The ForEach Controller does not run any samples if inputVar_1 is null. This would be the case if the Regular Expression returned no matches.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this controller that is shown in the tree. No
Input variable prefix Prefix for the variable names to be used as input. Yes
Output variable The name of the variable which can be used in the loop for replacement in the samplers Yes
Use Separator If not checked, the "_" separator is omitted. Yes

ForEach Example

Download this example (see Figure 7). In this example, we created a Test Plan that sends a particular HTTP Request only once and sends another HTTP Request to every link that can be found on the page.


Figure 7 - ForEach Controller Example

We configured the Thread Group for a single thread and a loop count value of one. You can see that we added one HTTP Request to the Thread Group and another HTTP Request to the ForEach Controller.

After the first HTTP request, a regular expression extractor is added, which extracts all the html links out of the return page and puts them in the inputVar variable

In the ForEach loop, a HTTP sampler is added which requests all the links that were extracted from the first returned HTML page.

ForEach Example

Here is another example you can download. This has two Regular Expressions and ForEach Controllers. The first RE matches, but the second does not match, so no samples are run by the second ForEach Controller


Figure 8 - ForEach Controller Example 2

The Thread Group has a single thread and a loop count of two.

Sample 1 uses the JavaTest Sampler to return the string "a b c d".

The Regex Extractor uses the expression (\w)\s which matches a letter followed by a space, and returns the letter (not the space). Any matches are prefixed with the string "inputVar".

The ForEach Controller extracts all variables with the prefix "inputVar_", and executes its sample, passing the value in the variable "returnVar". In this case it will set the variable to the values "a" "b" and "c" in turn.

The For 1 Sampler is another Java Sampler which uses the return variable "returnVar" as part of the sample Label and as the sampler Data.

Sample 2, Regex 2 and For 2 are almost identical, except that the Regex has been changed to "(\w)\sx", which clearly won't match. Thus the For 2 Sampler will not be run.


18.2.13 Module Controller

The Module Controller provides a mechanism for substituting test plan fragments into the current test plan at run-time.

A test plan fragment consists of a Controller and all the test elements (samplers etc) contained in it. The fragment can be located in any Thread Group, or on the WorkBench . If the fragment is located in a Thread Group, then its Controller can be disabled to prevent the fragment being run except by the Module Controller. Or you can store the fragments in a dummy Thread Group, and disable the entire Thread Group.

There can be multiple fragments, each with a different series of samplers under them. The module controller can then be used to easily switch between these multiple test cases simply by choosing the appropriate controller in its drop down box. This provides convenience for running many alternate test plans quickly and easily.

A fragment name is made up of the Controller name and all its parent names. For example: 


Test Plan / Protocol: JDBC / Control / Interleave Controller (Module1)
Any fragments used by the Module Controller must have a unique name , as the name is used to find the target controller when a test plan is reloaded. For this reason it is best to ensure that the Controller name is changed from the default - as shown in the example above - otherwise a duplicate may be accidentally created when new elements are added to the test plan.

Control Panel

The Module Controller should not be used with remote testing or non-gui testing in conjunction with Workbench components since the Workbench test elements are not part of test plan .jmx files. Any such test will fail.

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this controller that is shown in the tree. No
Module to Run The module controller provides a list of all controllers loaded into the gui. Select the one you want to substitute in at runtime. Yes


18.2.14 Include Controller

The include controller is designed to use an external jmx file. To use it, create a Test Fragment underneath the Test Plan and add any desired samplers, controllers etc. below it. Then save the Test Plan. The file is now ready to be included as part of other Test Plans.

For convenience, a Thread Group can also be added in the external JMX file for debugging purposes. A Module Controller can be used to reference the Test Fragment. The Thread Group will be ignored during the include process.

If the test uses a Cookie Manager or User Defined Variables, these should be placed in the top-level test plan, not the included file, otherwise they are not guaranteed to work.

This element does not support variables/functions in the filename field.
However, if the property includecontroller.prefix is defined, the contents are used to prefix the pathname.

When using IncludeController and including the same JMX file, ensure you name the IncludeController differently to avoid facing known issue 50898.

If the file cannot be found at the location given by prefix+filename, then the controller attempts to open the fileName relative to the JMX launch directory (versions of JMeter after 2.3.4).

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Filename The file to include. Yes


18.2.15 Transaction Controller

The Transaction Controller generates an additional sample which measures the overall time taken to perform the nested test elements. Note that this time by default includes all processing within the controller scope, not just the samples, this can be changed by unchecking "Include duration of timer and pre-post processors in generated sample".

For JMeter versions after 2.3, there are two modes of operation

  • additional sample is added after the nested samples
  • additional sample is added as a parent of the nested samples

The generated sample time includes all the times for the nested samplers, and any timers etc. Depending on the clock resolution, it may be slightly longer than the sum of the individual samplers plus timers. The clock might tick after the controller recorded the start time but before the first sample starts. Similarly at the end.

The generated sample is only regarded as successful if all its sub-samples are successful.

In parent mode, the individual samples can still be seen in the Tree View Listener, but no longer appear as separate entries in other Listeners. Also, the sub-samples do not appear in CSV log files, but they can be saved to XML files.

In parent mode, Assertions (etc) can be added to the Transaction Controller. However by default they will be applied to both the individual samples and the overall transaction sample. To limit the scope of the Assertions, use a Simple Controller to contain the samples, and add the Assertions to the Simple Controller. Parent mode controllers do not currently properly support nested transaction controllers of either type.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this controller that is shown in the tree, and used to name the transaction. Yes
Generate Parent Sample If checked, then the sample is generated as a parent of the other samples, otherwise the sample is generated as an independent sample. Yes
Include duration of timer and pre-post processors in generated sample Whether to include timer, pre- and post-processing delays in the generated sample. Default is true to be compatible with the behaviour in previous versions of JMeter. Setting it to false is a better option to get only response time of the sample. Yes


18.2.16 Recording Controller

The Recording Controller is a place holder indicating where the proxy server should record samples to. During test run, it has no effect, similar to the Simple Controller. But during recording using the HTTP Proxy Server , all recorded samples will by default be saved under the Recording Controller.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this controller that is shown in the tree. No


^


18.3 Listeners

Most of the listeners perform several roles in addition to "listening" to the test results. They also provide means to view, save, and read saved test results.

Note that Listeners are processed at the end of the scope in which they are found.

The saving and reading of test results is generic. The various listeners have a panel whereby one can specify the file to which the results will be written (or read from). By default, the results are stored as XML files, typically with a ".jtl" extension. Storing as CSV is the most efficient option, but is less detailed than XML (the other available option).

Listeners do not process sample data in non-GUI mode, but the raw data will be saved if an output file has been configured. In order to analyse the data generated by a non-GUI test run, you need to load the file into the appropriate Listener.

To read existing results and display them, use the file panel Browse button to open the file.

Versions of JMeter up to 2.3.2 used to clear any current data before loading the new file.
This is no longer done, thus allowing files to be merged . If the previous behaviour is required, use the menu item Run/Clear (Ctrl+Shift+E) or Run/Clear All (Ctrl+E) before loading the file.

Results can be read from XML or CSV format files. When reading from CSV results files, the header (if present) is used to determine which fields are present. In order to interpret a header-less CSV file correctly, the appropriate properties must be set in jmeter.properties.

The file name can contain function and/or variable references. However variable references do not work in client-server mode (functions work OK).

Listeners can use a lot of memory if there are a lot of samples. Most of the listeners currently keep a copy of every sample in their scope, apart from:

  • Simple Data Writer
  • BeanShell/BSF Listener
  • Mailer Visualizer
  • Monitor Results
  • Summary Report

The following Listeners no longer need to keep copies of every single sample. Instead, samples with the same elapsed time are aggregated. Less memory is now needed, especially if most samples only take a second or two at most.

  • Aggregate Report
  • Aggregate Graph
  • Distribution Graph

To minimise the amount of memory needed, use the Simple Data Writer, and use the CSV format.

Versions of JMeter after 2.3.1 allow JMeter variables to be saved to the output files. This can only be specified using a property. See the Listener Sample Variables for details

For full details on setting up the default items to be saved see the Listener Default Configuration documentation. For details of the contents of the output files, see the CSV log format or the XML log format.

The entries in jmeter.properties are used to define the defaults; these can be overriden for individual listeners by using the Configure button, as shown below. The settings in jmeter.properties also apply to the listener that is added by using the -l command-line flag.

The figure below shows an example of the result file configuration panel


Result file configuration panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Filename Name of the file containing sample results. The file name can be specified using either a relative or an absolute path name. Relative paths are resolved relative to the current working directory (which defaults to the bin/ directory). Versions of JMeter after 2.4 also support paths relative to the directory containing the current test plan (JMX file). If the path name begins with "~/" (or whatever is in the jmeter.save.saveservice.base_prefix JMeter property), then the path is assumed to be relative to the JMX file location. No
Browse... File Browse Button No
Errors Select this to write/read only results with errors No
Successes Select this to write/read only results without errors. If neither Errors nor Successes is selected, then all results are processed. No
Configure Configure Button, see below No

18.3.1 Sample Result Save Configuration

Listeners can be configured to save different items to the result log files (JTL) by using the Config popup as shown below. The defaults are defined as described in the Listener Default Configuration documentation. Items with (CSV) after the name only apply to the CSV format; items with (XML) only apply to XML format. CSV format cannot currently be used to save any items that include line-breaks.

Note that cookies, method and the query string are saved as part of the "Sampler Data" option.

Control Panel


18.3.3 Graph Results

The Graph Results listener generates a simple graph that plots all sample times. Along the bottom of the graph, the current sample (black), the current average of all samples(blue), the current standard deviation (red), and the current throughput rate (green) are displayed in milliseconds.

The throughput number represents the actual number of requests/minute the server handled. This calculation includes any delays you added to your test and JMeter's own internal processing time. The advantage of doing the calculation like this is that this number represents something real - your server in fact handled that many requests per minute, and you can increase the number of threads and/or decrease the delays to discover your server's maximum throughput. Whereas if you made calculations that factored out delays and JMeter's processing, it would be unclear what you could conclude from that number.

Control Panel

The following table briefly describes the items on the graph. Further details on the precise meaning of the statistical terms can be found on the web - e.g. Wikipedia - or by consulting a book on statistics.

  • Data - plot the actual data values
  • Average - plot the Average
  • Median - plot the Median (midway value)
  • Deviation - plot the Standard Deviation (a measure of the variation)
  • Throughput - plot the number of samples per unit of time

The individual figures at the bottom of the display are the current values. "Latest Sample" is the current elapsed sample time, shown on the graph as "Data".


18.3.4 Spline Visualizer

The Spline Visualizer provides a view of all sample times from the start of the test till the end, regardless of how many samples have been taken. The spline has 10 points, each representing 10% of the samples, and connected using spline logic to show a single continuous line.

The graph is automatically scaled to fit within the window. This needs to be borne in mind when comparing graphs.

Control Panel


18.3.5 Assertion Results

The Assertion Results visualizer shows the Label of each sample taken. It also reports failures of any Assertions that are part of the test plan.

Control Panel

See Also:


18.3.6 View Results Tree
The View Results Tree shows a tree of all sample responses, allowing you to view the response for any sample. In addition to showing the response, you can see the time it took to get this response, and some response codes. Note that the Request panel only shows the headers added by JMeter. It does not show any headers (such as Host) that may be added by the HTTP protocol implementation.

There are several ways to view the response, selectable by a drop-down box at the bottom of the left hand panel.

  • HTML
  • HTML (download resources)
  • JSON
  • Regexp Tester
  • Text
  • XML

Scroll automatically? option permit to have last node display in tree selection

Additional renderers can be created. The class must implement the interface org.apache.jmeter.visualizers.ResultRenderer and/or extend the abstract class org.apache.jmeter.visualizers.SamplerResultTab , and the compiled code must be available to JMeter (e.g. by adding it to the lib/ext directory).

The default "Text" view shows all of the text contained in the response. Note that this will only work if the response content-type is considered to be text. If the content-type begins with any of the following, it is considered as binary, otherwise it is considered to be text. 


image/
audio/
video/
If there is no content-type provided, then the content will not be displayed in the any of the Response Data panels. You can use Save Responses to a file to save the data in this case. Note that the response data will still be available in the sample result, so can still be accessed using Post-Processors.

If the response data is larger than 200K, then it won't be displayed. To change this limit, set the JMeter property view.results.tree.max_size . You can also use save the entire response to a file using Save Responses to a file .

The HTML view attempts to render the response as HTML. The rendered HTML is likely to compare poorly to the view one would get in any web browser; however, it does provide a quick approximation that is helpful for initial result evaluation. No images etc are downloaded. If the HTML (download embedded resources) option is selected, the renderer may download images and style-sheets etc referenced by the HTML.

The XML view will show response in tree style. Any DTD nodes or Prolog nodes will not show up in tree; however, response may contain those nodes.

The JSON view will show the response in tree style (also handles JSON embedded in JavaScript).

Most of the views also allow the displayed data to be searched; the result of the search will be high-lighted in the display above. For example the Control panel screenshot below shows one result of searching for "Java". Note that the search operates on the visible text, so you may get different results when searching the Text and HTML views.

The "Regexp Tester" view only works for text responses. It shows the plain text in the upper panel. The "Test" button allows the user to apply the Regular Expression to the upper panel and the results will be displayed in the lower panel. For example, the RE (JMeter\w*).* applied to the current JMeter home page gives the following output: 


Match count: 26
Match[1][0]=JMeter - Apache JMeter</title>
Match[1][1]=JMeter
Match[2][0]=JMeter" title="JMeter" border="0"/></a>
Match[2][1]=JMeter
Match[3][0]=JMeterCommitters">Contributors</a>
Match[3][1]=JMeterCommitters
... and so on ...

The first number in [] is the match number; the second number is the group. Group [0] is whatever matched the whole RE. Group [1] is whatever matched the 1st group, i.e. (JMeter\w*) in this case. See Figure 9b (below).

Control Panel

The Control Panel (above) shows an example of an HTML display. Figure 9 (below) shows an example of an XML display.


Figure 9 Sample XML display


Figure 9a Sample Regexp Test display


18.3.7 Aggregate Report
The aggregate report creates a table row for each differently named request in your test. For each request, it totals the response information and provides request count, min, max, average, error rate, approximate throughput (request/second) and Kilobytes per second throughput. Once the test is done, the throughput is the actual through for the duration of the entire test.

The thoughput is calculated from the point of view of the sampler target (e.g. the remote server in the case of HTTP samples). JMeter takes into account the total time over which the requests have been generated. If other samplers and timers are in the same thread, these will increase the total time, and therefore reduce the throughput value. So two identical samplers with different names will have half the throughput of two samplers with the same name. It is important to choose the sampler names correctly to get the best results from the Aggregate Report.

