Just Another Framework - for developing watir test cases

Recently I attended Railscamp 08 in Sydney Australia for a weekend of code, beer and bzflag. For my ‘project’ I decided on brushing up my my Ruby skills and constructing a simple framework from which I could structure watir test cases.

Specifically I wanted to achieve the following:

To that end I was reasonably successful. The only limitation was that I only had my macbookpro with me and probably would have been shunned even if I attempted to load a windows XP virtual machine at a rails camp full of mac and linux geeks. So I chose FireWatir as my test platform running on my Mac, but am reasonably comfortable you can easily port this framework for use with Watir.

Now on with the framework contents …
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Posted in Ruby, Automation, watir | No Comments »

Establishing Mysql DB Connectivity from Ruby

If you are a rails fan you will probably recommend using active record instead, but if you just want to hack away at your mysql db from within your Ruby code, you may find this handy…

I’m currently using a wamp box to serve up content for performance metrics. What I needed was a Ruby script which could interrogate data on this installation.

You can download the binary required for this from here. After you install the gem (I do this off-line as my command prompt doesn’t allow me internet access here at work) you may find that you get an error similar to the following:
"NameError: uninitialized constant Mysql"

See what’s happening?
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Posted in Ruby, Windows | No Comments »

CITCON 2008 - Melbourne

I recently attended the 2008 conference for Continuous Integration in Melbourne, and mixed with like minded professionals involved with all aspects of CI and testing in general.

In short this is a great (free) opportunity to attend a conference using an open session format. By that I mean the conference is run/organized like a wiki, where the attendees nominate topics they’d like to discuss or facilitate and then a user vote system organizes and makes it happen.

I avoided the performance testing oriented sessions and went for sessions that spoke about exploratory testing, defect management, benefits of test driven development, skills required for test automation and the last one titled ‘do we still need testers?’ …

They all generated a healthy amount of discussion and it was great to hear other people’s experienced opinions on the subject matter. It was also a great opportunity to network, find out who’s working on similar problems in the local industry and from afar. There was a healthy interest in using JMeter as a performance test tool to support CI, so I’ll be posting some more targeted blogs about this in the near future, as well as some consolidated info on performance metrics collection (without SiteScope) which a few people were also interested in.

Anyway, if you haven’t heard about the conference, keep an eye out for next years version. It’s well worth the zero dollar commitment, free beer and t-shirt. All you have to do is ‘use your feet’.
=)

Posted in General | No Comments »

Diff’ing Made Easier

If diff -u or wdiff isn’t cutting it for your correlating requirements when scripting load harnesses, you might want to try daisydiff as an alternative …

* Works with badly formed HTML that can be found “in the wild”.
* The diffing is more specialized in HTML than XML tree differs. Changing part of a text node will not cause the entire node to be changed.
* In addition to the default visual diff, HTML source can be diffed coherently.
* Provides easy to understand descriptions of the changes.
* Allow easy browsing of the modifications through keyboard shortcuts.

Of late have been working with pesky AJAX controls inside a web-app, and one of my gripes with more traditional tools such as wdiff or diff, is that they don’t tell you *where* in the line the change has occurred. Read on for some hacky ways I’ve implemented daisydiff with LoadRunner and other open source tools in general …
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Posted in Tools, Productivity, Testing | No Comments »

RailsCamp 08

Went to the third RailsCamp held in a scout hall near Gosford NSW last weekend; my brain has just about got back to normal after 3 solid days of drinking and coding =)

RailsCamp is a get together of mostly Rails developers, but also a fairly eclectic mix of Ruby hackers and geeks in general. 3 nights of drinking, camping and coding with NO internet. Possibly the hardest habit to kick is to stop checking for emails every 5 minutes.

For those with harder to kick habits such as Twittering, there was a ‘Twetter’ clone amongst other cool apps such as the ‘Duke’. The Duke was a user vote playlist driver for winamp (I think) and I got to observe just how close the geek community is when it comes to music tastes. Daft Punk was on fairly high rotation. Of mention was the first time we got Rick Rolled, which then led to a flurry of hack attempts at the guy hosting it on his Mac.

Guitar Hero was in force, as was Urban Terror and a touch of BZFlag. Nice.

Accommodation, setup and food was awesome, the organisers really did do a good job in getting this together. Big thanks to those guys! Perhaps the best part was the ability to network with like-minded people and discuss all things related to Ruby or Rails in a collaborative manner. I managed to get a little work done relating to a test framework for use with FireWatir which I’ll post later.

IF you didn’t or couldn’t make it, keep an eye out for the next one to occur. Definitely worth the $100 to nerd on for a full weekend …

Posted in General, Ruby, Programming | No Comments »

Installing Firewatir on Mac OSX

By now you’ve probably heard of watir or Web Application Testing In Ruby, a great automation framework which supports Microsoft Internet Explorer, and recently came in at number 3 as a popular oss tool on this blog.

I’ve been using this tool mostly from a windows box, and knew of the firefox equivalent, aptly named ‘Firewatir’ which is currently a Google code project. The beauty of this version, is that it allows you as a tester to explore functionality on your favourite platform for development, as I like to leave windows at work, and take OSX with me on the train.

