Tutorials

So, you’ve installed Yandex.Tank to a proper machine, it is close to target, access is permitted and server is tuned. How to make a test?

Note

This guide is for phantom load generator.

Create a file on a server with Yandex.Tank: load.yaml

phantom:
  address: 203.0.113.1:80 # [Target's address]:[target's port]
  load_profile:
    load_type: rps # schedule load by defining requests per second
    schedule: line(1, 10, 10m) # starting from 1rps growing linearly to 10rps during 10 minutes
telegraf:
  enabled: false # let's disable telegraf monitoring for this time

phantom have 3 primitives for describing load scheme:


1. step (a,b,step,dur) makes stepped load, where a,b are start/end load values, step - increment value, dur - step duration.

Example:
step(25, 5, 5, 60) - stepped load from 25 to 5 rps, with 5 rps steps, step duration 60s. step(5, 25, 5, 60) - stepped load from 5 to 25 rps, with 5 rps steps, step duration 60s

2. line (a,b,dur) makes linear load, where a,b are start/end load, dur - the time for linear load increase from a to b.

Example:
line(10, 1, 10m) - linear load from 10 to 1 rps, duration - 10 minutes line(1, 10, 10m) - linear load from 1 to 10 rps, duration - 10 minutes

3. const (load,dur) makes constant load. load - rps amount, dur - load duration.

Note

const(0, 10) - 0 rps for 10 seconds, in fact 10s pause in a test.

Example:
const(10,10m) - constant load for 10 rps for 10 minutes.

Note

You can set fractional load like this: line(1.1, 2.5, 10) – from 1.1rps to 2.5 for 10 seconds.

Note

step and line could be used with increasing and decreasing intensity:

You can specify complex load schemes using those primitives.

Example:

schedule: line(1, 10, 10m) const(10,10m)

linear load from 1 to 10rps during 10 minutes, then 10 minutes of 10rps constant load.

Time duration could be defined in seconds, minutes (m) and hours (h). For example: 27h103m645

For a test with constant load at 10rps for 10 minutes, load.yaml should have following lines:

phantom:
  address: 203.0.113.1:80
  load_profile:
    load_type: rps
    schedule: const(10, 10m)
telegraf:
  enabled: false # let's disable telegraf monitoring for this time

Preparing requests

There are several ways to set up requests:
  • Access mode
  • URI-style
  • URI+POST
  • request-style.

Note

Request-style is default ammo type.

Note

Regardless of the chosen format, resulted file with requests could be gzipped - tank supports archived ammo files.

To specify external ammo file use ammofile option.

Note

You can specify URL to ammofile, http(s). Small ammofiles (~<100MB) will be downloaded as is, to directory /tmp/<hash>, large files will be readed from stream.

Note

If ammo type is uri-style or request-style, tank will try to guess it. Use ammo_type option to explicitly specify ammo format. Don’t forget to change ammo_type option if you switch format of your ammo, otherwise you might get errors.

Example:

phantom:
  address: 203.0.113.1:80
  ammofile: https://yourhost.tld/path/to/ammofile.txt

Access mode

YAML-file configuration: ammo_type: access

You can use access.log file from your webserver as a source of requests. Just add to load.yaml options ammo_type: access and ammofile: /tmp/access.log where /tmp/access.log is a path to access.log file.

phantom:
  address: 203.0.113.1:80
  load_profile:
    load_type: rps
    schedule: line(1, 10, 10m)
  header_http: '1.1'
  headers: |
      [Host: www.target.example.com]
      [Connection: close]
  ammofile: /tmp/access.log
  ammo_type: access
telegraf:
  enabled: false # let's disable telegraf monitoring for this time

Parameter headers defines headers values (if it necessary).

URI-style, URIs in load.yaml

YAML-file configuration: Don’t specify ammo_type explicitly for this type of ammo.

Update configuration file with HTTP headers and URIs:

phantom:
  address: 203.0.113.1:80
  load_profile:
    load_type: rps
    schedule: line(1, 10, 10m)
  header_http: '1.1'
  headers: |
    [Host: www.target.example.com]
    [Connection: close]
  uris: |
    /
    /buy
    /sdfg?sdf=rwerf
    /sdfbv/swdfvs/ssfsf
telegraf:
  enabled: false # let's disable telegraf monitoring for this time

Parameter uris contains uri, which should be used for requests generation.