Calculation of the Median and 90% Line (90 th percentile ) values requires additional memory. For JMeter 2.3.4 and earlier, details of each sample were saved separately, which meant a lot of memory was needed. JMeter now combines samples with the same elapsed time, so far less memory is used. However, for samples that take more than a few seconds, the probability is that fewer samples will have identical times, in which case more memory will be needed. See the Summary Report for a similar Listener that does not store individual samples and so needs constant memory.

  • Label - The label of the sample. If "Include group name in label?" is selected, then the name of the thread group is added as a prefix. This allows identical labels from different thread groups to be collated separately if required.
  • # Samples - The number of samples with the same label
  • Average - The average time of a set of results
  • Median - The median is the time in the middle of a set of results. 50% of the samples took no more than this time; the remainder took at least as long.
  • 90% Line - 90% of the samples took no more than this time. The remaining samples at least as long as this. (90 th percentile )
  • Min - The shortest time for the samples with the same label
  • Max - The longest time for the samples with the same label
  • Error % - Percent of requests with errors
  • Throughput - the Throughput is measured in requests per second/minute/hour. The time unit is chosen so that the displayed rate is at least 1.0. When the throughput is saved to a CSV file, it is expressed in requests/second, i.e. 30.0 requests/minute is saved as 0.5.
  • Kb/sec - The throughput measured in Kilobytes per second

Times are in milliseconds.

Control Panel

The figure below shows an example of selecting the "Include group name" checkbox.


Sample "Include group name" display


18.3.8 View Results in Table
This visualizer creates a row for every sample result. Like the View Results Tree , this visualizer uses a lot of memory.

By default, it only displays the main (parent) samples; it does not display the sub-samples (child samples). Versions of JMeter after 2.5.1 have a "Child Samples?" check-box. If this is selected, then the sub-samples are displayed instead of the main samples.

Control Panel


18.3.9 Simple Data Writer
This listener can record results to a file but not to the UI. It is meant to provide an efficient means of recording data by eliminating GUI overhead. When running in non-GUI mode, the -l flag can be used to create a data file. The fields to save are defined by JMeter properties. See the jmeter.properties file for details.

Control Panel


18.3.10 Monitor Results

Monitor Results is a new Visualizer for displaying server status. It is designed for Tomcat 5, but any servlet container can port the status servlet and use this monitor. There are two primary tabs for the monitor. The first is the "Health" tab, which will show the status of one or more servers. The second tab labled "Performance" shows the performance for one server for the last 1000 samples. The equations used for the load calculation is included in the Visualizer.

Currently, the primary limitation of the monitor is system memory. A quick benchmark of memory usage indicates a buffer of 1000 data points for 100 servers would take roughly 10Mb of RAM. On a 1.4Ghz centrino laptop with 1Gb of ram, the monitor should be able to handle several hundred servers.

As a general rule, monitoring production systems should take care to set an appropriate interval. Intervals shorter than 5 seconds are too aggressive and have a potential of impacting the server. With a buffer of 1000 data points at 5 second intervals, the monitor would check the server status 12 times a minute or 720 times a hour. This means the buffer shows the performance history of each machine for the last hour.

The monitor requires Tomcat 5 or above. Use a browser to check that you can access the Tomcat status servlet OK.

For a detailed description of how to use the monitor, please refer to Building a Monitor Test Plan

Control Panel


18.3.11 Distribution Graph (alpha)

The distribution graph will display a bar for every unique response time. Since the granularity of System.currentTimeMillis() is 10 milliseconds, the 90% threshold should be within the width of the graph. The graph will draw two threshold lines: 50% and 90%. What this means is 50% of the response times finished between 0 and the line. The same is true of 90% line. Several tests with Tomcat were performed using 30 threads for 600K requests. The graph was able to display the distribution without any problems and both the 50% and 90% line were within the width of the graph. A performant application will generally produce results that clump together. A poorly written application that has memory leaks may result in wild fluctuations. In those situations, the threshold lines may be beyond the width of the graph. The recommended solution to this specific problem is fix the webapp so it performs well. If your test plan produces distribution graphs with no apparent clumping or pattern, it may indicate a memory leak. The only way to know for sure is to use a profiling tool.

Control Panel


18.3.12 Aggregate Graph
The aggregate graph is similar to the aggregate report. The primary difference is the aggregate graph provides an easy way to generate bar graphs and save the graph as a PNG file.

Control Panel

The figure below shows an example of settings to draw this graph.


Aggregate graph settings

Please note: All this parameters aren't saved in JMeter jmx script.

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Column settings
  • Columns to display: Choose the column(s) to display in graph.
  • Rectangles color: Clic on right color rectangle open a popup dialog to choose a custom color for column.
  • Foreground color Allow to change the value text color.
  • Value font: Allow to define font settings for the text.
  • Draw outlines bar? To draw or not the border line on bar chart
  • Show number grouping? Show or not the number grouping in Y Axis labels.
  • Value labels vertical? Change orientation for value label. (Default is horizontal)
  • Column label selection: Filter by result label. A regular expression can be used, example: .*Transaction.*
    Before display the graph, click on Apply filter button to refresh internal data.
Yes
Title Define the graph's title on the head of chart. Empty value is the default value : "Aggregate Graph". The button Synchronize with name define the title with the label of the listener. And define font settings for graph title No
Graph size Compute the graph size by the width and height depending of the current JMeter's window size. Use Width and Height fields to define a custom size. The unit is pixel. No
X Axis settings Define the max length of X Axis label (in pixel). No
Y Axis settings Define a custom maximum value for Y Axis. No
Legend Define the placement and font settings for chart legend Yes


18.3.13 Response Time Graph
The Response Time Graph draws a line chart showing the evolution of response time during the test, for each labelled request.

Control Panel

The figure below shows an example of settings to draw this graph.


Response time graph settings

Please note: All this parameters aren't saved in JMeter jmx script.

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Interval (ms) The time in milli-seconds for X axis interval. Before display the graph, click on Apply interval button to refresh internal data. Yes
Sampler label selection Filter by result label. A regular expression can be used, ex. .*Transaction.* . Before display the graph, click on Apply filter button to refresh internal data. No
Title Define the graph's title on the head of chart. Empty value is the default value : "Response Time Graph". The button Synchronize with name define the title with the label of the listener. And define font settings for graph title No
Line settings Define the width of the line. Define the type of each value point. Choose none to have a line without mark Yes
Graph size Compute the graph size by the width and height depending of the current JMeter's window size. Use Width and Height fields to define a custom size. The unit is pixel. No
X Axis settings Customize the date format of X axis label. The syntax is the Java SimpleDateFormat API . No
Y Axis settings Define a custom maximum value for Y Axis. Show or not the number grouping in Y Axis labels. No
Legend Define the placement and font settings for chart legend Yes


18.3.14 Mailer Visualizer

The mailer visualizer can be set up to send email if a test run receives too many failed responses from the server.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
From Email address to send messages from. Yes
Addressee(s) Email address to send messages to, comma-separated. Yes
Success Subject Email subject line for success messages. No
Success Limit Once this number of successful responses is exceeded after previously reaching the failure limit , a success email is sent. The mailer will thus only send out messages in a sequence of failed-succeeded-failed-succeeded, etc. Yes
Failure Subject Email subject line for fail messages. No
Failure Limit Once this number of failed responses is exceeded, a failure email is sent - i.e. set the count to 0 to send an e-mail on the first failure. Yes
Host IP address or host name of SMTP server (email redirector) server. No
Port Port of SMTP server (defaults to 25). No
Login Login used to authenticate. No
Password Password used to authenticate. No
Connection security Type of encryption for SMTP authentication (SSL, TLS or none). No
Test Mail Press this button to send a test mail No
Failures A field that keeps a running total of number of failures so far received. No


18.3.15 BeanShell Listener

The BeanShell Listener allows the use of BeanShell for processing samples for saving etc.

For full details on using BeanShell, please see the BeanShell website.

The test element supports the ThreadListener and TestListener methods. These should be defined in the initialisation file. See the file BeanShellListeners.bshrc for example definitions.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. The name is stored in the script variable Label No
Reset bsh.Interpreter before each call If this option is selected, then the interpreter will be recreated for each sample. This may be necessary for some long running scripts. For further information, see Best Practices - BeanShell scripting . Yes
Parameters Parameters to pass to the BeanShell script. The parameters are stored in the following variables:
  • Parameters - string containing the parameters as a single variable
  • bsh.args - String array containing parameters, split on white-space
No
Script file A file containing the BeanShell script to run. The file name is stored in the script variable FileName No
Script The BeanShell script to run. The return value is ignored. Yes (unless script file is provided)

Before invoking the script, some variables are set up in the BeanShell interpreter:

  • log - (Logger) - can be used to write to the log file
  • ctx - (JMeterContext) - gives access to the context
  • vars - ( JMeterVariables ) - gives read/write access to variables: vars.get(key); vars.put(key,val); vars.putObject("OBJ1",new Object());
  • props - (JMeterProperties - class java.util.Properties) - e.g. props.get("START.HMS"); props.put("PROP1","1234");
  • sampleResult, prev - (SampleResult) - gives access to the previous SampleResult
  • sampleEvent (SampleEvent) gives access to the current sample event

For details of all the methods available on each of the above variables, please check the Javadoc

If the property beanshell.listener.init is defined, this is used to load an initialisation file, which can be used to define methods etc for use in the BeanShell script.


18.3.16 Summary Report
The summary report creates a table row for each differently named request in your test. This is similar to the Aggregate Report , except that it uses less memory.

The thoughput is calculated from the point of view of the sampler target (e.g. the remote server in the case of HTTP samples). JMeter takes into account the total time over which the requests have been generated. If other samplers and timers are in the same thread, these will increase the total time, and therefore reduce the throughput value. So two identical samplers with different names will have half the throughput of two samplers with the same name. It is important to choose the sampler labels correctly to get the best results from the Report.

  • Label - The label of the sample. If "Include group name in label?" is selected, then the name of the thread group is added as a prefix. This allows identical labels from different thread groups to be collated separately if required.
  • # Samples - The number of samples with the same label
  • Average - The average elapsed time of a set of results
  • Min - The lowest elapsed time for the samples with the same label
  • Max - The longest elapsed time for the samples with the same label
  • Std. Dev. - the Standard Deviation of the sample elapsed time
  • Error % - Percent of requests with errors
  • Throughput - the Throughput is measured in requests per second/minute/hour. The time unit is chosen so that the displayed rate is at least 1.0. When the throughput is saved to a CSV file, it is expressed in requests/second, i.e. 30.0 requests/minute is saved as 0.5.
  • Kb/sec - The throughput measured in Kilobytes per second
  • Avg. Bytes - average size of the sample response in bytes. (in JMeter 2.2 it wrongly showed the value in kB)

Times are in milliseconds.

Control Panel

The figure below shows an example of selecting the "Include group name" checkbox.


Sample "Include group name" display


18.3.17 Save Responses to a file

This test element can be placed anywhere in the test plan. For each sample in its scope, it will create a file of the response Data. The primary use for this is in creating functional tests, but it can also be useful where the response is too large to be displayed in the View Results Tree Listener. The file name is created from the specified prefix, plus a number (unless this is disabled, see below). The file extension is created from the document type, if known. If not known, the file extension is set to 'unknown'. If numbering is disabled, and adding a suffix is disabled, then the file prefix is taken as the entire file name. This allows a fixed file name to be generated if required. The generated file name is stored in the sample response, and can be saved in the test log output file if required.

The current sample is saved first, followed by any sub-samples (child samples). If a variable name is provided, then the names of the files are saved in the order that the sub-samples appear. See below.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Filename Prefix Prefix for the generated file names; this can include a directory name. Relative paths are resolved relative to the current working directory (which defaults to the bin/ directory). Versions of JMeter after 2.4 also support paths relative to the directory containing the current test plan (JMX file). If the path name begins with "~/" (or whatever is in the jmeter.save.saveservice.base_prefix JMeter property), then the path is assumed to be relative to the JMX file location. Yes
Variable Name Name of a variable in which to save the generated file name (so it can be used later in the test plan). If there are sub-samples then a numeric suffix is added to the variable name. E.g. if the variable name is FILENAME, then the parent sample file name is saved in the variable FILENAME, and the filenames for the child samplers are saved in FILENAME1, FILENAME2 etc. No
Save Failed Responses only If selected, then only failed responses are saved Yes
Save Successful Responses only If selected, then only successful responses are saved Yes
Don't add number to prefix If selected, then no number is added to the prefix. If you select this option, make sure that the prefix is unique or the file may be overwritten. Yes
Don't add suffix If selected, then no suffix is added. If you select this option, make sure that the prefix is unique or the file may be overwritten. Yes


18.3.18 BSF Listener

The BSF Listener allows BSF script code to be applied to sample results.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Language The BSF language to be used Yes
Parameters Parameters to pass to the script. The parameters are stored in the following variables:
  • Parameters - string containing the parameters as a single variable
  • args - String array containing parameters, split on white-space
No
Script file A file containing the script to run. No
Script The script to run. Yes (unless script file is provided)

The script (or file) is processed using the BSFEngine.exec() method, which does not return a value.

Before invoking the script, some variables are set up. Note that these are BSF variables - i.e. they can be used directly in the script.

  • log - (Logger) - can be used to write to the log file
  • Label - the String Label
  • Filename - the script file name (if any)
  • Parameters - the parameters (as a String)
  • args[] - the parameters as a String array (split on whitespace)
  • ctx - (JMeterContext) - gives access to the context
  • vars - ( JMeterVariables ) - gives read/write access to variables: vars.get(key); vars.put(key,val); vars.putObject("OBJ1",new Object()); vars.getObject("OBJ2");
  • props - (JMeterProperties - class java.util.Properties) - e.g. props.get("START.HMS"); props.put("PROP1","1234");
  • sampleResult, prev - (SampleResult) - gives access to the SampleResult
  • sampleEvent - (SampleEvent) - gives access to the SampleEvent
  • sampler - (Sampler)- gives access to the last sampler
  • OUT - System.out - e.g. OUT.println("message")

For details of all the methods available on each of the above variables, please check the Javadoc


18.3.18.1 JSR223 Listener

The JSR223 Listener allows JSR223 script code to be applied to sample results. For details, see BSF Listener .


