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<!DOCTYPE document[
<!ENTITY sect-num '5'>
]>

<document prev="test_plan.html" next="build-adv-web-test-plan.html" date="$Date: 2007-08-31 18:31:15 +0100 (Fri, 31 Aug 2007) $">

<properties>
  <title>User's Manual: Building a Web Test Plan</title>
</properties>

<body>

<section name="&sect-num;. Building a Web Test Plan" anchor="building">
<p>In this section, you will learn how to create a basic
<a href="build-test-plan.html">Test Plan</a> to test a Web site.  You will
create five users that send requests to two pages on the Jakarta Web site.
Also, you will tell the users to run their tests twice. So, the total number of
requests is (5 users) x (2 requests) x (repeat 2 times) = 20 HTTP requests. To
construct the Test Plan, you will use the following elements:
<a href="test_plan.html#thread_group">Thread Group</a>,
<complink name="HTTP Request"/>,
<complink name="HTTP Request Defaults"/>, and
<complink name="Graph Results"/>.</p>

<p>For a more advanced Test Plan, see
<a href="build-adv-web-test-plan.html">Building an Advanced Web Test Plan</a>.</p>
</section>

<!--
<p>After starting JMeter, you see three items in the tree: Root (the parent of
all tree elements), Test Plan (you place all of your elements here), and
WorkBench (a temporary place to store your elements while constructing a Test
Plan).</p>-->

<section name="&sect-num;.1 Adding Users" anchor="adding_users">
<p>The first step you want to do with every JMeter Test Plan is to add a
<a href="test_plan.html#thread_group">Thread Group</a> element.  The Thread Group tells
JMeter the number of users you want to simulate, how often the users should send
requests, and the how many requests they should send.</p>

<p>Go ahead and add the ThreadGroup element by first selecting the Test Plan,
clicking your right mouse button to get the Add menu, and then select
Add --&gt; ThreadGroup.</p>

<p>You should now see the Thread Group element under Test Plan.  If you do not
see the element, then "expand" the Test Plan tree by clicking on the
Test Plan element.</p>

<p>Next, you need to modify the default properties.  Select the Thread Group element
in the tree, if you have not already selected it. You should now see the Thread
Group Control Panel in the right section of the JMeter window (see Figure &sect-num;.1
below)</p>

<figure image="webtest/threadgroup.png">
Figure &sect-num;.1. Thread Group with Default Values</figure>

<p>Start by providing a more descriptive name for our Thread Group. In the name
field, enter Jakarta Users.</p>

<p>Next, increase the number of users (called threads) to 5.</p>

<p>In the next field, the Ramp-Up Period, leave the the default value of 0
seconds.  This property tells JMeter how long to delay between starting each
user. For example, if you enter a Ramp-Up Period of 5 seconds, JMeter will
finish starting all of your users by the end of the 5 seconds.  So, if we have
5 users and a 5 second Ramp-Up Period, then the delay between starting users
would be 1 second (5 users / 5 seconds = 1 user per second).  If you set the
value to 0, then JMeter will immediately start all of your users.</p>

<p>Finally enter a value of 2 in
the Loop Count field.  This property tells JMeter how many times to repeat your
test. If you enter a loop count value of 1, then JMeter will run your test only
once. To have JMeter repeatedly run your Test Plan, select the Forever
checkbox.</p>

<note>In most applications, you have to manually accept
changes you make in a Control Panel.  However, in JMeter, the Control Panel
automatically accepts your changes as you make them.  If you change the
name of an element, the tree will be updated with the new text after you
leave the Control Panel (for example, when selecting another tree element).</note>

<p>See Figure &sect-num;.2 for the completed Jakarta Users Thread Group.</p>

<figure image="webtest/threadgroup2.png">
Figure &sect-num;.2. Jakarta Users Thread Group</figure>

</section>

<section name="&sect-num;.2 Adding Default HTTP Request Properties" anchor="adding_defaults">
<p>Now that we have defined our users, it is time to define the tasks that they
will be performing.  In this section, you will specify the default settings
for your HTTP requests.  And then, in section &sect-num;.3, you will add HTTP Request
elements which use some of the default settings you specified here.</p>

<p>Begin by selecting the Jakarta Users (Thread Group) element. Click your right mouse button
to get the Add menu, and then select Add --&gt; Config Element --&gt; HTTP Request
Defaults. Then, select this new element to view its Control Panel (see Figure &sect-num;.3).
</p>

<figure image="webtest/http-defaults1.png">
Figure &sect-num;.3. HTTP Request Defaults</figure>

