JMeter-plugins WebDriver using specific Firefox version/EXE

This post only concerns WebDriver if used with JMeter via the WebDriver jmeter-plugins.

As you probably well know WebDriver is picky when it comes to browser versions. You will have one version of Firefox installed but WebDriver wants another to execute. There is no google-obvious way to tell JMeter/WebDriver to pick a specific EXE. So here goes how that is done:

1. Download the version of Firefox that you need here.
2. Right-click on the EXE and “open archive” with a compression program.
3. Copy the content of the core folder to where you want to have it installed (in this example C:\<path>\firefox_47.0).
4. Start Firefox and type about:preferences#advanced<enter> in the address bar.
5. Under Advanced, Select Update. Check the settings.
6. Turn off installing of updates.
7. Now start JMeter from the command line with: jmeter.bat -Dwebdriver.firefox.bin=C:\<path>\Firefox_47.0\firefox.exe

If you now start your WebDriver JMX it will choose the specific Firefox version.

by

Oliver Erlewein

CASTx17 Talk “Little Shop of Tools”

This post is for all those that attended my talk at CASTx17 in Sydney (and of course for anyone else that cares). It just contains all the details for the tools and links I talked about.

JMeter and WSSE

WSSE signing and/or encryption has always been an issue no-matter what tool you use. One of the reasons for the ongoing success of SoapUI as that does it magically somehow. 😉

Thankfully my colleague Till Neunast has now written a wrapper that allows you to use WSSE with JMeter. Just install and away you go (nearly). It is really no less complex than the SoapUI variant. It is still early days and should be treated with caution(!!) and I can imagine there still being some change to the project but it’s a very good start and a long awaited reprieve from the personal hell that WSSE has been in the past. So excuse me for being a bit overexcited.

If you do end up using the plugin please feed back any issues or improvements to the project or Till for that matter.

To download please see here:
https://github.com/tilln/jmeter-wssecurity

by
Oliver Erlewein

CASTx 2017

For the 1st time ever CAST is coming to the southern part of the globe! So don’t miss your spot! I think most (I’m guessing all) of yours truly from here will be there.
And with Michael Bolton and Goranka Bjedov as Keynote speakers you can’t really go wrong now can you?

So book your seat now! Early bird prices too. https://www.associationforsoftwaretesting.org/conference/castx17-call-for-proposals/packages-and-pricing/

 

My Daily Tool Use [Updated #2]

As a performance tester I spend most of my daily time somewhere between the browser and a web server. I also so spend a lot of time on servers themselves analysing data. So I thought I’d write a bit about the tool landscape I tend to use. In my tool selection I favour Open Source software. Mainly because I don’t have to fluff around with licenses but also because I can look at code if I need to. It allows me to focus my resources on training people. I do tend to feed back into OSS, whenever I can (which is seldom as I am usually not that clever;-) ).

I also do a lot of bespoke programming to automate processes. This is not at the level a developer would do things but more on a simple scripting level. But not to be underestimated what power this can unleash in your day to day work.

Stealing from Science

The Helix Nebula is 700 light-years away from Earth. The original image was taken by ESO’s VISTA Telescope.

I just finished the short but very powerful book A Briefer History of Time, by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. Space and how the universe works is something that has always fascinated me. I think it’s all the unanswered questions and the urge to understand what it ALL means, and the wonder of what may be out there.

A Briefer History of Time is a result of feedback about the original book A Brief History of Time in which many people requested a more accessible version. I for one am happy this was done as it’s now a great introduction to Hawking’s (and other’s) work which was relatively easy to grasp. Now that I have a taste for it, and a slightly better grasp, I’ll continue on and read his other works.

As I read non-fiction books I often think about lessons that can be misappropriated and applied to software testing. This wasn’t my specific goal while reading this book, but one that lingers in the background all the time. It’s often been discussed that testing can take many queues from science, and specifically the scientific method. I’m not going to try and put a new spin on this, but did have some ‘light bulb’ moments when reading this book that I wanted to share.

Recruiting for testers – a hiring perspective

In recent times I have been heavily involved in hiring testers. This is includes fine tuning the hiring process, screening CV’s, interviews, take home exercises and so forth. It also includes spending time with recruiters. I have found two aspects of hiring interesting and we’ll look at one vital component of the process in this post.

Recruiters

I have found recruiters fall into two categories – those that listen and those that don’t. I have met some very good recruiters who have gone out of their way to build a rapport before trying to sell me their wares. I have appreciated this as I have found that they’ve listened to what we were after (our ‘requirements’ if you will) and we got to know each other better. This is important as testing (and the tech business) is about people after all. An example of this is when I recently spoke at a testing conference in Melbourne, Australia (ATD2K16) – three people from the same recruiting firm came to support me because we had established a very good relationship before hand!

ATD2016 a Solid Success

I’ve just returned from Melbourne, where the inaugural Australia Testing Days 2016 (#ATD2k16) was held. I love these conferences. They are really what drives our community. In this case the TEAM Meetup Melbourne gave rise to the conference, which is new. Usually it’s the other way around, that smaller groups emerge from conferences. Nonetheless  I thought it was a great success. People seemed to enjoy themselves and by the amount of participation I saw they were keenly interested too.

Controlling JMeter ThreadGroups with -1

When I script large JMeter projects I immediately default to run scripts through config files. That means that all sorts of variables get pre loaded at the start of the test (VariablesFromCSV is a huge help!). From there I control things like URLs, usernames and passwords,… but I also control Thread Groups. Recently I came across the issue that I wanted to switch in such a config file between a test that ran for a certain length of time to a test that ran only X number of iterations.

For all of you that have used JMeter you know that that might be an issue.

Australian Testing Days 2016 in Melbourne

For those that have missed this so far, take note that there will be a cool conference coming up in Melbourne with yours truly. My expectations are high for the 1st Australian Testing Days conferece. The lineup and topics look top notch. Have a look here: https://testengineeringalliance.com/australian-testing-days-2016/

If you decide to book use ERLEWEIN15 in the coupon section for a 15% conference discount.