Run time settings

LoadRunner VuGen Runtime Settings

Before you run a VUser script, you need to set the run time settings. These settings include the number of loops, pacing, think time and few other things that will be applied to the VUser when the script is run.

Every VUser script contains 3 sections, VUser_init, Action and VUser_end section. Through RunLogic, you can instruct the VUser to repeat the Action section when you run the script. Each repetition is known as Iteration. The VUser_init and VUser_end sections of a VUser script are not repeated when you run multiple iterations.

General Runtime Settings: Run Logic  à  Iteration count - multiple actions /single action

In Run Logic section of RTS, you set iteration count (i.e., the number of times you want action section of the Vuser script to execute.)

Following snapshot shows Runtime Setting page for Web (HTTP/ HTML) Protocol:

Pacing lets you set/control the time between iterations of a Vuser.

    A Vuser can start the next iteration

1.       As soon as previous iteration ends, or

2.       It can start a new iteration after a specified time delay (fixed or random time range), or

3.       It can start a new script iteration at fixed/random time delay (only when previous iteration ends by that time) -- this option almost replicates the typical real-time workload model during load testing and it's suggested.

Log Settings

Log options let you determine the amount of information generated by VuGen to output log.

You can disable or enable logging by unchecking/ checking 'Enable logging' checkbox

By enabling logging you can set the required log level while enhancing and debugging the script.

Following available log level:

1. Standard log

2. Extended log -> Parameter substitution, Data returned by server and Advanced Trace

Enabling 'Extended Log' along with 'Parameter substitution and Data returned by server' is quite useful for debugging and successful execution.

(Enabling Parameter substitution is useful for correlation purpose)

  

Think time lets you control or set the time Vuser waits between each actions/transactions.

   VuGen records the time values (in seconds) into the script using lr_think_time function

    You can

1. Ignore think time (in VuGen while scripting to reduce script execution time while debugging), or

2. Use think time value as recorded, or

3. Multiply the recorded think time (by an integer value) or

4. Use a random percentage delay of recorded time (between time ranges)

It is always suggestible that you can always limit a think time to certain time value.

Additional attribute

By assigning Additional attributes (name and value pairs) you can pass external parameters to the script.

Additional attributes (name and value pairs) can be set to all Vuser types.

Miscellaneous 

·           Do you want to continue even when error occurs? Or

·           Do you want to log error messages using lr_error_message statement?

·           Do you want to let VuGen to generate a snapshot when an error occurs?

 1. Error Handling --> Continue of Error, Fail open transactions on lr_error_message and Generate snapshot on error.

2. Multithreading --> Run Vuser as a process or Run Vuser as a thread

3. Automatic Transactions--> Define each action as a transaction and Define each step as a transaction

Under Error Handling sub-section

Ø  If you enable 'Continue on Error' in Miscellaneous RTS, then Vuser will not exit the script execution when an error occurs.

Ø   You can mark failed transactions using lr_error_message function (transaction pass/fail condition is programming using conditional statements)

Ø  You can generate a snap-shot when an error occurs. The snap-shot can viewed by double-clicking the error line in Vuser log.

Under Multithreading

Ø  Here, you can either run Vuser as a thread (thus enabling multithreading) or

Ø  Run Vuser as a process (disabling multithreading)

Enabling multithreading allows Load Generator (LG) to run more Vuser per LG

Under Automatic Transactions

Ø   You can define each action as transaction (By enabling this option, VuGen treats each action as a transaction for performance measurement)

   This option is enabled by default.

Ø   Define each step as a transaction

Network Runtime Settings:

Speed Simulation

Using speed simulation you can select any of the following bandwidth options that suite your load testing model.

·         Use maximum bandwidth (Default option)

·         Use bandwidth ________

·         Use custom bandwidth

Browser Runtime Settings:

·       

Simulate Browser cache

Ø  Cache URLs requiring content

Ø  Check for newer versions of stored pages every visit to the page

The above option enables caching during replay i.e, the resources that are used frequently used are cached (stored in the temporary memory of the browser to enable fast access).

Ø  Download non-html resources

Ø  Simulation a new version on each iteration

Ø  Clear cache on each iteration

Internet Protocol Runtime Settings:

                          

> Proxy

Under Proxy settings you can select any one of the following options:

No proxy – access internet directly without using proxy server-- Or Obtain proxy settings from default browser –or Use custom proxy

By enabling ‘Use automatic script’ and providing required URL to instruct VuGen to enable proxy and read proxy server settings from a configuration file provided.

Also, you can provided different proxy server settings for HTTP and HTTPs sites respectively by typing in the address of proxy server to be used and its port number under ‘Use proxy server’ sub-section.

Preferences --> this option allows you to

Ø  Enable Image and text checks,

Ø  Generate specific Web performance graphs (viz., Hits Per Second & HTTP codes,  Pages Per Second and Respond Bytes per second)

Ø  Advanced settings.

 Download Filters --> Allows you to either Include or exclude web addresses while replaying. 

>Content Check 

Enable content check -->

By enabling ‘ContentCheck’ you create a script-wide rules to check the content on all the consequent web Vuser requests.

This options searches for a particular string in subsequent requests within the entire script. Functionality is similar to that of a standard check (web_find function) for a webpage but the difference is that this options searches all the subsequent webpages.

 

This option is quite helpful when the application server generates a custom message when an error occurs besides standard error messages.

Depending on the rule(s) specified VuGen generates an error message. You also have an options of exporting/importing these rules.