18.3.19 Generate Summary Results
This test element can be placed anywhere in the test plan. Generates a summary of the test run so far to the log file and/or standard output. Both running and differential totals are shown. Output is generated every n seconds (default 3 minutes) on the appropriate time boundary, so that multiple test runs on the same time will be synchronised. See jmeter.properties file for the summariser configuration items: 

# Define the following property to automatically start a summariser with that name
# (applies to non-GUI mode only)
#summariser.name=summary
#
# interval between summaries (in seconds) default 3 minutes
#summariser.interval=180
#
# Write messages to log file
#summariser.log=true
#
# Write messages to System.out
#summariser.out=true
This element is mainly intended for batch (non-GUI) runs. The output looks like the following: 

label +   171 in  20.3s =    8.4/s Avg:  1129 Min:  1000 Max:  1250 Err:     0 (0.00%)
label +   263 in  31.3s =    8.4/s Avg:  1138 Min:  1000 Max:  1250 Err:     0 (0.00%)
label =   434 in  50.4s =    8.6/s Avg:  1135 Min:  1000 Max:  1250 Err:     0 (0.00%)
label +   263 in  31.0s =    8.5/s Avg:  1138 Min:  1000 Max:  1250 Err:     0 (0.00%)
label =   697 in  80.3s =    8.7/s Avg:  1136 Min:  1000 Max:  1250 Err:     0 (0.00%)
label +   109 in  12.4s =    8.8/s Avg:  1092 Min:    47 Max:  1250 Err:     0 (0.00%)
label =   806 in  91.6s =    8.8/s Avg:  1130 Min:    47 Max:  1250 Err:     0 (0.00%)
The "label" is the the name of the element. The "+" means that the line is a delta line, i.e. shows the changes since the last output. The "=" means that the line is a totals line, i.e. it shows the running total. Entries in the jmeter log file also include time-stamps. The example "806 in 91.6s = 8.8/s" means that there were 806 samples recorded in 91.6 seconds, and that works out at 8.8 samples per second. The Avg (Average), Min(imum) and Max(imum) times are in milliseconds. "Err" means number of errors (also shown as percentage). The last two lines will appear at the end of a test. They will not be synchronised to the appropriate time boundary. Note that the initial and final deltas may be for less than the interval (in the example above this is 30 seconds). The first delta will generally be lower, as JMeter synchronises to the interval boundary. The last delta will be lower, as the test will generally not finish on an exact interval boundary.

The label is used to group sample results together. So if you have multiple Thread Groups and want to summarize across them all, then use the same label - or add the summariser to the Test Plan (so all thread groups are in scope). Different summary groupings can be implemented by using suitable labels and adding the summarisers to appropriate parts of the test plan.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. It appears as the "label" in the output. Details for all elements with the same label will be added together. Yes


18.3.20 Comparison Assertion Visualizer
The Comparison Assertion Visualizer shows the results of any Compare Assertion elements.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. Yes


^


18.4 Configuration Elements

Configuration elements can be used to set up defaults and variables for later use by samplers. Note that these elements are processed at the start of the scope in which they are found, i.e. before any samplers in the same scope.

18.4.1 CSV Data Set Config

CSV Data Set Config is used to read lines from a file, and split them into variables. It is easier to use than the __CSVRead() and _StringFromFile() functions. It is well suited to handling large numbers of variables, and is also useful for tesing with "random" and unique values. Generating unique random values at run-time is expensive in terms of CPU and memory, so just create the data in advance of the test. If necessary, the "random" data from the file can be used in conjunction with a run-time parameter to create different sets of values from each run - e.g. using concatenation - which is much cheaper than generating everything at run-time.

Versions of JMeter after 2.3.1 allow values to be quoted; this allows the value to contain a delimiter. Previously it was necessary to choose a delimiter that was not used in any values. If "allow quoted data" is enabled, a value may be enclosed in double-quotes. These are removed. To include double-quotes within a quoted field, use two double-quotes. For example: 


1,"2,3","4""5" =>
1
2,3
4"5

Versions of JMeter after 2.3.4 support CSV files which have a header line defining the column names. To enable this, leave the "Variable Names" field empty. The correct delimiter must be provided.

Versions of JMeter after 2.7 support CSV files with quoted data that includes new-lines.

By default, the file is only opened once, and each thread will use a different line from the file. However the order in which lines are passed to threads depends on the order in which they execute, which may vary between iterations. Lines are read at the start of each test iteration. The file name and mode are resolved in the first iteration.

See the description of the Share mode below for additional options (JMeter 2.3.2+). If you want each thread to have its own set of values, then you will need to create a set of files, one for each thread. For example test1.csv, test2.csv,... testn.csv. Use the filename test${__threadNum}.csv and set the "Sharing mode" to "Current thread".

CSV Dataset variables are defined at the start of each test iteration. As this is after configuration processing is completed, they cannot be used for some configuration items - such as JDBC Config - that process their contents at configuration time (see Bug 40394 ) However the variables do work in the HTTP Auth Manager, as the username etc are processed at run-time.

As a special case, the string "\t" (without quotes) in the delimiter field is treated as a Tab.

When the end of file (EOF) is reached, and the recycle option is true, reading starts again with the first line of the file.

If the recycle option is false, and stopThread is false, then all the variables are set to <EOF> when the end of file is reached. This value can be changed by setting the JMeter property csvdataset.eofstring .

If the Recycle option is false, and Stop Thread is true, then reaching EOF will cause the thread to be stopped.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Filename Name of the file to be read. Relative file names are resolved with respect to the path of the active test plan. Absolute file names are also supported, but note that they are unlikely to work in remote mode, unless the remote server has the same directory structure. If the same physical file is referenced in two different ways - e.g. csvdata.txt and ./csvdata.txt - then these are treated as different files. If the OS does not distinguish between upper and lower case, csvData.TXT would also be opened separately. Yes
File Encoding The encoding to be used to read the file, if not the platform default. No
Variable Names List of variable names (comma-delimited). Versions of JMeter after 2.3.4 support CSV header lines: if the variable name field empty, then the first line of the file is read and interpreted as the list of column names. The names must be separated by the delimiter character. They can be quoted using double-quotes. Yes
Delimiter Delimiter to be used to split the records in the file. If there are fewer values on the line than there are variables the remaining variables are not updated - so they will retain their previous value (if any). Yes
Allow quoted data? Should the CSV file allow values to be quoted? If enabled, then values can be enclosed in " - double-quote - allowing values to contain a delimeter. Yes
Recycle on EOF? Should the file be re-read from the beginning on reaching EOF? (default is true) Yes
Stop thread on EOF? Should the thread be stopped on EOF, if Recycle is false? (default is false) Yes
Sharing mode
  • All threads - (the default) the file is shared between all the threads.
  • Current thread group - each file is opened once for each thread group in which the element appears
  • Current thread - each file is opened separately for each thread
  • Identifier - all threads sharing the same identifier share the same file. So for example if you have 4 thread groups, you could use a common id for two or more of the groups to share the file between them. Or you could use the thread number to share the file between the same thread numbers in different thread groups.
Yes


18.4.2 FTP Request Defaults

Control Panel


18.4.3 HTTP Authorization Manager

If there is more than one Authorization Manager in the scope of a Sampler, there is currently no way to specify which one is to be used.

The Authorization Manager lets you specify one or more user logins for web pages that are restricted using server authentication. You see this type of authentication when you use your browser to access a restricted page, and your browser displays a login dialog box. JMeter transmits the login information when it encounters this type of page.

The Authorisation headers are not shown in the Tree View Listener.

In versions of JMeter after 2.2, the HttpClient sampler defaults to pre-emptive authentication if the setting has not been defined. To disable this, set the values as below, in which case authentication will only be performed in response to a challenge. 


jmeter.properties:
httpclient.parameters.file=httpclient.parameters

httpclient.parameters:
http.authentication.preemptive$Boolean=false
Note: the above settings only apply to the HttpClient sampler (and the SOAP samplers, which use Httpclient).

When looking for a match against a URL, JMeter checks each entry in turn, and stops when it finds the first match. Thus the most specific URLs should appear first in the list, followed by less specific ones. Duplicate URLs will be ignored. If you want to use different usernames/passwords for different threads, you can use variables. These can be set up using a CSV Data Set Config Element (for example).

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Base URL A partial or complete URL that matches one or more HTTP Request URLs. As an example, say you specify a Base URL of "http://jmeter.apache.org/restricted/" with a username of "jmeter" and a password of "jmeter". If you send an HTTP request to the URL "http://jmeter.apache.org/restricted/ant/myPage.html", the Authorization Manager sends the login information for the user named, "jmeter". Yes
Username The username to authorize. Yes
Password The password for the user. (N.B. this is stored unencrypted in the test plan) Yes
Domain The domain to use for NTLM. No
Realm The realm to use for NTLM. No

The Realm only applies to the HttpClient sampler. In JMeter 2.2, the domain and realm did not have separate columns, and were encoded as part of the user name in the form: [domain\]username[@realm]. This was an experimental feature and has been removed.


Controls:
  • Add Button - Add an entry to the authorization table.
  • Delete Button - Delete the currently selected table entry.
  • Load Button - Load a previously saved authorization table and add the entries to the existing authorization table entries.
  • Save As Button - Save the current authorization table to a file.

When you save the Test Plan, JMeter automatically saves all of the authorization table entries - including any passwords, which are not encrypted.

Authorization Example

Download this example. In this example, we created a Test Plan on a local server that sends three HTTP requests, two requiring a login and the other is open to everyone. See figure 10 to see the makeup of our Test Plan. On our server, we have a restricted directory named, "secret", which contains two files, "index.html" and "index2.html". We created a login id named, "kevin", which has a password of "spot". So, in our Authorization Manager, we created an entry for the restricted directory and a username and password (see figure 11). The two HTTP requests named "SecretPage1" and "SecretPage2" make requests to "/secret/index.html" and "/secret/index2.html". The other HTTP request, named "NoSecretPage" makes a request to "/index.html".


Figure 10 - Test Plan


Figure 11 - Authorization Manager Control Panel

When we run the Test Plan, JMeter looks in the Authorization table for the URL it is requesting. If the Base URL matches the URL, then JMeter passes this information along with the request.

You can download the Test Plan, but since it is built as a test for our local server, you will not be able to run it. However, you can use it as a reference in constructing your own Test Plan.


18.4.4 HTTP Cache Manager

This is a new element, and is liable to change

The HTTP Cache Manager is used to add caching functionality to HTTP requests within its scope.

If a sample is successful (i.e. has response code 2xx) then the Last-Modified and Etag (and Expired if relevant) values are saved for the URL. Before executing the next sample, the sampler checks to see if there is an entry in the cache, and if so, the If-Last-Modified and If-None-Match conditional headers are set for the request.

Additionally, if the "Use Cache-Control/Expires header" option is selected, then the Cache-Control/Expires value is checked against the current time. If the request is a GET request, and the timestamp is in the future, then the sampler returns immediately, without requesting the URL from the remote server. This is intended to emulate browser behaviour. Note that if Cache-Control header is "no-cache", the response will be stored in cache as pre-expired, so will generate a conditional GET request. If Cache-Control has any other value, the "max-age" expiry option is processed to compute entry lifetime, if missing then expire header will be used, if also missing entry will be cached as specified in RFC 2616 section 13.2.4. using Last-Modified time and response Date.

By default, Cache Manager will store up to 5000 items in cache using LRU algorithm. Use property to modify this value. Note that the more you increase this value the more HTTP Cache Manager will consume memory, so be sure to adapt -Xmx option.

If the requested document has not changed since it was cached, then the response body will be empty. Likewise if the Expires date is in the future. This may cause problems for Assertions.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Clear cache each iteration If selected, then the cache is cleared at the start of the thread. Yes
Use Cache Control/Expires header when processing GET requests See description above. Yes
Max Number of elements in cache See description above. Yes


18.4.4 HTTP Cookie Manager

If there is more than one Cookie Manager in the scope of a Sampler, there is currently no way to specify which one is to be used. Also, a cookie stored in one cookie manager is not available to any other manager, so use multiple Cookie Managers with care.

The Cookie Manager element has two functions:
First, it stores and sends cookies just like a web browser. If you have an HTTP Request and the response contains a cookie, the Cookie Manager automatically stores that cookie and will use it for all future requests to that particular web site. Each JMeter thread has its own "cookie storage area". So, if you are testing a web site that uses a cookie for storing session information, each JMeter thread will have its own session. Note that such cookies do not appear on the Cookie Manager display, but they can be seen using the View Results Tree Listener.

JMeter version 2.3.2 and earlier did not check that received cookies were valid for the URL. This meant that cross-domain cookies were stored, and might be used later. This has been fixed in later versions. To revert to the earlier behaviour, define the JMeter property "CookieManager.check.cookies=false".

Received Cookies can be stored as JMeter thread variables (versions of JMeter after 2.3.2 no longer do this by default). To save cookies as variables, define the property "CookieManager.save.cookies=true". Also, cookies names are prefixed with "COOKIE_" before they are stored (this avoids accidental corruption of local variables) To revert to the original behaviour, define the property "CookieManager.name.prefix= " (one or more spaces). If enabled, the value of a cookie with the name TEST can be referred to as ${COOKIE_TEST}.

Second, you can manually add a cookie to the Cookie Manager. However, if you do this, the cookie will be shared by all JMeter threads.

Note that such Cookies are created with an Expiration time far in the future

Since version 2.0.3, cookies with null values are ignored by default. This can be changed by setting the JMeter property: CookieManager.delete_null_cookies=false. Note that this also applies to manually defined cookies - any such cookies will be removed from the display when it is updated. Note also that the cookie name must be unique - if a second cookie is defined with the same name, it will replace the first.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Clear Cookies each Iteration If selected, all server-defined cookies are cleared each time the main Thread Group loop is executed. In JMeter versions after 2.3, any cookies defined in the GUI are not cleared. Yes
Cookie Policy The cookie policy that will be used to manage the cookies. "compatibility" is the default, and should work in most cases. See http://hc.apache.org/httpclient-3.x/cookies.html and http://hc.apache.org/httpclient-3.x/apidocs/org/apache/commons/httpclient/cookie/CookiePolicy.html [Note: "ignoreCookies" is equivalent to omitting the CookieManager.] Yes
Implementation HC3CookieHandler (HttpClient 3.1 API) or HC4CookieHandler (HttpClient 4 API). Default is HC3CookieHandler.
[Note: If your have a website to test with IPv6 address, choose HC4CookieHandler (IPv6 compliant)] 		Yes
User-Defined Cookies This gives you the opportunity to use hardcoded cookies that will be used by all threads during the test execution.
The "domain" is the hostname of the server (without http://); the port is currently ignored. 		No (discouraged, unless you know what you're doing)
Add Button Add an entry to the cookie table. N/A
Delete Button Delete the currently selected table entry. N/A
Load Button Load a previously saved cookie table and add the entries to the existing cookie table entries. N/A
Save As Button Save the current cookie table to a file (does not save any cookies extracted from HTTP Responses). N/A


18.4.5 HTTP Request Defaults

This element lets you set default values that your HTTP Request controllers use. For example, if you are creating a Test Plan with 25 HTTP Request controllers and all of the requests are being sent to the same server, you could add a single HTTP Request Defaults element with the "Server Name or IP" field filled in. Then, when you add the 25 HTTP Request controllers, leave the "Server Name or IP" field empty. The controllers will inherit this field value from the HTTP Request Defaults element.

