USAGE NOTES

This test framework has been implemented with Jakarta Jmeter.  While Jmeter itself is a pure java application, this framework uses scripts which generally require an underlying linux machine.

Using Jmeter:

First, have a look at the user manual:

  http://jakarta.apache.org/jmeter/usermanual/

Some things to note about jmeter in general and this framework in
particular:

• Everything in the test tree starts out uncollapsed.  For readability's sake, you likely want to collapse the various groups of tests, "user management", "library management", etc.  When working within a subtree, you probably want to collapse the sub-subtrees first, at least until you're familiar with the layout of it all.
• Clicking on the "main thread" test element will let you configure the number of simultaneous threads.  Only some subtrees are multithread-safe.
• The top-level subtrees are marked "single-threaded" or "multithread-safe".
• Test elements which are greyed out are inactive.  Right-click on a test element to get the menu which allows activation.
• The default configuration (as of this writing) is multithreaded with only the "item management" subtree turned on, since that's where all the bugs have been turning up.
• The thalia directory on cilantro has some other potentially useful tests as well.  In all cases they just represent rearrangement of the basic Thalia test plan to exercise some specific

Useful things to do once you have jmeter up:

• Run through the tests!  Control-R, or "Run/Start" in the menus. Click on the "Assertion Results" at the bottom of the test plan to see what, if anything, is reporting errors.  To see details on what calls are being made by each test element, expand its subtree and look at the "View Results Tree" element, which will give you send and received HTTP header data, response text from the server, and more. Other test elements can be inserted which log data, provide performance graphs, and much, much, much more.
• If jmeter is misbehaving: "tail -20f jmeter.out" to see what it's logging.

NON-INSTALLATION

If you:

1) have an X server
2) have ssh
3) are in cilantro@cilantro's .k5login

...then you can run "ssh -Y cilantro@cilantro.mit.edu", cd to the thalia
directory, and run stuff from there without installing it locally.  Easy!

INSTALLATION

To get a local install of this working on your linux machine:

1: Get the jmeter test framework for Thalia:

  svn co svn+ssh://amb@svn.mit.edu/zips/test-framework/thalia

2: Get the release of jmeter we're using and unpack it.

  scp cilantro@cilantro.mit.edu:jakarta-jmeter-r543291.tar.gz .
  tar xzvf jakarta-jmeter-r543291.tar.gz

3: Make sure you have a functional Java environment.  (Most testing
   was done with 1.6.0, though 1.5 should be fine as well.)

4: Make sure your java setup trusts the MIT CAs.  You can copy
   cilantro@cilantro:certs/cacerts to your machine.  (File is
   /usr/java/jre1.6.0/lib/security/cacerts or similar.)

4: Get a copy of user cilantro's certificate and put it in the
   directory with the jmeter test:

   scp cilantro@cilantro.mit.edu:certs/cilantro.p12 thalia

5: Run this script, which sanity-checks a few things and runs jmeter on the main test plan, thalia.jmx:

  ./thalia-test.sh