Read on for some simple instructions in getting this running on your Macbook Pro …
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Posted in Ruby, Automation, watir | 1 Comment »

Using SFTP with LoadRunner Java Vusers

Recently had a requirement to construct a LoadRunner harness that could sftp files (over ssh) to and from remote servers. As some of the harnesses were already written in Java (for loading of JMS queues) it made sense to use a Java Vuser to achieve the result required.

A work colleague found a knowledge base reference that recommended using an RTE Vuser for secure FTP recording and replay. Document ID 41820 refers. I don’t know, but that seemed like a kludge to me, and I wasn’t keen on a multi-protocol harness, so we went searching on Google for a Java alternative.
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Posted in LoadRunner, Java, Security | No Comments »

Capturing Screenshots in Watir

Recently I noticed some discussion in the watir user group about trying to capture screenshots when running automated tests.

For such a simple requirement, it’s frustrating that solutions available either cost money (such as the purchase of SnagIt) or are a tad complicated in implementation requiring the installation of some out of date gems and dependencies. I’ve also come across this requirement in other automation tools such as QTP, so I thought it’s about time I rolled up my sleeves and hack together a simple solution with C#.NET 2.0.
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Posted in Ruby, Tools, Programming, watir | 2 Comments »

Using JDBC with LoadRunner Java Vusers

This is a short post on how to establish JDBC connectivity to a MySQL database when using the Java Vuser type within LoadRunner. Stuart describes a situation in which you might want to do this here. I’m not sure why but the example code is missing from his site, so I’ve supplemented with an example of how you’d implement this within LoadRunner.
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Posted in LoadRunner, Java | No Comments »

Performance Testing Flex Remoting (AMF) with JMeter

[UPDATE] this has since been resolved! JMeter support rocks
URL: http://svn.apache.org/viewvc?rev=661141&view=rev
Log: Bugs 44808 & 39641 - Proxy support for binary requests
—
You may still find the ruby proxy idea interesting …
—
The Action Message Format (AMF) is a binary protocol that Flex applications use to remotely communicate with the server. I’ve tested recording of this using LoadRunner which picks up the binary format nicely as part of the HTTP POST.

It will look a little like this:

  web_custom_request("amf_3",
    "URL=http://host.under.test.com/messagebroker/amf",
    "Method=POST",
    "Resource=0",
    "RecContentType=application/x-amf",
    "Referer=http://ost.under.test.com/messagebroker/client/main.swf",
    "Snapshot=t13.inf",
    "Mode=HTML",
    "EncType=application/x-amf",
  "BodyBinary=\\x00\\x03\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x02\\x00\\x04null\\x00\\x02/3\\x00\\x00\\x01\\x0F\n\\x00\\x00\\x00\\x01\\x11\n\\x81\\x13Mflex.messaging.messages.CommandMessage\\x13operation\\x1BcorrelationId\tbody\\x13messageId\\x11clientId\\x15timeToLive\\x13timestamp\\x0Fheaders\\x17destination\\x04\\x08\\x06\\x01×06\r"
    "my-amf\\x01\\x06#labelPrintService",
    LAST);


I understand that Segue Silk Performer also has this capability to natively record binary protocols arbitrarily attached to the POST. Unfortunately the native JMeter proxy (when used for recording) doesn’t pick up this data reliably.

This defect is current being tracked at the ASF Bugzilla

After looking around for some proxying software that would assist, products such as Charles Proxy looked tempting. But to be honest, if you’re reading this and using JMeter, you’re probably not interested in paying any license fees.

Read on for a free alternative when using JMeter.
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Posted in LoadRunner, Tools, Testing, JMeter | 5 Comments »

Installing GD Libraries for Leopard Apache PHP 5.2.5

Another post for my fading memory, how to install the GD libraries for your Leopard Apache installation running PHP 5.2.5. I will be using these libraries in a forthcoming blog about the use of ‘sparklines‘ to present complex performance monitoring data.

Now on with installation. Thanks to topicdesk for leading the way with detailed OSX 10.5.x server installation instructions. Here’s my own shorthand version …
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Posted in General, OSX, PHP, Tools | 16 Comments »

A Growl Hack to Remind You to Unplug Your Charger

If you’ve been using a Macbook Pro or similar for some time, you’ll find that their batteries need tender love and care, if they are to go the distance. According to Apple, I fit into the ‘ideal use’ category as I regularly use my notebook on the 1+ hour daily train commute.

However as the recent purchase of a new $199AUD battery has taught me, I often neglect to ‘unplug’ from the charger when weaseling away at work.

ioreg is part of Apple’s I/O Kit Registry, which you can use to determine programatically what the remaining charge of your battery is based on current and max capacity. Using this tool and Growl notifications, I’ve written a quick hack to remind me to unplug whenever my battery charge is greater than 99%.

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Posted in General, OSX, Hardware | 5 Comments »

Roll Your Own SiteScope, a Simple Alternative

In working with SiteScope of late, I’ve found that it doesn’t always collect performance metrics the way I want to. More importantly, it can often turn a simple monitoring activity into a complex disaster. Take monitoring via JMX for example. In SiteScope, it has a rather complicated (and sometimes broken) interface when trying to communicate with a busy MBean Server. One can quite easily roll your own JMX monitor using open source tools in about 65 lines of code as I demonstrated here.