In JMeter 2.2 and earlier, port 80 was treated specially - it was ignored if the sampler used the https protocol. JMeter 2.3 and later treat all port values equally; a sampler that does not specify a port will use the HTTP Request Defaults port, if one is provided.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Server Domain name or IP address of the web server. e.g. www.example.com. [Do not include the http:// prefix. No
Port Port the web server is listening to. No
Connect Timeout Connection Timeout. Number of milliseconds to wait for a connection to open. Requires Java 1.5 or later when using the default Java HTTP implementation. No
Response Timeout Response Timeout. Number of milliseconds to wait for a response. Requires Java 1.5 or later when using the default Java HTTP implementation. No
Implementation Java, HttpClient3.1, HttpClient4. If not specified the default depends on the value of the JMeter property jmeter.httpsampler , failing that, the Java implementation is used. No
Protocol HTTP or HTTPS. No
Method HTTP GET or HTTP POST. No
Path The path to resource (for example, /servlets/myServlet). If the resource requires query string parameters, add them below in the "Send Parameters With the Request" section. Note that the path is the default for the full path, not a prefix to be applied to paths specified on the HTTP Request screens. No
Send Parameters With the Request The query string will be generated from the list of parameters you provide. Each parameter has a name and value . The query string will be generated in the correct fashion, depending on the choice of "Method" you made (ie if you chose GET, the query string will be appended to the URL, if POST, then it will be sent separately). Also, if you are sending a file using a multipart form, the query string will be created using the multipart form specifications. No
Server (proxy) Hostname or IP address of a proxy server to perform request. [Do not include the http:// prefix.] No
Port Port the proxy server is listening to. No, unless proxy hostname is specified
Username (Optional) username for proxy server. No
Password (Optional) password for proxy server. (N.B. this is stored unencrypted in the test plan) No
Retrieve All Embedded Resources from HTML Files Tell JMeter to parse the HTML file and send HTTP/HTTPS requests for all images, Java applets, JavaScript files, CSSs, etc. referenced in the file. No
Use concurrent pool Use a pool of concurrent connections to get embedded resources. No
Size Pool size for concurrent connections used to get embedded resources. No
Embedded URLs must match: If present, this must be a regular expression that is used to match against any embedded URLs found. So if you only want to download embedded resources from http://example.com/, use the expression: http://example\.com/.* No

Note: radio buttons only have two states - on or off. This makes it impossible to override settings consistently - does off mean off, or does it mean use the current default? JMeter uses the latter (otherwise defaults would not work at all). So if the button is off, then a later element can set it on, but if the button is on, a later element cannot set it off.


18.4.6 HTTP Header Manager

The Header Manager lets you add or override HTTP request headers.

Versions of JMeter up to 2.3.2 supported only one Header Manager per sampler; if there were more in scope, then only the last one would be used.

JMeter now supports multiple Header Managers . The header entries are merged to form the list for the sampler. If an entry to be merged matches an existing header name, it replaces the previous entry, unless the entry value is empty, in which case any existing entry is removed. This allows one to set up a default set of headers, and apply adjustments to particular samplers.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Name (Header) Name of the request header. Two common request headers you may want to experiment with are "User-Agent" and "Referer". No (You should have at least one, however)
Value Request header value. No (You should have at least one, however)
Add Button Add an entry to the header table. N/A
Delete Button Delete the currently selected table entry. N/A
Load Button Load a previously saved header table and add the entries to the existing header table entries. N/A
Save As Button Save the current header table to a file. N/A

Header Manager example

Download this example. In this example, we created a Test Plan that tells JMeter to override the default "User-Agent" request header and use a particular Internet Explorer agent string instead. (see figures 12 and 13).


Figure 12 - Test Plan


Figure 13 - Header Manager Control Panel


18.4.7 Java Request Defaults

The Java Request Defaults component lets you set default values for Java testing. See the Java Request .

Control Panel


18.4.8 JDBC Connection Configuration
Creates a database connection (used by JDBC Request Sampler) from the supplied JDBC Connection settings. The connection may be optionally pooled between threads. Otherwise each thread gets its own connection. The connection configuration name is used by the JDBC Sampler to select the appropriate connection.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for the connection configuration that is shown in the tree. No
Variable Name The name of the variable the connection is tied to. Multiple connections can be used, each tied to a different variable, allowing JDBC Samplers to select the appropriate connection. Each name must be different. If there are two configuration elements using the same name, only one will be saved. JMeter versions after 2.3 log a message if a duplicate name is detected. Yes
Max Number of Connections Maximum number of connections allowed in the pool. In most cases, set this to zero (0) . This means that each thread will get its own pool with a single connection in it, i.e. the connections are not shared betweeen threads.
If you really want to use shared pooling (why?), then set the max count to the same as the number of threads to ensure threads don't wait on each other. 		Yes
Pool timeout Pool throws an error if the timeout period is exceeded in the process of trying to retrieve a connection Yes
Idle Cleanup Interval (ms) Uncertain what exactly this does. Yes
Auto Commit Turn auto commit on or off for the connections. Yes
Keep-alive Uncertain what exactly this does. Yes
Max Connection Age (ms) Uncertain what exactly this does. Yes
Validation Query A simple query used to determine if the database is still responding. Yes
Database URL JDBC Connection string for the database. Yes
JDBC Driver class Fully qualified name of driver class. (Must be in JMeter's classpath - easiest to copy .jar file into JMeter's /lib directory). Yes
Username Name of user to connect as. No
Password Password to connect with. (N.B. this is stored unencrypted in the test plan) No

Different databases and JDBC drivers require different JDBC settings. The Database URL and JDBC Driver class are defined by the provider of the JDBC implementation.

Some possible settings are shown below. Please check the exact details in the JDBC driver documentation.

If JMeter reports No suitable driver , then this could mean either:

  • The driver class was not found. In this case, there will be a log message such as DataSourceElement: Could not load driver: {classname} java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: {classname}
  • The driver class was found, but the class does not support the connection string. This could be because of a syntax error in the connection string, or because the the wrong classname was used.
If the database server is not running or is not accessible, then JMeter will report a java.net.ConnectException .

Database Driver class Database URL
MySQL com.mysql.jdbc.Driver jdbc:mysql://host[:port]/dbname
PostgreSQL org.postgresql.Driver jdbc:postgresql:{dbname}
Oracle oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver jdbc:oracle:thin:@//host:port/service OR
jdbc:oracle:thin:@(description=(address=(host={mc-name})(protocol=tcp)(port={port-no}))(connect_data=(sid={sid})))
Ingres (2006) ingres.jdbc.IngresDriver jdbc:ingres://host:port/db[;attr=value]
SQL Server (MS JDBC driver) com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver jdbc:sqlserver://host:port;DatabaseName=dbname
Apache Derby org.apache.derby.jdbc.ClientDriver jdbc:derby://server[:port]/databaseName[;URLAttributes=value[;...]]

The above may not be correct - please check the relevant JDBC driver documentation.


18.4.9 Keystore Configuration

The Keystore Config Element lets you configure how Keystore will be loaded and which keys it will use. This component is typically used in HTTPS scenarios where you don't want to take into account keystore initialization into account in response time.

To use this element, you need to setup first a Java Key Store with the client certificates you want to test, to do that:

  1. Create your certificates either with Java keytool utility or through your PKI
  2. If created by PKI, import your keys in Java Key Store by converting them to a format acceptable by JKS
  3. Then reference the keystore file through the 2 JVM properties (or add them in system.properties):
    • -Djavax.net.ssl.keyStore=path_to_keystore
    • -Djavax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword=password_of_keystore

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Preload Wether or not to preload Keystore. Yes
Alias Start Index The index of the first key to use in Keystore, 0-based. Yes
Alias End Index The index of the last key to use in Keystore, 0-based. Yes

To make JMeter use more than one certificate you need to ensure that:
  • https.use.cached.ssl.context=false is set in jmeter.properties or user.properties
  • You use either HTTPClient 3.1 or 4 implementations for HTTP Request


18.4.10 Login Config Element

The Login Config Element lets you add or override username and password settings in samplers that use username and password as part of their setup.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Username The default username to use. No
Password The default password to use. (N.B. this is stored unencrypted in the test plan) No


18.4.11 LDAP Request Defaults

The LDAP Request Defaults component lets you set default values for LDAP testing. See the LDAP Request .

Control Panel


18.4.12 LDAP Extended Request Defaults

The LDAP Extended Request Defaults component lets you set default values for extended LDAP testing. See the LDAP Extended Request .

Control Panel


18.4.13 TCP Sampler Config

The TCP Sampler Config provides default data for the TCP Sampler

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
TCPClient classname Name of the TCPClient class. Defaults to the property tcp.handler, failing that TCPClientImpl. No
ServerName or IP Name or IP of TCP server No
Port Number Port to be used No
Re-use connection If selected, the connection is kept open. Otherwise it is closed when the data has been read. Yes
Connect Timeout Connect Timeout (milliseconds, 0 disables). No
Response Timeout Response Timeout (milliseconds, 0 disables). No
Set Nodelay Should the nodelay property be set? No
Text to Send Text to be sent No


18.4.14 User Defined Variables

The User Defined Variables element lets you define an initial set of variables , just as in the Test Plan . Note that all the UDV elements in a test plan - no matter where they are - are processed at the start. So you cannot reference variables which are defined as part of a test run, e.g. in a Post-Processor.

UDVs should not be used with functions that generate different results each time they are called. Only the result of the first function call will be saved in the variable. However, UDVs can be used with functions such as __P(), for example: 


HOST      ${__P(host,localhost)}
which would define the variable "HOST" to have the value of the JMeter property "host", defaulting to "localhost" if not defined.

For defining variables during a test run, see User Parameters . UDVs are processed in the order they appear in the Plan, from top to bottom.

For simplicity, it is suggested that UDVs are placed only at the start of a Thread Group (or perhaps under the Test Plan itself).

Once the Test Plan and all UDVs have been processed, the resulting set of variables is copied to each thread to provide the initial set of variables.

If a runtime element such as a User Parameters Pre-Processor or Regular Expression Extractor defines a variable with the same name as one of the UDV variables, then this will replace the initial value, and all other test elements in the thread will see the updated value.

Control Panel

If you have more than one Thread Group, make sure you use different names for different values, as UDVs are shared between Thread Groups. Also, the variables are not available for use until after the element has been processed, so you cannot reference variables that are defined in the same element. You can reference variables defined in earlier UDVs or on the Test Plan.

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
User Defined Variables Variable name/value pairs. The string under the "Name" column is what you'll need to place inside the brackets in ${...} constructs to use the variables later on. The whole ${...} will then be replaced by the string in the "Value" column. No


18.4.15 Random Variable

The Random Variable Config Element is used to generate random numeric strings and store them in variable for use later. It's simpler than using User Defined Variables together with the __Random() function.

The output variable is constructed by using the random number generator, and then the resulting number is formatted using the format string. The number is calculated using the formula minimum+Random.nextInt(maximum-minimum+1) . Random.nextInt() requires a positive integer. This means that maximum-minimum - i.e. the range - must be less than 2147483647, however the minimum and maximum values can be any long values so long as the range is OK.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. Yes
Variable Name The name of the variable in which to store the random string. Yes
Format String The java.text.DecimalFormat format string to be used. For example "000" which will generate numbers with at least 3 digits, or "USER_000" which will generate output of the form USER_nnn. If not specified, the default is to generate the number using Long.toString() No
Minimum Value The minimum value (long) of the generated random number. Yes
Maximum Value The maximum value (long) of the generated random number. Yes
Random Seed The seed for the random number generator. Default is the current time in milliseconds. No
Per Thread(User)? If False, the generator is shared between all threads in the thread group. If True, then each thread has its own random generator. Yes


18.4.16 Counter

Allows the user to create a counter that can be referenced anywhere in the Thread Group. The counter config lets the user configure a starting point, a maximum, and the increment. The counter will loop from the start to the max, and then start over with the start, continuing on like that until the test is ended.

From version 2.1.2, the counter now uses a long to store the value, so the range is from -2^63 to 2^63-1.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Start The starting number for the counter. The counter will equal this number during the first iteration. Yes
Increment How much to increment the counter by after each iteration. Yes
Maximum If the counter exceeds the maximum, then it is reset to the Start value. For versions after 2.2 the default is Long.MAX_VALUE (previously it was 0). No
Format Optional format, e.g. 000 will format as 001, 002 etc. This is passed to DecimalFormat, so any valid formats can be used. If there is a problem interpreting the format, then it is ignored. [The default format is generated using Long.toString()] No
Reference Name This controls how you refer to this value in other elements. Syntax is as in user-defined values : $(reference_name} . Yes
Track Counter Independently for each User In other words, is this a global counter, or does each user get their own counter? If unchecked, the counter is global (ie, user #1 will get value "1", and user #2 will get value "2" on the first iteration). If checked, each user has an independent counter. No
Reset counter on each Thread Group Iteration This option is only available when counter is tracked per User, if checked, counter will be reset to Start value on each Thread Group iteration. This can be useful when Counter is inside a Loop Controller. No


18.4.17 Simple Config Element

The Simple Config Element lets you add or override arbitrary values in samplers. You can choose the name of the value and the value itself. Although some adventurous users might find a use for this element, it's here primarily for developers as a basic GUI that they can use while developing new JMeter components.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. Yes
Parameter Name The name of each parameter. These values are internal to JMeter's workings and are not generally documented. Only those familiar with the code will know these values. Yes
Parameter Value The value to apply to that parameter. Yes


^


18.5 Assertions

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.

Note: Unless documented otherwise, Assertions are not applied to sub-samples (child samples) - only to the parent sample. In the case of BSF and BeanShell Assertions, the script can retrieve sub-samples using the method prev.getSubResults() which returns an array of SampleResults. The array will be empty if there are none.

Versions of JMeter after 2.3.2 include the option to apply certain assertions to either the main sample, the sub-samples or both. The default is to apply the assertion to the main sample only. If the Assertion supports this option, then there will be an entry on the GUI which looks like the following:


Assertion Scope

or the following


Assertion Scope

If a sub-sampler fails and the main sample is successful, then the main sample will be set to failed status and an Assertion Result will be added. If the JMeter variable option is used, it is assumed to relate to the main sample, and any failure will be applied to the main sample only.

The variable JMeterThread.last_sample_ok is updated to "true" or "false" after all assertions for a sampler have been run.

18.5.1 Response Assertion

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: Perl5-style regular expressions
  • Equals, Substring: plain text, case-sensitive

A summary of the pattern matching characters can be found at http://jakarta.apache.org/oro/api/org/apache/oro/text/regex/package-summary.html

You can also choose whether the strings will be expected to match the entire response, or if the response is only expected to contain the pattern. You can attach multiple assertions to any controller for additional flexibility.

Note that the pattern string should not include the enclosing delimiters, i.e. use Price: \d+ not /Price: \d+/ .