Note

Pay attention to sample above, because whitespaces in multiline uris and headers options are important.

URI-style, URIs in file

YAML-file configuration: ammo_type: uri

Create a file with declared requests: ammo.txt

[Connection: close]
[Host: target.example.com]
[Cookie: None]
/?drg tag1
/
/buy tag2
[Cookie: test]
/buy/?rt=0&station_to=7&station_from=9

File consist of list of URIs and headers to be added to every request defined below. Every URI must begin from a new line, with leading /. Each line that begins from [ is considered as a header. Headers could be (re)defined in the middle of URIs, as in sample above.

Example:
Request /buy/?rt=0&station_to=7&station_from=9 will be sent with Cookie: test, not Cookie: None.

Request may be marked by tag, you can specify it with whitespace following URI.

URI+POST-style

YAML-file configuration: ammo_type: uripost

Create a file with declared requests: ammo.txt

[Host: example.org]
[Connection: close]
[User-Agent: Tank]
5 /route/?rll=50.262025%2C53.276083~50.056015%2C53.495561&origin=1&simplify=1
class
10 /route/?rll=50.262025%2C53.276083~50.056015%2C53.495561&origin=1&simplify=1
hello!clas
7 /route/?rll=37.565147%2C55.695758~37.412796%2C55.691454&origin=1&simplify=1
uripost

File begins with optional lines […], that contain headers which will be added to every request. After that section there is a list of URIs and POST bodies. Each URI line begins with a number which is the size of the following POST body.

Request-style

YAML-file configuration: ammo_type: phantom

Full requests listed in a separate file. For more complex requests, like POST, you’ll have to create a special file. File format is:

[size_of_request] [tag]\n
[request_headers]
[body_of_request]\r\n
[size_of_request2] [tag2]\n
[request2_headers]
[body_of_request2]\r\n

where size_of_request – request size in bytes. ‘rn’ symbols after body are ignored and not sent anywhere, but it is required to include them in a file after each request. Pay attention to the sample above because ‘r’ symbols are strictly required.

Note

Parameter ammo_type is unnecessary, request-style is default ammo type.


sample GET requests (null body)

73 good
GET / HTTP/1.0
Host: xxx.tanks.example.com
User-Agent: xxx (shell 1)

77 bad
GET /abra HTTP/1.0
Host: xxx.tanks.example.com
User-Agent: xxx (shell 1)

78 unknown
GET /ab ra HTTP/1.0
Host: xxx.tanks.example.com
User-Agent: xxx (shell 1)

sample POST requests (binary data)

904
POST /upload/2 HTTP/1.0
Content-Length: 801
Host: xxxxxxxxx.dev.example.com
User-Agent: xxx (shell 1)

^.^........W.j^1^.^.^.²..^^.i.^B.P..-!(.l/Y..V^.      ...L?...S'NR.^^vm...3Gg@s...d'.\^.5N.$NF^,.Z^.aTE^.
._.[..k#L^ƨ`\RE.J.<.!,.q5.F^՚iΔĬq..^6..P..тH.`..i2
.".uuzs^^F2...Rh.&.U.^^..J.P@.A......x..lǝy^?.u.p{4..g...m.,..R^.^.^......].^^.^J...p.ifTF0<.s.9V.o5<..%!6ļS.ƐǢ..㱋....C^&.....^.^y...v]^YT.1.#K.ibc...^.26...   ..7.
b.$...j6.٨f...W.R7.^1.3....K`%.&^..d..{{      l0..^\..^X.g.^.r.(!.^^...4.1.$\ .%.8$(.n&..^^q.,.Q..^.D^.].^.R9.kE.^.$^.I..<..B^..^.h^^C.^E.|....3o^.@..Z.^.s.$[v.
527
POST /upload/3 HTTP/1.0
Content-Length: 424
Host: xxxxxxxxx.dev.example.com
User-Agent: xxx (shell 1)

