Speedboat

Speedboat is the codename for the next generation of Load Impact's load generator.

Installation

On your own machine

go get github.com/loadimpact/speedboat

Make sure you have Go 1.6 or later installed. It will be installed to $GOPATH/bin, so you probably want that in your PATH.

Using Docker

# In this repository
docker build -t loadimpact/speedboat .

You can now run speedboat using docker run loadimpact/speedboat [...].

Substitute the speedboat command for this in the instructions below if using this method.

Running (standalone)

speedboat run --script scripts/google.js

This will run a very simple load test against https://google.com/ for 10 seconds (change with eg -d 15s or -d 2m), using 2 VUs (change with eg -u 4).

Running (distributed)

# On the master machine
speedboat master -h 0.0.0.0

# On each worker machine
speedboat worker -m master.local

# On the client machine
speedboat run -m master.local --script scripts/google.js

This will run a distributed test, on any number of machines in parallel, using master.local as a central point for communication. The master's firewall must allow access to the ports 9595 and 9596.

Scripting API

This describes the JS scripting API, as it is currently implemented.

Global functions (no need to import these) :

sleep(t)

Makes the VU thread sleep a specified amount of time.

Argument	Type	Description
t	float	Number of seconds to sleep

Returns: none

Module "test" (require "test") :

test.abort()

Aborts the whole test.

Arguments: none

Returns: none

test.url()

Returns the value given to the --url command line parameter (string)

Arguments: none

Module "console" (require "console") :

console.log(s)

Logs the supplied string "s" to the console, using a "LOG" subject/header.

Argument	Type	Description
s	string	string to output

Returns: none

console.warn(s)

Logs the supplied string "s" to the console, using a "WARN" subject/header.

Argument	Type	Description
s	string	string to output

Returns: none

console.err(s)

Logs the supplied string "s" to the console, using a "ERR" subject/header.

Argument	Type	Description
s	string	string to output

Returns: none

Module "vu" (require "vu") :

vu.id()

Returns the unique ID number of the currently executing VU (integer).

Arguments: none

vu.iteration()

Returns the sequence number of the currently executing script iteration (integer).

Arguments: none

Module "http" (require "http") :

http.request(method, url, body, args)

Argument	Type	Description
method	string	Which HTTP method to use ("GET", "POST", "HEAD", "PUT" and "DELETE" supported
url	string	Which URL to get
body	string	HTTP request body (mostly used for POSTs)
args	RequestArgs	Struct/map that can currently hold two boolean parameters ("report" and "follow"), and a string parameter ("userAgent"), see below.

Return value	Type	Description
result	Result	Struct/map that contains four items: "Text", "Time", "Error" and "Abort", see below.

This function is the primitive that all the other http.method functions make use of to generate HTTP requests. It can take a RequestArgs struct as parameter, which has the following layout:

Field name	Type	Description
follow	boolean	Defines whether Speedboat should follow HTTP redirects, or not. Defaults to true.
report	boolean	Defines whether Speedboat should report results, or not. Defaults to true.
userAgent	string	Defines what User-Agent string Speedboat should send to the target host.

The Result struct returned from a call has the following fields:

Field name	Type	Description
Text	string	The HTTP body data sent by the remote server.
Time	time.Duration	How long the request took. See https://golang.org/pkg/time/#Duration
Error	interface	See https://golang.org/pkg/builtin/#error
Abort	boolean	If the test was aborted?

http.get(url, args)

See description of http.request() above.

http.head(url, args)

See description of http.request() above.

http.post(url, body, args)

See description of http.request() above.

http.put(url, body, args)

See description of http.request() above.

http.delete(url, body, args)

See description of http.request() above.

http.setMaxConnsPerHost(n)

Argument	Type	Description
n	integer	Max # of concurrent connections each VU can use per target host it communicates with.

This setting is used to emulate browser behaviour better, where browsers tend to use multiple, concurrent connections when fetching >1 resource from the same host. Most modern browsers use 4-8 concurrent connections per host, by default.

Planned additions to scripting API

• dns.remap()
• dns.lookup()
• html support using goquery
• http.auto_cookie_handling
• http.force_sslv1/v2/v3
• http.force_tlsv1/v2
• xml.?