By default, the pattern is in multi-line mode, which means that the "." meta-character does not match newline. In multi-line mode, "^" and "$" match the start or end of any line anywhere within the string - not just the start and end of the entire string. Note that \s does match new-line. Case is also significant. To override these settings, one can use the extended regular expression syntax. For example: 


	(?i) - ignore case
	(?s) - treat target as single line, i.e. "." matches new-line
	(?is) - both the above
    These can be used anywhere within the expression and remain in effect until overriden.  e.g.
    (?i)apple(?-i) Pie - matches "ApPLe Pie", but not "ApPLe pIe"
    (?s)Apple.+?Pie - matches Apple followed by Pie, which may be on a subsequent line.
    Apple(?s).+?Pie - same as above, but it's probably clearer to use the (?s) at the start.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Apply to: This is for use with samplers that can generate sub-samples, e.g. HTTP Sampler with embedded resources, Mail Reader or samples generated by the Transaction Controller.
  • Main sample only - assertion only applies to the main sample
  • Sub-samples only - assertion only applies to the sub-samples
  • Main sample and sub-samples - assertion applies to both.
  • JMeter Variable - assertion is to be applied to the contents of the named variable
Yes
Response Field to Test Instructs JMeter which field of the Response to test.
  • Text Response - the response text from the server, i.e. the body, excluing any HTTP headers.
  • URL sampled
  • Response Code - e.g. 200
  • Response Message - e.g. OK
  • Response Headers, including Set-Cookie headers (if any)
Yes
Ignore status Instructs JMeter to set the status to success initially.

The overall success of the sample is determined by combining the result of the assertion with the existing Response status. When the Ignore Status checkbox is selected, the Response status is forced to successful before evaluating the Assertion.

HTTP Responses with statuses in the 4xx and 5xx ranges are normally regarded as unsuccessful. The "Ignore status" checkbox can be used to set the status successful before performing further checks. Note that this will have the effect of clearing any previous assertion failures, so make sure that this is only set on the first assertion. 		Yes
Pattern Matching Rules Indicates how the text being tested is checked against the pattern.
  • Contains - true if the text contains the regular expression pattern
  • Matches - true if the whole text matches the regular expression pattern
  • Equals - true if the whole text equals the pattern string (case-sensitive)
  • Substring - true if the text contains the pattern string (case-sensitive)
Equals and Substring patterns are plain strings, not regular expressions. NOT may also be selected to invert the result of the check. 		Yes
Patterns to Test A list of patterns to be tested. Each pattern is tested separately. If a pattern fails, then further patterns are not checked. There is no difference between setting up one Assertion with multiple patterns and setting up multiple Assertions with one pattern each (assuming the other options are the same). However, when the Ignore Status checkbox is selected, this has the effect of cancelling any previous assertion failures - so make sure that the Ignore Status checkbox is only used on the first Assertion. Yes

The pattern is a Perl5-style regular expression, but without the enclosing brackets.

Assertion Examples


Figure 14 - Test Plan


Figure 15 - Assertion Control Panel with Pattern


Figure 16 - Assertion Listener Results (Pass)


Figure 17 - Assertion Listener Results (Fail)


18.5.2 Duration Assertion

The Duration Assertion tests that each response was received within a given amount of time. Any response that takes longer than the given number of milliseconds (specified by the user) is marked as a failed response.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Duration in Milliseconds The maximum number of milliseconds each response is allowed before being marked as failed. Yes


18.5.3 Size Assertion

The Size Assertion tests that each response contains the right number of bytes in it. You can specify that the size be equal to, greater than, less than, or not equal to a given number of bytes.

Since JMeter 2.3RC3, an empty response is treated as being 0 bytes rather than reported as an error.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Apply to: This is for use with samplers that can generate sub-samples, e.g. HTTP Sampler with embedded resources, Mail Reader or samples generated by the Transaction Controller.
  • Main sample only - assertion only applies to the main sample
  • Sub-samples only - assertion only applies to the sub-samples
  • Main sample and sub-samples - assertion applies to both.
  • JMeter Variable - assertion is to be applied to the contents of the named variable
Yes
Size in bytes The number of bytes to use in testing the size of the response (or value of the JMeter variable). Yes
Type of Comparison Whether to test that the response is equal to, greater than, less than, or not equal to, the number of bytes specified. Yes


18.5.4 XML Assertion

The XML Assertion tests that the response data consists of a formally correct XML document. It does not validate the XML based on a DTD or schema or do any further validation.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No


18.5.5 BeanShell Assertion

The BeanShell Assertion allows the user to perform assertion checking using a BeanShell script.

For full details on using BeanShell, please see the BeanShell website.

Note that a different Interpreter is used for each independent occurence of the assertion in each thread in a test script, but the same Interpreter is used for subsequent invocations. This means that variables persist across calls to the assertion.

All Assertions are called from the same thread as the sampler.

If the property "beanshell.assertion.init" is defined, it is passed to the Interpreter as the name of a sourced file. This can be used to define common methods and variables. There is a sample init file in the bin directory: BeanShellAssertion.bshrc

The test element supports the ThreadListener and TestListener methods. These should be defined in the initialisation file. See the file BeanShellListeners.bshrc for example definitions.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. The name is stored in the script variable Label No
Reset bsh.Interpreter before each call If this option is selected, then the interpreter will be recreated for each sample. This may be necessary for some long running scripts. For further information, see Best Practices - BeanShell scripting . Yes
Parameters Parameters to pass to the BeanShell script. The parameters are stored in the following variables:
  • Parameters - string containing the parameters as a single variable
  • bsh.args - String array containing parameters, split on white-space
No
Script file A file containing the BeanShell script to run. This overrides the script. The file name is stored in the script variable FileName No
Script The BeanShell script to run. The return value is ignored. Yes (unless script file is provided)

There's a sample script you can try.

Before invoking the script, some variables are set up in the BeanShell interpreter. These are strings unless otherwise noted:

  • log - the Logger Object. (e.g.) log.warn("Message"[,Throwable])
  • SampleResult - the SampleResult Object; read-write
  • Response - the response Object; read-write
  • Failure - boolean; read-write; used to set the Assertion status
  • FailureMessage - String; read-write; used to set the Assertion message
  • ResponseData - the response body (byte [])
  • ResponseCode - e.g. 200
  • ResponseMessage - e.g. OK
  • ResponseHeaders - contains the HTTP headers
  • RequestHeaders - contains the HTTP headers sent to the server
  • SampleLabel
  • SamplerData - data that was sent to the server
  • ctx - JMeterContext
  • vars - JMeterVariables - e.g. vars.get("VAR1"); vars.put("VAR2","value"); vars.putObject("OBJ1",new Object());
  • props - JMeterProperties (class java.util.Properties) - e.g. props.get("START.HMS"); props.put("PROP1","1234");

The following methods of the Response object may be useful:

  • setStopThread(boolean)
  • setStopTest(boolean)
  • String getSampleLabel()
  • setSampleLabel(String)


18.5.6 MD5Hex Assertion

The MD5Hex Assertion allows the user to check the MD5 hash of the response data.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
MD5 sum 32 hex digits representing the MD5 hash (case not significant) Yes


18.5.7 HTML Assertion

The HTML Assertion allows the user to check the HTML syntax of the response data using JTidy.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
doctype omit/auto/strict/loose Yes
Format HTML, XHTML or XML Yes
Errors only Only take note of errors? Yes
Error threshold Number of errors allowed before classing the response as failed Yes
Warning threshold Number of warnings allowed before classing the response as failed Yes
Filename Name of file to which report is written No


18.5.8 XPath Assertion

The XPath Assertion tests a document for well formedness, has the option of validating against a DTD, or putting the document through JTidy and testing for an XPath. If that XPath exists, the Assertion is true. Using "/" will match any well-formed document, and is the default XPath Expression. The assertion also supports boolean expressions, such as "count(//*error)=2". See http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath for more information on XPath.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Use Tidy (tolerant parser) Use Tidy, i.e. be tolerant of XML/HTML errors Yes
Quiet Sets the Tidy Quiet flag If Tidy is selected
Report Errors If a Tidy error occurs, then set the Assertion accordingly If Tidy is selected
Show warnings Sets the Tidy showWarnings option If Tidy is selected
Use Namespaces Should namespaces be honoured? If Tidy is not selected
Validate XML Check the document against its schema. If Tidy is not selected
Ignore Whitespace Ignore Element Whitespace. If Tidy is not selected
Fetch External DTDs If selected, external DTDs are fetched. If Tidy is not selected
XPath Assertion XPath to match in the document. Yes
True if nothing matches True if a XPath expression is not matched No

The non-tolerant parser can be quite slow, as it may need to download the DTD etc.

To overcome Xalan XPath parser implementation on which JMeter is based, you can help the parsing by providing a Properties file which will contain:
  • prefix1=Full Namespace 1
  • prefix2=Full Namespace 2
  • ...
You reference this file in jmeter.properties file using the property:
  • xpath.namespace.config


18.5.9 XML Schema Assertion

The XML Schema Assertion allows the user to validate a response against an XML Schema.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
File Name Specify XML Schema File Name Yes


18.5.10 BSF Assertion

The BSF Assertion allows BSF script code to be used to check the status of the previous sample.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Language The BSF language to be used Yes
Parameters Parameters to pass to the script. The parameters are stored in the following variables:
  • Parameters - string containing the parameters as a single variable
  • args - String array containing parameters, split on white-space
No
Script file A file containing the script to run. No
Script The script to run. Yes (unless script file is provided)

The script (or file) is processed using the BSFEngine.exec() method, which does not return a value.

The following variables are set up for use by the script:

  • log - (Logger) - can be used to write to the log file
  • Label - the String Label
  • Filename - the script file name (if any)
  • Parameters - the parameters (as a String)
  • args[] - the parameters as a String array (split on whitespace)
  • ctx - (JMeterContext) - gives access to the context
  • vars - ( JMeterVariables ) - gives read/write access to variables: vars.get(key); vars.put(key,val); vars.putObject("OBJ1",new Object()); vars.getObject("OBJ2");
  • props - (JMeterProperties - class java.util.Properties) - e.g. props.get("START.HMS"); props.put("PROP1","1234");
  • SampleResult, prev - (SampleResult) - gives access to the previous SampleResult (if any)
  • sampler - (Sampler)- gives access to the current sampler
  • OUT - System.out - e.g. OUT.println("message")
  • AssertionResult - the assertion result

The script can check various aspects of the SampleResult. If an error is detected, the script should use AssertionResult.setFailureMessage("message") and AssertionResult.setFailure(true).

For futher details of all the methods available on each of the above variables, please check the Javadoc


18.5.11 JSR223 Assertion

The JSR223 Assertion allows JSR223 script code to be used to check the status of the previous sample. For details, see BSF Assertion .


18.5.12 Compare Assertion
The Compare Assertion can be used to compare sample results within its scope. Either the contents or the elapsed time can be compared, and the contents can be filtered before comparison. The assertion comparisons can be seen in the Comparison Assertion Visualizer .

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Compare Content Whether or not to compare the content (response data) Yes
Compare Time If the value is >=0, then check if the response time difference is no greater than the value. I.e. if the value is 0, then the response times must be exactly equal. Yes
Comparison Filters Filters can be used to remove strings from the content comparison. For example, if the page has a time-stamp, it might be matched with: "Time: \d\d:\d\d:\d\d" and replaced with a dummy fixed time "Time: HH:MM:SS". No


18.5.13 SMIME Assertion
The SMIME Assertion can be used to evaluate the sample results from the Mail Reader Sampler. This assertion verifies if the body of a mime message is signed or not. The signature can also be verified against a specific signer certificate. As this is a functionality that is not necessarily needed by most users, additional jars need to be downloaded and added to JMETER_HOME/lib :
  • bcmail-xxx.jar (BouncyCastle SMIME/CMS)
  • bcprov-xxx.jar (BouncyCastle Provider)
These need to be downloaded from BouncyCastle.

If using the Mail Reader Sampler , please ensure that you select "Store the message using MIME (raw)" otherwise the Assertion won't be able to process the message correctly.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Verify Signature If selected, the asertion will verify if it is a valid signature according to the parameters defined in the Signer Certificate box. Yes
Message not signed Whether or not to expect a signature in the message Yes
Signer Cerificate "No Check" means that it wil not perform signature verification. "Check values" is used to verify the signature against the inputs provided. And "Certificate file" will perform the verification against a specific certificate file. Yes
Message Position The Mail sampler can retrieve multiple messages in a single sample. Use this field to specify which message will be checked. Messages are numbered from 0, so 0 means the first message. Negative numbers count from the LAST message; -1 means LAST, -2 means penultimate etc. Yes


^


18.6 Timers

Note that timers are processed before each sampler in the scope in which they are found; if there are several timers in the same scope, all the timers will be processed before each sampler.
Timers are only processed in conjunction with a sampler. A timer which is not in the same scope as a sampler will not be processed at all.
To apply a timer to a single sampler, add the timer as a child element of the sampler. The timer will be applied before the sampler is executed. To apply a timer after a sampler, either add it to the next sampler, or add it as the child of a Test Action Sampler.

18.6.1 Constant Timer

If you want to have each thread pause for the same amount of time between requests, use this timer.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this timer that is shown in the tree. No
Thread Delay Number of milliseconds to pause. Yes


18.6.2 Gaussian Random Timer

This timer pauses each thread request for a random amount of time, with most of the time intervals ocurring near a particular value. The total delay is the sum of the Gaussian distributed value (with mean 0.0 and standard deviation 1.0) times the deviation value you specify, and the offset value.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this timer that is shown in the tree No
Deviation Deviation in milliseconds. Yes
Constant Delay Offset Number of milliseconds to pause in addition to the random delay. Yes


18.6.3 Uniform Random Timer

This timer pauses each thread request for a random amount of time, with each time interval having the same probability of occurring. The total delay is the sum of the random value and the offset value.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this timer that is shown in the tree. No
Random Delay Maximum Maxium random number of milliseconds to pause. Yes
Constant Delay Offset Number of milliseconds to pause in addition to the random delay. Yes


18.6.4 Constant Throughput Timer

This timer introduces variable pauses, calculated to keep the total throughput (in terms of samples per minute) as close as possible to a give figure. Of course the throughput will be lower if the server is not capable of handling it, or if other timers or time-consuming test elements prevent it.

N.B. although the Timer is called the Constant Throughput timer, the throughput value does not need to be constant. It can be defined in terms of a variable or function call, and the value can be changed during a test. The value can be changed in various ways:

  • using a counter variable
  • using a JavaScript or BeanShell function to provide a changing value
  • using the remote BeanShell server to change a JMeter property

See Best Practices for further details. Note that the throughput value should not be changed too often during a test - it will take a while for the new value to take effect.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this timer that is shown in the tree. No
Target Throughput Throughput we want the timer to try to generate. Yes
Calculate Throughput based on
  • this thread only - each thread will try to maintain the target throughput. The overall throughput will be proportional to the number of active threads.
  • all active threads in current thread group - the target throughput is divided amongst all the active threads in the group. Each thread will delay as needed, based on when it last ran.
  • all active threads - the target throughput is divided amongst all the active threads in all Thread Groups. Each thread will delay as needed, based on when it last ran. In this case, each other Thread Group will need a Constant Throughput timer with the same settings.
  • all active threads in current thread group (shared) - as above, but each thread is delayed based on when any thread in the group last ran.
  • all active threads (shared) - as above; each thread is delayed based on when any thread last ran.
Yes


18.6.5 Synchronizing Timer

The purpose of the SyncTimer is to block threads until X number of threads have been blocked, and then they are all released at once. A SyncTimer can thus create large instant loads at various points of the test plan.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this timer that is shown in the tree. No
Number of Simultaneous Users to Group by Number of threads to release at once. Setting it to 0 is equivalent to setting it to Number of threads in Thread Group. Yes


18.6.6 BeanShell Timer

The BeanShell Timer can be used to generate a delay.