^.^........QMO.0^.++^zJw.ر^$^.^Ѣ.^V.J....vM.8r&.T+...{@pk%~C.G../z顲^.7....l...-.^W"cR..... .&^?u.U^^.^.....{^.^..8.^.^.I.EĂ.p...'^.3.Tq..@R8....RAiBU..1.Bd*".7+.
.Ol.j=^.3..n....wp..,Wg.y^.T..~^..

sample POST multipart:

533
POST /updateShopStatus? HTTP/1.0
User-Agent: xxx/1.2.3
Host: xxxxxxxxx.dev.example.com
Keep-Alive: 300
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=AGHTUNG
Content-Length:334
Connection: Close

--AGHTUNG
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="host"

load-test-shop-updatestatus.ru
--AGHTUNG
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="user_id"

1
--AGHTUNG
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="wsw-fields"

<wsw-fields><wsw-field name="moderate-code"><wsw-value>disable</wsw-value></wsw-field></wsw-fields>
--AGHTUNG--

sample ammo generators you may find on the Ammo generators page.

Run Test!

  1. Request specs in load.yaml – run as yandex-tank -c load.yaml
  2. Request specs in ammo.txt – run as yandex-tank -c load.yaml ammo.txt

Yandex.Tank detects requests format and generates ultimate requests versions.

yandex-tank here is an executable file name of Yandex.Tank.

If Yandex.Tank has been installed properly and configuration file is correct, the load will be given in next few seconds.

Results

During test execution you’ll see HTTP and net errors, answer times distribution, progressbar and other interesting data. At the same time file phout.txt is being written, which could be analyzed later.

If you need more human-readable report, you can try Report plugin, You can found it here

If you need to upload results to external storage, such as Graphite or InfluxDB, you can use one of existing artifacts uploading modules Modules

Tags

Requests could be grouped and marked by some tag.

Example:

73 good
GET / HTTP/1.0
Host: xxx.tanks.example.com
User-Agent: xxx (shell 1)

77 bad
GET /abra HTTP/1.0
Host: xxx.tanks.example.com
User-Agent: xxx (shell 1)

75 unknown
GET /ab HTTP/1.0
Host: xxx.tanks.example.com
User-Agent: xxx (shell 1)

good, bad and unknown here are the tags.

Note

RESTRICTION: utf-8 symbols only

SSL

To activate SSL add phantom: {ssl: true} to load.yaml. Now, our basic config looks like that:

phantom:
  address: 203.0.113.1:443
  load_profile:
    load_type: rps
    schedule: line(1, 10, 10m)
  ssl: true

Note

Do not forget to specify ssl port to address. Otherwise, you might get ‘protocol errors’.

Autostop

Autostop is an ability to automatically halt test execution if some conditions are reached.

HTTP and Net codes conditions

There is an option to define specific codes (404,503,100) as well as code groups (3xx, 5xx, xx). Also you can define relative threshold (percent from the whole amount of answer per second) or absolute (amount of answers with specified code per second).

Examples:

autostop: http(4xx,25%,10) – stop test, if amount of 4xx http codes in every second of last 10s period exceeds 25% of answers (relative threshold).

autostop: net(101,25,10) – stop test, if amount of 101 net-codes in every second of last 10s period is more than 25 (absolute threshold).

autostop: net(xx,25,10) – stop test, if amount of non-zero net-codes in every second of last 10s period is more than 25 (absolute threshold).

Average time conditions

Example:
autostop: time(1500,15) – stops test, if average answer time exceeds 1500ms.

So, if we want to stop test when all answers in 1 second period are 5xx plus some network and timing factors - add autostop line to load.yaml:

phantom:
  address: 203.0.113.1:80
  load_profile:
    load_type: rps
    schedule: line(1, 10, 10m)
autostop:
  autostop: |
    time(1s,10s)
    http(5xx,100%,1s)
    net(xx,1,30)

Logging

Looking into target’s answers is quite useful in debugging. For doing that add phantom: {writelog: true} to load.yaml.