<p>
Like most JMeter elements, the <complink name="HTTP Request Defaults"/> Control
Panel has a name field that you can modify.  In this example, leave this field with
the default value.</p>

<p>Skip to the next field, which is the Web Server's Server Name/IP. For the
Test Plan that you are building, all HTTP requests will be sent to the same
Web server, jakarta.apache.org.  Enter this domain name into the field.
This is the only field that we will specify a default, so leave the remaining
fields with their default values.</p>

<note>The HTTP Request Defaults element does not tell JMeter
to send an HTTP request.  It simply defines the default values that the
HTTP Request elements use.</note>

<p>See Figure &sect-num;.4 for the completed HTTP Request Defaults element</p>

<figure image="webtest/http-defaults2.png">
Figure &sect-num;.4. HTTP Defaults for our Test Plan</figure>

</section>

<section name="&sect-num;.3 Adding Cookie Support" anchor="adding_cookie_support">
<p>Nearly all web testing should use cookie support, unless your application
specifically doesn't use cookies.  To add cookie support, simply add an
<complink name="HTTP Cookie Manager"/> to each <a href="test_plan.html#thread_group">Thread
Group</a> in your test plan.  This will ensure that each thread gets its own
cookies, but shared across all <complink name="HTTP Request"/> objects.</p>

<p>To add the <complink name="HTTP Cookie Manager"/>, simply select the
<a href="test_plan.html#thread_group">Thread Group</a>, and choose Add --&gt;
Config Element --&gt; HTTP
Cookie Manager, either from the Edit Menu, or from the right-click pop-up menu.</p>
</section>


<section name="&sect-num;.4 Adding HTTP Requests" anchor="adding_requests">

<p>In our Test Plan, we need to make two HTTP requests. The first one is for the
Jakarta home page (http://jakarta.apache.org/), and the second one is for the
Project Guidelines page (http://jakarta.apache.org/site/guidelines.html).</p>

<note>JMeter sends requests in the order that they appear in the tree.</note>

<p>Start by adding the first <complink name="HTTP Request"/>
to the Jakarta Users element (Add --&gt; Sampler --&gt; HTTP Request).
Then, select the HTTP Request element in the tree and edit the following properties
(see Figure &sect-num;.5):
<ol>
<li>Change the Name field to "Home Page".</li>
<li>Set the Path field to "/".  Remember that you do not have to set the Server
Name field because you already specified this value in the HTTP Request Defaults
element.</li>
</ol>
</p>

<figure image="webtest/http-request1.png">
Figure &sect-num;.5. HTTP Request for Jakarta Home Page</figure>

<p>Next, add the second HTTP Request and edit the following properties (see
Figure &sect-num;.6:
<ol>
<li>Change the Name field to "Project Guidelines".</li>
<li>Set the Path field to "/site/guidelines.html".</li>
</ol>
</p>

<figure image="webtest/http-request2.png">
Figure &sect-num;.6. HTTP Request for Jakarta Project Guidelines Page</figure>

</section>

<section name="&sect-num;.5 Adding a Listener to View Store the Test Results" anchor="adding_listener">
<p>The final element you need to add to your Test Plan is a
 <a href="component_reference.html#listeners">Listener</a>. This element is
responsible for storing all of the results of your HTTP requests in a file and presenting
a visual model of the data.</p>

<p>Select the Jakarta Users element and add a <complink name="Graph Results"/> listener (Add --&gt; Listener
--&gt; Graph Results).  Next, you need to specify a directory and filename of the
output file.  You can either type it into the filename field, or select the
Browse button and browse to a directory and then enter a filename.</p>

<figure image="graph_results.png">
Figure &sect-num;.7. Graph Results Listener</figure>

</section>

<section name="&sect-num;.6 Logging in to a web-site" anchor="logging_in">
<p>
It's not the case here, but some web-sites require you to login before permitting you to perform certain actions.
In a web-browser, the login will be shown as a form for the user name and password,
and a button to submit the form.
The button generates a POST request, passing the values of the form items as parameters.
</p>
<p>
To do this in JMeter, add an HTTP Request, and set the method to POST.
You'll need to know the names of the fields used by the form, and the target page.
These can be found out by inspecting the code of the login page.
[If this is difficult to do, you can use the <a href="component_reference.html#HTTP_Proxy_Server">JMeter Proxy Recorder</a> to record the login sequence.]
Set the path to the target of the submit button. 
Click the Add button twice and enter the username and password details.
Sometimes the login form contains additional hidden fields.
These will need to be added as well.
</p>
<figure image="http_login.png">
Figure &sect-num;.8. Sample HTTP login request</figure>

</section>

</body>
</document>