For full details on using BeanShell, please see the BeanShell website.

The test element supports the ThreadListener and TestListener methods. These should be defined in the initialisation file. See the file BeanShellListeners.bshrc for example definitions.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. The name is stored in the script variable Label No
Reset bsh.Interpreter before each call If this option is selected, then the interpreter will be recreated for each sample. This may be necessary for some long running scripts. For further information, see Best Practices - BeanShell scripting . Yes
Parameters Parameters to pass to the BeanShell script. The parameters are stored in the following variables:
  • Parameters - string containing the parameters as a single variable
  • bsh.args - String array containing parameters, split on white-space
No
Script file A file containing the BeanShell script to run. The file name is stored in the script variable FileName The return value is used as the number of milliseconds to wait. No
Script The BeanShell script. The return value is used as the number of milliseconds to wait. Yes (unless script file is provided)

Before invoking the script, some variables are set up in the BeanShell interpreter:

  • log - (Logger) - can be used to write to the log file
  • ctx - (JMeterContext) - gives access to the context
  • vars - ( JMeterVariables ) - gives read/write access to variables: vars.get(key); vars.put(key,val); vars.putObject("OBJ1",new Object());
  • props - (JMeterProperties - class java.util.Properties) - e.g. props.get("START.HMS"); props.put("PROP1","1234");
  • prev - (SampleResult) - gives access to the previous SampleResult (if any)

For details of all the methods available on each of the above variables, please check the Javadoc

If the property beanshell.timer.init is defined, this is used to load an initialisation file, which can be used to define methods etc for use in the BeanShell script.


18.6.7 BSF Timer

The BSF Timer can be used to generate a delay using a BSF scripting language.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
ScriptLanguage The scripting language to be used. Yes
Parameters Parameters to pass to the script. The parameters are stored in the following variables:
  • Parameters - string containing the parameters as a single variable
  • args - String array containing parameters, split on white-space
No
Script file A file containing the script to run. The return value is converted to a long integer and used as the number of milliseconds to wait. No
Script The script. The return value is used as the number of milliseconds to wait. Yes (unless script file is provided)

Before invoking the script, some variables are set up in the script interpreter:

  • log - (Logger) - can be used to write to the log file
  • ctx - (JMeterContext) - gives access to the context
  • vars - ( JMeterVariables ) - gives read/write access to variables: vars.get(key); vars.put(key,val); vars.putObject("OBJ1",new Object());
  • props - (JMeterProperties - class java.util.Properties) - e.g. props.get("START.HMS"); props.put("PROP1","1234");
  • sampler - the current Sampler
  • Label - the name of the Timer
  • Filename - the file name (if any)
  • OUT - System.out

For details of all the methods available on each of the above variables, please check the Javadoc


18.6.8 JSR223 Timer

The JSR223 Timer can be used to generate a delay using a JSR223 scripting language, For details, see BSF Timer .


18.6.9 Poisson Random Timer

This timer pauses each thread request for a random amount of time, with most of the time intervals ocurring near a particular value. The total delay is the sum of the Poisson distributed value, and the offset value.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this timer that is shown in the tree No
Lambda Lambda value in milliseconds. Yes
Constant Delay Offset Number of milliseconds to pause in addition to the random delay. Yes


^


18.7 Pre Processors

Preprocessors are used to modify the Samplers in their scope.

18.7.1 HTML Link Parser

This modifier parses HTML response from the server and extracts links and forms. A URL test sample that passes through this modifier will be examined to see if it "matches" any of the links or forms extracted from the immediately previous response. It would then replace the values in the URL test sample with appropriate values from the matching link or form. Perl-type regular expressions are used to find matches.

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Matches are performed using protocol, host, path and parameter names. The target sampler cannot contain parameters that are not in the response links.

Spidering Example

Consider a simple example: let's say you wanted JMeter to "spider" through your site, hitting link after link parsed from the HTML returned from your server (this is not actually the most useful thing to do, but it serves as a good example). You would create a Simple Controller , and add the "HTML Link Parser" to it. Then, create an HTTP Request, and set the domain to ".*", and the path likewise. This will cause your test sample to match with any link found on the returned pages. If you wanted to restrict the spidering to a particular domain, then change the domain value to the one you want. Then, only links to that domain will be followed.

Poll Example

A more useful example: given a web polling application, you might have a page with several poll options as radio buttons for the user to select. Let's say the values of the poll options are very dynamic - maybe user generated. If you wanted JMeter to test the poll, you could either create test samples with hardcoded values chosen, or you could let the HTML Link Parser parse the form, and insert a random poll option into your URL test sample. To do this, follow the above example, except, when configuring your Web Test controller's URL options, be sure to choose "POST" as the method. Put in hard-coded values for the domain, path, and any additional form parameters. Then, for the actual radio button parameter, put in the name (let's say it's called "poll_choice"), and then ".*" for the value of that parameter. When the modifier examines this URL test sample, it will find that it "matches" the poll form (and it shouldn't match any other form, given that you've specified all the other aspects of the URL test sample), and it will replace your form parameters with the matching parameters from the form. Since the regular expression ".*" will match with anything, the modifier will probably have a list of radio buttons to choose from. It will choose at random, and replace the value in your URL test sample. Each time through the test, a new random value will be chosen.


Figure 18 - Online Poll Example

One important thing to remember is that you must create a test sample immediately prior that will return an HTML page with the links and forms that are relevant to your dynamic test sample.


18.7.2 HTTP URL Re-writing Modifier

This modifier works similarly to the HTML Link Parser, except it has a specific purpose for which it is easier to use than the HTML Link Parser, and more efficient. For web applications that use URL Re-writing to store session ids instead of cookies, this element can be attached at the ThreadGroup level, much like the HTTP Cookie Manager . Simply give it the name of the session id parameter, and it will find it on the page and add the argument to every request of that ThreadGroup.

Alternatively, this modifier can be attached to select requests and it will modify only them. Clever users will even determine that this modifier can be used to grab values that elude the HTML Link Parser .

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name given to this element in the test tree. No
Session Argument Name The name of the parameter to grab from previous response. This modifier will find the parameter anywhere it exists on the page, and grab the value assigned to it, whether it's in an HREF or a form. Yes
Path Extension Some web apps rewrite URLs by appending a semi-colon plus the session id parameter. Check this box if that is so. No
Do not use equals in path extension Some web apps rewrite URLs without using an "=" sign between the parameter name and value (such as Intershop Enfinity). No
Do not use questionmark in path extension Prevents the query string to end up in the path extension (such as Intershop Enfinity). No
Cache Session Id? Should the value of the session Id be saved for later use when the session Id is not present? Yes


18.7.3 HTML Parameter Mask
*** This element is deprecated. Use Counter instead ***

The HTML Parameter Mask is used to generate unique values for HTML arguments. By specifying the name of the parameter, a value prefix and suffix, and counter parameters, this modifier will generate values of the form " name=prefixcountersuffix ". Any HTTP Request that it modifies, it will replace any parameter with the same name or add the appropriate parameter to the requests list of arguments.

The value of the argument in your HTTP Request must be a '*' in order for the HTML Parameter Mask Modifier to replace it.

As an example, the username for a login script could be modified to send a series of values such as:
user_1
user_2
user_3
user_4, etc.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name given to this element in the test tree. No
Name (second appearing) The name of the parameter to modify or add to the HTTP Request. Yes
ID Prefix A string value to prefix to every generated value. No
Lower Bound A number value to start the counter at. Yes
Upper Bound A number value to end the counter, at which point it restarts with the Lower Bound value. Yes
Increment Value to increment the counter by each time through. Yes
ID Suffix A string value to add as suffix to every generated vaue. No


18.7.5 User Parameters

Allows the user to specify values for User Variables specific to individual threads.

User Variables can also be specified in the Test Plan but not specific to individual threads. This panel allows you to specify a series of values for any User Variable. For each thread, the variable will be assigned one of the values from the series in sequence. If there are more threads than values, the values get re-used. For example, this can be used to assign a distinct user id to be used by each thread. User variables can be referenced in any field of any jMeter Component.

The variable is specified by clicking the Add Variable button in the bottom of the panel and filling in the Variable name in the 'Name:' column. To add a new value to the series, click the 'Add User' button and fill in the desired value in the newly added column.

Values can be accessed in any test component in the same thread group, using the function syntax : ${variable}.

See also the CSV Data Set Config element, which is more suitable for large numbers of parameters

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Update Once Per Iteration A flag to indicate whether the User Paramters element should update its variables only once per iteration. if you embed functions into the UP, then you may need greater control over how often the values of the variables are updated. Keep this box checked to ensure the values are updated each time through the UP's parent controller. Uncheck the box, and the UP will update the parameters for every sample request made within its scope . Yes


18.7.7 BeanShell PreProcessor

The BeanShell PreProcessor allows arbitrary code to be applied before taking a sample.

For full details on using BeanShell, please see the BeanShell website.

The test element supports the ThreadListener and TestListener methods. These should be defined in the initialisation file. See the file BeanShellListeners.bshrc for example definitions.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. The name is stored in the script variable Label No
Reset bsh.Interpreter before each call If this option is selected, then the interpreter will be recreated for each sample. This may be necessary for some long running scripts. For further information, see Best Practices - BeanShell scripting . Yes
Parameters Parameters to pass to the BeanShell script. The parameters are stored in the following variables:
  • Parameters - string containing the parameters as a single variable
  • bsh.args - String array containing parameters, split on white-space
No
Script file A file containing the BeanShell script to run. The file name is stored in the script variable FileName No
Script The BeanShell script. The return value is ignored. Yes (unless script file is provided)

Before invoking the script, some variables are set up in the BeanShell interpreter:

  • log - (Logger) - can be used to write to the log file
  • ctx - (JMeterContext) - gives access to the context
  • vars - ( JMeterVariables ) - gives read/write access to variables: vars.get(key); vars.put(key,val); vars.putObject("OBJ1",new Object());
  • props - (JMeterProperties - class java.util.Properties) - e.g. props.get("START.HMS"); props.put("PROP1","1234");
  • prev - (SampleResult) - gives access to the previous SampleResult (if any)
  • sampler - (Sampler)- gives access to the current sampler

For details of all the methods available on each of the above variables, please check the Javadoc

If the property beanshell.preprocessor.init is defined, this is used to load an initialisation file, which can be used to define methods etc for use in the BeanShell script.


18.7.8 BSF PreProcessor

The BSF PreProcessor allows BSF script code to be applied before taking a sample.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Language The BSF language to be used Yes
Parameters Parameters to pass to the script. The parameters are stored in the following variables:
  • Parameters - string containing the parameters as a single variable
  • args - String array containing parameters, split on white-space
No
Script file A file containing the script to run. No
Script The script to run. Yes (unless script file is provided)

The script (or file) is processed using the BSFEngine.exec() method, which does not return a value.

The following BSF variables are set up for use by the script:

  • log - (Logger) - can be used to write to the log file
  • Label - the String Label
  • Filename - the script file name (if any)
  • Parameters - the parameters (as a String)
  • args[] - the parameters as a String array (split on whitespace)
  • ctx - (JMeterContext) - gives access to the context
  • vars - ( JMeterVariables ) - gives read/write access to variables: vars.get(key); vars.put(key,val); vars.putObject("OBJ1",new Object()); vars.getObject("OBJ2");
  • props - (JMeterProperties - class java.util.Properties) - e.g. props.get("START.HMS"); props.put("PROP1","1234");
  • sampler - (Sampler)- gives access to the current sampler
  • OUT - System.out - e.g. OUT.println("message")

For details of all the methods available on each of the above variables, please check the Javadoc


18.7.8 JSR223 PreProcessor

The JSR223 PreProcessor allows JSR223 script code to be applied before taking a sample. For details, see BSF PreProcessor .


18.7.9 JDBC PreProcessor

The JDBC PreProcessor enables you to run some SQL statement just before a sample runs. This can be useful if your JDBC Sample requires some data to be in DataBase and you cannot compute this in a setup Thread group. For details, see JDBC Request .

See the following Test plan:

See Also:

In the linked test plan,"Create Price Cut-Off" JDBC PreProcessor calls a stored procedure to create a Price Cut-Off in Database, this one will be used by "Calculate Price cut off".


Create Price Cut-Off Preprocessor


^


18.8 Post-Processors

As the name suggests, Post-Processors are applied after samplers. Note that they are applied to all the samplers in the same scope, so to ensure that a post-processor is applied only to a particular sampler, add it as a child of the sampler.

Note: Unless documented otherwise, Post-Processors are not applied to sub-samples (child samples) - only to the parent sample. In the case of BSF and BeanShell post-processors, the script can retrieve sub-samples using the method prev.getSubResults() which returns an array of SampleResults. The array will be empty if there are none.

Post-Processors are run before Assertions, so they do not have access to any Assertion Results, nor will the sample status reflect the results of any Assertions. If you require access to Assertion Results, try using a Listener instead. Also note that the variable JMeterThread.last_sample_ok is set to "true" or "false" after all Assertions have been run.

18.8.1 Regular Expression Extractor

Allows the user to extract values from a server response using a Perl-type regular expression. As a post-processor, this element will execute after each Sample request in its scope, applying the regular expression, extracting the requested values, generate the template string, and store the result into the given variable name.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Apply to: This is for use with samplers that can generate sub-samples, e.g. HTTP Sampler with embedded resources, Mail Reader or samples generated by the Transaction Controller.
  • Main sample only - only applies to the main sample
  • Sub-samples only - only applies to the sub-samples
  • Main sample and sub-samples - applies to both.
  • JMeter Variable - assertion is to be applied to the contents of the named variable
Matching is applied to all qualifying samples in turn. For example if there is a main sample and 3 sub-samples, each of which contains a single match for the regex, (i.e. 4 matches in total). For match number = 3, Sub-samples only, the extractor will match the 3rd sub-sample. For match number = 3, Main sample and sub-samples, the extractor will match the 2nd sub-sample (1st match is main sample). For match number = 0 or negative, all qualifying samples will be processed. For match number > 0, matching will stop as soon as enough matches have been found. 		Yes
Response Field to check The following response fields can be checked:
  • Body - the body of the response, e.g. the content of a web-page (excluding headers)
  • Body (unescaped) - the body of the response, with all Html escape codes replaced. Note that Html escapes are processed without regard to context, so some incorrect substitutions may be made.
  • Headers - may not be present for non-HTTP samples
  • URL
  • Response Code - e.g. 200
  • Response Message - e.g. OK
Headers can be useful for HTTP samples; it may not be present for other sample types. 		Yes
Reference Name The name of the JMeter variable in which to store the result. Also note that each group is stored as [refname]_g#, where [refname] is the string you entered as the reference name, and # is the group number, where group 0 is the entire match, group 1 is the match from the first set of parentheses, etc. Yes
Regular Expression The regular expression used to parse the response data. This must contain at least one set of parentheses "()" to capture a portion of the string, unless using the group $0$. Do not enclose the expression in / / - unless of course you want to match these characters as well. Yes
Template The template used to create a string from the matches found. This is an arbitrary string with special elements to refer to groups within the regular expression. The syntax to refer to a group is: '$1$' to refer to group 1, '$2$' to refer to group 2, etc. $0$ refers to whatever the entire expression matches. Yes
Match No. Indicates which match to use. The regular expression may match multiple times.
  • Use a value of zero to indicate JMeter should choose a match at random.
  • A positive number N means to select the nth match.
  • Negative numbers are used in conjunction with the ForEach controller - see below.
Yes
Default Value If the regular expression does not match, then the reference variable will be set to the default value. This is particularly useful for debugging tests. If no default is provided, then it is difficult to tell whether the regular expression did not match, or the RE element was not processed or maybe the wrong variable is being used.