Note

Writing answers on high load leads to intensive disk i/o usage and can affect test accuracy.**

Log format:

<metrics>
<body_request>
<body_answer>

Where metrics are:

size_in size_out response_time(interval_real) interval_event net_code (request size, answer size, response time, time to wait for response from the server, answer network code)

Example:

user@tank:~$ head answ_*.txt
553 572 8056 8043 0
GET /create-issue HTTP/1.1
Host: target.yandex.net
User-Agent: tank
Accept: */*
Connection: close


HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Type: application/javascript;charset=UTF-8

For load.yaml like this:

phantom:
  address: 203.0.113.1:80
  load_profile:
    load_type: rps
    schedule: line(1, 10, 10m)
    writelog: true
autostop:
  autostop: |
    time(1,10)
    http(5xx,100%,1s)
    net(xx,1,30)

Results in phout

phout.txt - is a per-request log. It could be used for service behaviour analysis (Excel/gnuplot/etc) It has following fields: time, tag, interval_real, connect_time, send_time, latency, receive_time, interval_event, size_out, size_in, net_code proto_code

Phout example:

1326453006.582          1510    934     52      384     140     1249    37      478     0       404
1326453006.582   others       1301    674     58      499     70      1116    37      478     0       404
1326453006.587   heavy       377     76      33      178     90      180     37      478     0       404
1326453006.587          294     47      27      146     74      147     37      478     0       404
1326453006.588          345     75      29      166     75      169     37      478     0       404
1326453006.590          276     72      28      119     57      121     53      476     0       404
1326453006.593          255     62      27      131     35      134     37      478     0       404
1326453006.594          304     50      30      147     77      149     37      478     0       404
1326453006.596          317     53      33      158     73      161     37      478     0       404
1326453006.598          257     58      32      106     61      110     37      478     0       404
1326453006.602          315     59      27      160     69      161     37      478     0       404
1326453006.603          256     59      33      107     57      110     53      476     0       404
1326453006.605          241     53      26      130     32      131     37      478     0       404

Note

contents of phout depends on phantom version installed on your Yandex.Tank system.

Graph and statistics

Use Report plugin OR use your favorite stats packet, R, for example.

Precise timings

You can set precise timings in load.yaml with verbose_histogram parameter like this:

phantom:
  address: 203.0.113.1:80
  load_profile:
    load_type: rps
    schedule: line(1, 10, 10m)
aggregator:
  verbose_histogram: true

Note

Please keep an eye, last value of time_periods is no longer used as response timeout Use phantom.timeout option.

Thread limit

instances: N in load.yaml limits number of simultanious connections (threads).

Example with 10 threads limit:

phantom:
  address: 203.0.113.1:80
  load_profile:
    load_type: rps
    schedule: line(1, 10, 10m)
  instances: 10

Dynamic thread limit

You can specify load_type: instances instead of ‘rps’ to schedule a number of active instances which generate as much rps as they manage to. Bear in mind that active instances number cannot be decreased and final number of them must be equal to instances parameter value.

Example:

phantom:
  address: 203.0.113.1:80
  load_profile:
    load_type: instances
    schedule: line(1,10,10m)
  loop=10000 # don't stop when the end of ammo is reached but loop it 10000 times

Note

Load scheme is excluded from this load.yaml as we used instances_schedule parameter.

Note

When using load_type: instances you should specify how many loops of ammo you want to generate because tank can’t find out from the schedule how many ammo do you need

Custom stateless protocol

In necessity of testing stateless HTTP-like protocol, Yandex.Tank’s HTTP parser could be switched off, providing ability to generate load with any data, receiving any answer in return. To do that add tank_type: '2' to load.yaml.

Note

Indispensable condition: Connection close must be initiated by remote side

phantom:
  address: 203.0.113.1:80
  load_profile:
    load_type: rps
    schedule: line(1, 10, 10m)
  instances=: 10
  tank_type: 2

Gatling

If server with Yandex.Tank have several IPs, they may be used to avoid outcome port shortage. Use gatling_ip parameter for that. load.yaml:

phantom:
   address: 203.0.113.1:80
   load_profile:
     load_type: rps
     schedule: line(1, 10, 10m)
   instances: 10
   gatling_ip: IP1 IP2