But we still all use tools like LoadRunner in these commercial 9-5 contracts right? Wouldn’t it be nice, if you could roll your own custom monitors in Ruby, Perl or whatever language you like, store that data in a simple repository, let’s say a MySQL database, and still be able to hook into those metrics from a LoadRunner Controller during test execution!?

It is possible, with one PHP file and a simple WAMP (or LAMP) installation all wrapped up in a SiteScope-like alternative.
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Posted in LoadRunner, PHP, Perl, Solaris, Ruby, SiteScope | No Comments »

A New Contractor Toy: USB to VGA

Ever been on a client site and stuck with 1024 x 768?

I remember when even that was a dream, but after you get used to widescreen dual VGA in your own environment, weaning yourself off this can be a challenge. If you believe Microsoft research, dual screen users “never go back to a mono display” …

A friend and I bought a couple of these for $145AUD, to use in our day to day contracting work environment, where monitors are a plenty, but security (or warranty) forbids you from cracking open the case and installing a new video card.

The performance is a little sluggish, and sometimes the refresh goes a little awry, but all in all, it’s pretty handy to have around when debugging code. I wouldn’t recommend trying to play games on it, but definitely good to have in your toolkit.

Posted in Hardware, Productivity | No Comments »

Monitoring Weblogic 9.2 with JMX and JRuby

After getting nowhere with lack luster HP support, I turned to the power of the Open Source community and got a very simple script up and running to remotely monitor Weblogic JVM Performance and JMS queues using JMX and JRuby.

Despite having some initial issues with the code, the author of the jmx4r module turned around a fix inside 24 hours so that I could connect to a Weblogic 9.2 server and look at its domainruntime MBeans. SiteScope can’t handle domainruntimes of these size (short of being told to ‘add more memory’ to a 3GB+ machine!). So exit stage left Mercury, enter stage right JRuby…
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Posted in LoadRunner, Ruby, Analysis, Weblogic, SiteScope | No Comments »

Regex Pattern Matching in LoadRunner

I quite literally stole this idea from Charlie at PerformanceEngineering in which he posted a response to a challenge by Dmitry on how to get regular expressions up and running within LoadRunner.

I’m a huge fan of regex, and thanks to these guys, now have a way of implementing at least pattern matching with LoadRunner. Ideally I’d like to be able to include pattern matching & replacing, like Ruby or Perl does in one line but for now am happy for pattern matching.

Read on for the changes I made to Charlies code to abstract matching functionality and call it as a function within other LoadRunner actions.
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Posted in LoadRunner | 2 Comments »

Formatting Data for Import into LoadRunner Analysis

HP LoadRunner Analysis is a free tool right? Well, maybe not “free, as in free beer”, but you can certainly install the trial version of LoadRunner 9.x, and Analysis does not appear to be time limited.

All right, I realise that the Controller is time limited, so how do you go about importing data into LoadRunner Analysis after your time trial has expired, and you can no longer use the Controller to ping away at your server resource metrics during runtime? Simply use the Import Data functionality built into Analysis…
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Posted in LoadRunner, Solaris, Analysis, Tuning | No Comments »

An Alternative for Mercury Virtual Table Server

Mercury’s Virtual Table Server (VTS) provides the following functionality when sharing data between vusers in your typical LoadRunner scenario …

Virtual Table Server (VTS) first edition, introduced the capability for LoadRunner virtual users, WinRunner and XRunner, to communicate in real time. Data extraction and communication was simplified but limited to column/queue level operations. The new Virtual Table Server II provides a higher degree of data manipulation and 5-10 times better performance. From row level queries, retrievals, updates, insertions, unqueue entries, to database access, VTS II provides the functionality and ease for enhanced inter-process, inter-virtual user communication

A useful tool in itself, but with some annoying limitations. MyLoadTest elaborates on this:

The API is simple, but unfortunately does not allow you to write SQL queries; instead you must use the functions provided, like lrvtc_retrieve_row() and lrvtc_query_row()…

Read on for an alternative when using web vusers in LoadRunner.
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Posted in LoadRunner, PHP, Tools, Testing, Programming | No Comments »

Using LoadRunner Java Vusers with WebLogic JMS Queues/Topics

The following scripts are examples on how to generate load for the BEA WebLogic implementation of JMS. Specifically I demonstrate how to place messages on a queue and how to publish messages to a topic using a Java Vuser within LoadRunner.
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Posted in LoadRunner, Java, Automation, Weblogic | 5 Comments »

Monitoring Weblogic using JMX in SiteScope

Using JMX (Java Management Extensions) it is possible to monitor Managed Beans published by MBean servers. Weblogic (WL) provides MBeans for both admin and managed servers.

You can find out more info about WebLogic MBeans and accessing them with JMX here …

Following are some augmented instructions for setting up JMX monitors within SiteScope. I used this excellent article as a starting point.
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Posted in LoadRunner, Java, Weblogic, SiteScope | 7 Comments »