However, if you have several test elements that set the same variable, you may wish to leave the variable unchanged if the expression does not match. In this case, remove the default value once debugging is complete.

No, but recommended

If the match number is set to a non-negative number, and a match occurs, the variables are set as follows:

  • refName - the value of the template
  • refName_gn, where n=0,1,2 - the groups for the match
  • refName_g - the number of groups in the Regex (excluding 0)
If no match occurs, then the refName variable is set to the default (unless this is absent). Also, the following variables are removed:
  • refName_g0
  • refName_g1
  • refName_g

If the match number is set to a negative number, then all the possible matches in the sampler data are processed. The variables are set as follows:

  • refName_matchNr - the number of matches found; could be 0
  • refName_n, where n = 1,2,3 etc - the strings as generated by the template
  • refName_n_gm, where m=0,1,2 - the groups for match n
  • refName - always set to the default value
  • refName_gn - not set
Note that the refName variable is always set to the default value in this case, and the associated group variables are not set.

See also Response Assertion for some examples of how to specify modifiers, and for further information on JMeter regular expressions.


18.8.2 XPath Extractor
This test element allows the user to extract value(s) from structured response - XML or (X)HTML - using XPath query language.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Apply to: This is for use with samplers that can generate sub-samples, e.g. HTTP Sampler with embedded resources, Mail Reader or samples generated by the Transaction Controller.
  • Main sample only - only applies to the main sample
  • Sub-samples only - only applies to the sub-samples
  • Main sample and sub-samples - applies to both.
  • JMeter Variable - assertion is to be applied to the contents of the named variable
XPath matching is applied to all qualifying samples in turn, and all the matching results will be returned. 		Yes
Use Tidy (tolerant parser) If checked use Tidy to parse HTML response into XHTML.
  • "Use Tidy" should be checked on for HTML response. Such response is converted to valid XHTML (XML compatible HTML) using Tidy
  • "Use Tidy" should be unchecked for both XHTML or XML response (for example RSS)
Yes
Quiet Sets the Tidy Quiet flag If Tidy is selected
Report Errors If a Tidy error occurs, then set the Assertion accordingly If Tidy is selected
Show warnings Sets the Tidy showWarnings option If Tidy is selected
Use Namespaces If checked, then the XML parser will use namespace resolution. Note that currently only namespaces declared on the root element will be recognised. A later version of JMeter may support user-definition of additional workspace names. Meanwhile, a work-round is to replace:
//mynamespace:tagname
by
//*[local-name()='tagname' and namespace-uri()='uri-for-namespace']
where "uri-for-namespace" is the uri for the "mynamespace" namespace. (not applicable if Tidy is selected) 		If Tidy is not selected
Validate XML Check the document against its schema. If Tidy is not selected
Ignore Whitespace Ignore Element Whitespace. If Tidy is not selected
Fetch External DTDs If selected, external DTDs are fetched. If Tidy is not selected
Return entire XPath fragment instead of text content? If selected, the fragment will be returned rather than the text content.
For example //title would return "<title>Apache JMeter</title>" rather than "Apache JMeter".
In this case, //title/text() would return "Apache JMeter". 		Yes
Reference Name The name of the JMeter variable in which to store the result. Yes
XPath Query Element query in XPath language. Can return more than one match. Yes
Default Value Default value returned when no match found. It is also returned if the node has no value and the fragment option is not selected. No

To allow for use in a ForEach Controller, the following variables are set on return:

  • refName - set to first (or only) match; if no match, then set to default
  • refName_matchNr - set to number of matches (may be 0)
  • refName_n - n=1,2,3 etc. Set to the 1st, 2nd 3rd match etc.

Note: The next refName_n variable is set to null - e.g. if there are 2 matches, then refName_3 is set to null, and if there are no matches, then refName_1 is set to null.

XPath is query language targeted primarily for XSLT transformations. However it is usefull as generic query language for structured data too. See XPath Reference or XPath specification for more information. Here are few examples:

/html/head/title
extracts title element from HTML response
/book/page[2]
extracts 2nd page from a book
/book/page
extracts all pages from a book
//form[@name='countryForm']//select[@name='country']/option[text()='Czech Republic'])/@value
extracts value attribute of option element that match text 'Czech Republic' inside of select element with name attribute 'country' inside of form with name attribute 'countryForm'

When "Use Tidy" is checked on - resulting XML document may slightly differ from original HTML response:
  • All elements and attribute names are converted to lowercase
  • Tidy attempts to correct improperly nested elements. For example - original (incorrect) ul/font/li becomes correct ul/li/font
See Tidy homepage for more information.


18.8.3 Result Status Action Handler
This test element allows the user to stop the thread or the whole test if the relevant sampler failed.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Action to be taken after a Sampler error Determines what happens if a sampler error occurs, either because the sample itself failed or an assertion failed. The possible choices are:
  • Continue - ignore the error and continue with the test
  • Stop Thread - current thread exits
  • Stop Test - the entire test is stopped at the end of any current samples.
  • Stop Test Now - the entire test is stopped abruptly. Any current samplers are interrupted if possible.
No


18.8.4 BeanShell PostProcessor

The BeanShell PreProcessor allows arbitrary code to be applied after taking a sample.

For JMeter versions after 2.2 the BeanShell Post-Processor no longer ignores samples with zero-length result data

For full details on using BeanShell, please see the BeanShell website.

The test element supports the ThreadListener and TestListener methods. These should be defined in the initialisation file. See the file BeanShellListeners.bshrc for example definitions.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. The name is stored in the script variable Label No
Reset bsh.Interpreter before each call If this option is selected, then the interpreter will be recreated for each sample. This may be necessary for some long running scripts. For further information, see Best Practices - BeanShell scripting . Yes
Parameters Parameters to pass to the BeanShell script. The parameters are stored in the following variables:
  • Parameters - string containing the parameters as a single variable
  • bsh.args - String array containing parameters, split on white-space
No
Script file A file containing the BeanShell script to run. The file name is stored in the script variable FileName No
Script The BeanShell script. The return value is ignored. Yes (unless script file is provided)

The following BeanShell variables are set up for use by the script:

  • log - (Logger) - can be used to write to the log file
  • ctx - (JMeterContext) - gives access to the context
  • vars - ( JMeterVariables ) - gives read/write access to variables: vars.get(key); vars.put(key,val); vars.putObject("OBJ1",new Object());
  • props - (JMeterProperties - class java.util.Properties) - e.g. props.get("START.HMS"); props.put("PROP1","1234");
  • prev - (SampleResult) - gives access to the previous SampleResult
  • data - (byte [])- gives access to the current sample data

For details of all the methods available on each of the above variables, please check the Javadoc

If the property beanshell.postprocessor.init is defined, this is used to load an initialisation file, which can be used to define methods etc for use in the BeanShell script.


18.8.5 BSF PostProcessor

The BSF PostProcessor allows BSF script code to be applied after taking a sample.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Language The BSF language to be used Yes
Parameters Parameters to pass to the script. The parameters are stored in the following variables:
  • Parameters - string containing the parameters as a single variable
  • args - String array containing parameters, split on white-space
No
Script file A file containing the script to run. No
Script The script to run. Yes (unless script file is provided)

The script (or file) is processed using the BSFEngine.exec() method, which does not return a value.

Before invoking the script, some variables are set up. Note that these are BSF variables - i.e. they can be used directly in the script.

  • log - (Logger) - can be used to write to the log file
  • Label - the String Label
  • Filename - the script file name (if any)
  • Parameters - the parameters (as a String)
  • args[] - the parameters as a String array (split on whitespace)
  • ctx - (JMeterContext) - gives access to the context
  • vars - ( JMeterVariables ) - gives read/write access to variables: vars.get(key); vars.put(key,val); vars.putObject("OBJ1",new Object()); vars.getObject("OBJ2");
  • props - (JMeterProperties - class java.util.Properties) - e.g. props.get("START.HMS"); props.put("PROP1","1234");
  • prev - (SampleResult) - gives access to the previous SampleResult (if any)
  • sampler - (Sampler)- gives access to the current sampler
  • OUT - System.out - e.g. OUT.println("message")

For details of all the methods available on each of the above variables, please check the Javadoc


18.8.6 JSR223 PostProcessor

The JSR223 PostProcessor allows JSR223 script code to be applied after taking a sample. For details, see the BSF PostProcessor .


18.8.7 JDBC PostProcessor

The JDBC PostProcessor enables you to run some SQL statement just after a sample has run. This can be useful if your JDBC Sample changes some data and you want to reset state to what it was before the JDBC sample run.


See Also:

In the linked test plan,"JDBC PostProcessor" JDBC PostProcessor calls a stored procedure to delete from Database the Price Cut-Off that was created by PreProcessor.


JDBC PostProcessor


18.9 Miscellaneous Features

18.9.1 Test Plan

The Test Plan is where the overall settings for a test are specified.

Static variables can be defined for values that are repeated throughout a test, such as server names. For example the variable SERVER could be defined as www.example.com, and the rest of the test plan could refer to it as ${SERVER}. This simplifies changing the name later.

If the same variable name is reused on one of more User Defined Variables Configuration elements, the value is set to the last definition in the test plan (reading from top to bottom). Such variables should be used for items that may change between test runs, but which remain the same during a test run.

Note that the Test Plan cannot refer to variables it defines. If you need to construct other variables from the Test Plan variables, use a User Defined Variables test element.

Selecting Functional Testing instructs JMeter to save the additional sample information - Response Data and Sampler Data - to all result files. This increases the resources needed to run a test, and may adversely impact JMeter performance. If more data is required for a particular sampler only, then add a Listener to it, and configure the fields as required. [The option does not affect CSV result files, which cannot currently store such information.]

Also, an option exists here to instruct JMeter to run the Thread Group serially rather than in parallel.

Run tearDown Thread Groups after shutdown of main threads: if selected, the tearDown groups (if any) will be run after graceful shutdown of the main threads. The tearDown threads won't be run if the test is forcibly stopped.

Test plan now provides an easy way to add classpath setting to a specific test plan. The feature is additive, meaning that you can add jar files or directories, but removing an entry requires restarting JMeter. Note that this cannot be used to add JMeter GUI plugins, because they are processed earlier. However it can be useful for utility jars such as JDBC drivers.

JMeter properties also provides an entry for loading additional classpaths. In jmeter.properties, edit "user.classpath" to include additional libraries.

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18.9.2 Thread Group

A Thread Group defines a pool of users that will execute a particular test case against your server. In the Thread Group GUI, you can control the number of users simulated (num of threads), the ramp up time (how long it takes to start all the threads), the number of times to perform the test, and optionally, a start and stop time for the test.

See also tearDown Thread Group and setUp Thread Group .

When using the scheduler, JMeter runs the thread group until either the number of loops is reached or the duration/end-time is reached - whichever occurs first. Note that the condition is only checked between samples; when the end condition is reached, that thread will stop. JMeter does not interrupt samplers which are waiting for a response, so the end time may be delayed arbitrarily.

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Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Action to be taken after a Sampler error Determines what happens if a sampler error occurs, either because the sample itself failed or an assertion failed. The possible choices are:
  • Continue - ignore the error and continue with the test
  • Start Next Loop - ignore the error, start next loop and continue with the test
  • Stop Thread - current thread exits
  • Stop Test - the entire test is stopped at the end of any current samples.
  • Stop Test Now - the entire test is stopped abruptly. Any current samplers are interrupted if possible.
No
Number of Threads Number of users to simulate. Yes
Ramp-up Period How long JMeter should take to get all the threads started. If there are 10 threads and a ramp-up time of 100 seconds, then each thread will begin 10 seconds after the previous thread started, for a total time of 100 seconds to get the test fully up to speed. Yes
Loop Count Number of times to perform the test case. Alternatively, "forever" can be selected causing the test to run until manually stopped. Yes, unless forever is selected
Delay Thread creation until needed If selected, threads are created only when the appropriate proportion of the ramp-up time has elapsed. This is most appropriate for tests with a ramp-up time that is significantly longer than the time to execute a single thread. I.e. where earlier threads finish before later ones start.
If not selected, all threads are created when the test starts (they then pause for the appropriate proportion of the ramp-up time). This is the original default, and is appropriate for tests where threads are active throughout most of the test. 		Yes
Scheduler If selected, enables the scheduler Yes
Start Time If the scheduler checkbox is selected, one can choose an absolute start time. When you start your test, JMeter will wait until the specified start time to begin testing. Note: the Startup Delay field over-rides this - see below. No
End Time If the scheduler checkbox is selected, one can choose an absolute end time. When you start your test, JMeter will wait until the specified start time to begin testing, and it will stop at the specified end time. Note: the Duration field over-rides this - see below. No
Duration (seconds) If the scheduler checkbox is selected, one can choose a relative end time. JMeter will use this to calculate the End Time, and ignore the End Time value. No
Startup delay (seconds) If the scheduler checkbox is selected, one can choose a relative startup delay. JMeter will use this to calculate the Start Time, and ignore the Start Time value. No


18.9.3 WorkBench

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. Your WorkBench can be saved independently, if you like (right-click on WorkBench and choose Save).

Certain test elements are only available on the WorkBench:

Control Panel


18.9.4 SSL Manager

The SSL Manager is a way to select a client certificate so that you can test applications that use Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). It is only needed if you have not set up the appropriate System properties.

Choosing a Client Certificate

You may either use a Java Key Store (JKS) format key store, or a Public Key Certificate Standard #12 (PKCS12) file for your client certificates. There is a feature of the JSSE libraries that require you to have at least a six character password on your key (at least for the keytool utility that comes with your JDK).

To select the client certificate, choose Options->SSL Manager from the menu bar. You will be presented with a file finder that looks for PKCS12 files by default. Your PKCS12 file must have the extension '.p12' for SSL Manager to recognize it as a PKCS12 file. Any other file will be treated like an average JKS key store. If JSSE is correctly installed, you will be prompted for the password. The text box does not hide the characters you type at this point--so make sure no one is looking over your shoulder. The current implementation assumes that the password for the keystore is also the password for the private key of the client you want to authenticate as.

Or you can set the appropriate System properties - see the system.properties file.

The next time you run your test, the SSL Manager will examine your key store to see if it has at least one key available to it. If there is only one key, SSL Manager will select it for you. If there is more than one key, it currently selects the first key. There is currently no way to select other entries in the keystore, so the desired key must be the first.

Things to Look Out For

You must have your Certificate Authority (CA) certificate installed properly if it is not signed by one of the five CA certificates that ships with your JDK. One method to install it is to import your CA certificate into a JKS file, and name the JKS file "jssecacerts". Place the file in your JRE's lib/security folder. This file will be read before the "cacerts" file in the same directory. Keep in mind that as long as the "jssecacerts" file exists, the certificates installed in "cacerts" will not be used. This may cause problems for you. If you don't mind importing your CA certificate into the "cacerts" file, then you can authenticate against all of the CA certificates installed.


18.9.5 HTTP Proxy Server

The Proxy Server allows JMeter to watch and record your actions while you browse your web application with your normal browser. JMeter will create test sample objects and store them directly into your test plan as you go (so you can view samples interactively while you make them).

To use the proxy server, add the HTTP Proxy Server element to the workbench. Select the WorkBench element in the tree, and right-click on this element to get the Add menu (Add --> Non-Test Elements --> HTTP Proxy Server).

You also need to set up your browser to use the JMeter proxy port as the proxy for HTTP and HTTPS requests. Do not use JMeter as the proxy for any other request types - FTP, etc. - as the JMeter proxy cannot handle them.

When recording HTTPS, the JMeter proxy server uses a dummy certificate to enable it to accept the SSL connection from the browser. This certificate is not one of the certificates that browsers normally trust, and will not be for the correct host, so the browser should display a dialogue asking if you want to accept the certificate or not. For example: 1) The server's name "www.example.com" does not match the certificate's name "JMeter Proxy". Somebody may be trying to eavesdrop on you. 2) The certificate for "JMeter Proxy" is signed by the unknown Certificate Authority "JMeter Proxy". It is not possible to verify that this is a valid certificate. You will need to accept the certificate in order to allow the JMeter Proxy to intercept the SSL traffic in order to record it. You should only accept the certificate temporarily.

The following properties can be used to change the certificate that is used:

  • proxy.cert.directory - the directory in which to find the certificate (default = JMeter bin/)
  • proxy.cert.file - name of the keystore file (default "proxyserver.jks")
  • proxy.cert.keystorepass - keystore password (default "password")
  • proxy.cert.keypassword - certificate key password (default "password")
  • proxy.cert.type - the certificate type (default "JKS")
  • proxy.cert.factory - the factory (default "SunX509")
  • proxy.ssl.protocol - the protocol to be used (default "SSLv3")

If your browser currently uses a proxy (e.g. a company intranet may route all external requests via a proxy), then you need to tell JMeter to use that proxy before starting JMeter, using the command-line options -H and -P. This setting will also be needed when running the generated test plan.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
Port The port that the Proxy Server listens to. 8080 is the default, but you can change it. Yes
Target Controller The controller where the proxy will store the generated samples. By default, it will look for a Recording Controller and store them there wherever it is. Yes
Grouping Whether to group samplers for requests from a single "click" (requests received without significant time separation), and how to represent that grouping in the recording:
  • Do not group samplers: store all recorded samplers sequentially, without any grouping.
  • Add separators between groups: add a controller named "--------------" to create a visual separation between the groups. Otherwise the samplers are all stored sequentially.
  • Put each group in a new controller: create a new Simple Controller for each group, and store all samplers for that group in it.
  • Store 1st sampler of each group only: only the first request in each group will be recorded. The "Follow Redirects" and "Retrieve All Embedded Resources..." flags will be turned on in those samplers.
  • Put each group in a new transaction controller: create a new Transaction Controller for each group, and store all samplers for that group in it.
The property proxy.pause determines the minimum gap that JMeter needs between requests to treat them as separate "clicks". The default is 1000 (milliseconds) i.e. 1 second. If you are using grouping, please ensure that you leave the required gap between clicks. 		Yes
Capture HTTP Headers Should headers be added to the plan? If specified, a Header Manager will be added to each HTTP Sampler. The Proxy server always removes Cookie and Authorization headers from the generated Header Managers. By default it also removes If-Modified-Since and If-None-Match headers. These are used to determine if the browser cache items are up to date; when recording one normally wants to download all the content. To change which additional headers are removed, define the JMeter property proxy.headers.remove as a comma-separated list of headers. Yes
Add Assertions Add a blank assertion to each sampler? Yes
Regex Matching Use Regex Matching when replacing variables? If checked replacement will use word boundaries, ie it will only replace word matching values of variable, not part of a word. A word boundary follows Perl5 definition and is equivalent to \b. Yes
Type Which type of sampler to generate (the Java default or HTTPClient) Yes
Redirect Automatically Set Redirect Automatically in the generated samplers? Yes
Follow Redirects Set Follow Redirects in the generated samplers? Yes
Use Keep-Alive Set Use Keep-Alive in the generated samplers? Yes
Retrieve all Embedded Resources Set Retrieve all Embedded Resources in the generated samplers? Yes
Content Type filter Filter the requests based on the content-type - e.g. "text/html [;charset=utf-8 ]". The fields are regular expressions which are checked to see if they are contained in the content-type. [Does not have to match the entire field]. The include filter is checked first, then the exclude filter. Samples which are filtered out will not be stored. No
Patterns to Include Regular expressions that are matched against the full URL that is sampled. Allows filtering of requests that are recorded. All requests pass through, but only those that meet the requirements of the Include/Exclude fields are recorded . If both Include and Exclude are left empty, then everything is recorded (which can result in dozens of samples recorded for each page, as images, stylesheets, etc are recorded). If there is at least one entry in the Include field, then only requests that match one or more Include patterns are recorded . No
Patterns to Exclude Regular expressions that are matched against the URL that is sampled. Any requests that match one or more Exclude pattern are not recorded . No
Start Button Start the proxy server. JMeter writes the following message to the console once the proxy server has started up and is ready to take requests: "Proxy up and running!". N/A
Stop Button Stop the proxy server. N/A
Restart Button Stops and restarts the proxy server. This is useful when you change/add/delete an include/exclude filter expression. N/A

The include and exclude patterns are treated as regular expressions (using Jakarta ORO). They will be matched against the host name, port (actual or implied) path and query (if any) of each browser request. If the URL you are browsing is
"http://jmeter.apache.org/jmeter/index.html?username=xxxx" ,
then the regular expression will be tested against the string:
"jmeter.apache.org:80/jmeter/index.html?username=xxxx" .
Thus, if you want to include all .html files, your regular expression might look like:
".*\.html(\?.*)?" - or ".*\.html" if you know that there is no query string or you only want html pages without query strings.

If there are any include patterns, then the URL must match at least one of the patterns , otherwise it will not be recorded. If there are any exclude patterns, then the URL must not match any of the patterns , otherwise it will not be recorded. Using a combination of includes and excludes, you should be able to record what you are interested in and skip what you are not.

N.B. the string that is matched by the regular expression must be the same as the whole host+path string.
Thus "\.html" will not match j.a.o/index.html

Versions of JMeter from 2.3.2 are able to capture binary POST data. To configure which content-types are treated as binary, update the JMeter property proxy.binary.types. The default settings are as follows: 


# These content-types will be handled by saving the request in a file:
proxy.binary.types=application/x-amf,application/x-java-serialized-object
# The files will be saved in this directory:
proxy.binary.directory=user.dir
# The files will be created with this file filesuffix:
proxy.binary.filesuffix=.binary

It is also possible to have the proxy add timers to the recorded script. To do this, create a timer directly within the HTTP Proxy Server component. The proxy will place a copy of this timer into each sample it records, or into the first sample of each group if you're using grouping. This copy will then be scanned for occurences of variable ${T} in its properties, and any such occurences will be replaced by the time gap from the previous sampler recorded (in milliseconds).

When you are ready to begin, hit "start".

You will need to edit the proxy settings of your browser to point at the appropriate server and port, where the server is the machine JMeter is running on, and the port # is from the Proxy Control Panel shown above.

Where Do Samples Get Recorded?

JMeter places the recorded samples in the Target Controller you choose. If you choose the default option "Use Recording Controller", they will be stored in the first Recording Controller found in the test object tree (so be sure to add a Recording Controller before you start recording).

If the Proxy does not seem to record any samples, this could be because the browser is not actually using the proxy. To check if this is the case, try stopping the proxy. If the browser still downloads pages, then it was not sending requests via the proxy. Double-check the browser options. If you are trying to record from a server running on the same host, then check that the browser is not set to "Bypass proxy server for local addresses" (this example is from IE7, but there will be similar options for other browsers). If JMeter does not record browser URLs such as http://localhost/ or http://127.0.0.1/, try using the non-loopback hostname or IP address, e.g. http://myhost/ or http://192.168.0.2/.

Handling of HTTP Request Defaults

If the HTTP Proxy Server finds enabled HTTP Request Defaults directly within the controller where samples are being stored, or directly within any of its parent controllers, the recorded samples will have empty fields for the default values you specified. You may further control this behaviour by placing an HTTP Request Defaults element directly within the HTTP Proxy Server, whose non-blank values will override those in the other HTTP Request Defaults. See Best Practices with the Proxy Server for more info.

User Defined Variable replacement

Similarly, if the HTTP Proxy Server finds User Defined Variables (UDV) directly within the controller where samples are being stored, or directly within any of its parent controllers, the recorded samples will have any occurences of the values of those variables replaced by the corresponding variable. Again, you can place User Defined Variables directly within the HTTP Proxy Server to override the values to be replaced. See Best Practices with the Proxy Server for more info.

Please note that matching is case-sensitive.

Replacement by Variables: by default, the Proxy server looks for all occurences of UDV values. If you define the variable "WEB" with the value "www", for example, the string "www" will be replaced by ${WEB} wherever it is found. To avoid this happening everywhere, set the "Regex Matching" check-box. This tells the proxy server to treat values as Regexes (using ORO).
If you want to match a whole string only, enclose it in ^$, e.g. "^thus$".
If you want to match /images at the start of a string only, use the value "^/images". Jakarta ORO also supports zero-width look-ahead, so one can match /images/... but retain the trailing / in the output by using "^/images(?=/)". Note that the current version of Jakara ORO does not support look-behind - i.e. "(?<=...) or (?<!...)".
If there are any problems interpreting any variables as patterns, these are reported in jmeter.log, so be sure to check this if UDVs are not working as expected.

When you are done recording your test samples, stop the proxy server (hit the "stop" button). Remember to reset your browser's proxy settings. Now, you may want to sort and re-order the test script, add timers, listeners, a cookie manager, etc.

How can I record the server's responses too?

Just place a View Results Tree listener as a child of the Proxy Server and the responses will be displayed. You can also add a Save Responses to a file Post-Processor which will save the responses to files.

Cookie Manager

If the server you are testing against uses cookies, remember to add an HTTP Cookie Manager to the test plan when you have finished recording it. During recording, the browser handles any cookies, but JMeter needs a Cookie Manager to do the cookie handling during a test run. The JMeter Proxy server passes on all cookies sent by the browser during recording, but does not save them to the test plan because they are likely to change between runs.

Authorization Manager

The Proxy server passes on any Authorization headers sent by the browser, but does not save them in the test plan. If the site requires Authorization, you will need to add an Authorization Manager and fill it in with the necessary entries.

Uploading files

Some browsers (e.g. Firefox and Opera) don't include the full name of a file when uploading files. This can cause the JMeter proxy server to fail. One solution is to ensure that any files to be uploaded are in the JMeter working directory, either by copying the files there or by starting JMeter in the directory containing the files.

Recording HTTP Based Non Textual Protocols not natively available in JMeter

You may have to record an HTTP protocol that is not handled by default by JMeter (Custom Binary Protocol, Adobe Flex, Microsoft Silverlight... ). Although JMeter does not provide a native proxy implementation to record these protocols, you have the ability to record these protocols by implementing a custom SamplerCreator. This Sampler Creator will translate the binary format into a HTTPSamplerBase subclass that can be added to the JMeter Test Case. For more details see "Extending JMeter".


18.9.6 HTTP Mirror Server

The HTTP Mirrror Server is a very simple HTTP server - it simply mirrors the data sent to it. This is useful for checking the content of HTTP requests.

It uses default port 8081 since 2.6.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Port Port on which Mirror server listens, defaults to 8081. Yes
Max Number of threads If set to a value > 0, number of threads serving requests will be limited to the configured number, if set to a value <=0 a new thread will be created to serve each incoming request. Defaults to 0 No
Max Queue size Size of queue used for holding tasks before they are executed by Thread Pool, when Thread pool is exceeded, incoming requests will be held in this queue and discarded when this queue is full. This parameter is only used if Max Number of Threads is greater than 0. Defaults to 25 No

Note that you can make simulate requests response time by adding an HTTP Header Manager with the following name/value pair:
  • X-Sleep=Time to sleep in ms


18.9.7 Property Display

The Property Display shows the values of System or JMeter properties. Values can be changed by entering new text in the Value column. It is available only on the WorkBench.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No


18.9.8 Debug Sampler

The Debug Sampler generates a sample containing the values of all JMeter variables and/or properties.

The values can be seen in the View Results Tree Listener Response Data pane.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
JMeter Properties Include JMeter properties ? Yes
JMeter Variables Include JMeter variables ? Yes
System Properties Include System properties ? Yes


18.9.8 Debug PostProcessor

The Debug PostProcessor creates a subSample with the details of the previous Sampler properties, JMeter variables, properties and/or System Properties.

The values can be seen in the View Results Tree Listener Response Data pane.

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. No
JMeter Properties Whether to show JMeter properties (default false). Yes
JMeter Variables Whether to show JMeter variables (default false). Yes
Sampler Properties Whether to show Sampler properties (default true). Yes
System Properties Whether to show System properties (default false). Yes


18.9.9 Test Fragment

The Test Fragment is used in conjunction with the Include Controller and Module Controller .

Control Panel

Parameters

AttributeDescriptionRequired
Name Descriptive name for this element that is shown in the tree. Yes


18.9.10 setUp Thread Group

A special type of ThreadGroup that can be utilized to perform Pre-Test Actions. The behavior of these threads is exactly like a normal Thread Group element. The difference is that these type of threads execute before the test proceeds to the executing of regular Thread Groups.

Control Panel


18.9.11 tearDown Thread Group

A special type of ThreadGroup that can be utilized to perform Post-Test Actions. The behavior of these threads is exactly like a normal Thread Group element. The difference is that these type of threads execute after the test has finished executing its regular Thread Groups.

Control Panel


^



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