Monthly Archives: August 2015

My Definition of Done for performance and loadtest cases

Load and performance testcases are frequently used for multiple objectives:

  • Determining where a system’s breaking point is
  • Determining if a system is able to meet a required load

Here are the criteria I use to make sure my load/performance testcases are good enough to use and maintain for all the objectives. I’ve been using this for regular load tests on a huge SharePoint farm at one of my clients.

Criteria Explanation
The following information is parametrized into context parameters:

  1. Server name(s)

  2. Site name(s)

  3. List/library/page name(s)

  4. Filenames (up- and download) specific to the testcase
User credentials are included in the testcase
Think-times on the various requests are configured conform test design I always check that the agreed thinktimes are present. I configure the loadtest to either use them all or ignore them all
The testcase includes a transaction encapsulating only the requests relevant to the scenario Test results always state how fast pages are. However, we also want to see fast the system is able to respond to user scenarios that include multiple requests
Testcase has logic to fail if generic errors / messages are returned
Testcase has logic to fail if the correct content has not been returned A simple validation rule to check for a specific string in the output is usually enough
Testcase has logic determine if a performance threshold has been exceeded
The decision to fail the testcase based on the threshold, can be enabled or disabled without changing the testcase I usually include a ‘responsetime goal’ validation rule and set its level to Low or Medium. Then at runtime, I can indicate what level of validation rules should apply to the entire loadtest. That will allow me to run the entire loadtest to stress the farm without a few performance delays causing the run to fail
Testcase is able to run standalone or as part of a loadtest with concurrent users
The testcase should only delete or modify information that it owns. If this is not possible, then the testcase must gracefully accepts errors when concurrent instances of it touch that information
Testcases that create, modify or delete information must include information that uniquely identifies the specific instance of the testcase In practice I use the following combination concatenated into a string:

  1. The id of the virtual user (WebTestUserId)

  2. The id of the iteration (WebTestIteration)

  3. The id of the agent running the test (AgentName)
Testcases conform to the testdesign in their decision to parse and execute dependent requests (.css, .js, images etc etc)

How to generate self signed certificates

Sometimes you need a self-signed certificate for the purpose of testing websites or digitally signing files such as PDFs. Your PDF software will probably ask you for a .pfx file. You can generate these on Windows, Mac or linux

On Windows


On windows, with Visual Studio, you can use the makecert utility:

cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1A\Bin\"
.\makecert.exe -r -a sha512 -len 4096 -pe -sv c:\users\gerben\documents\example.key -n "CN=Test" c:\users\gerben\documents\example.cer
.\pvk2pfx.exe -pvk c:\users\gerben\documents\example.key -spc c:\users\gerben\documents\example.cer -pfx c:\users\gerben\documents\example.pfx -po PasswordForPfxFile

Linux and Mac


Most linux and OSX machines have openssl installed by default. You can generate the various files as follows:

commandprompt> openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:1024 -keyout example.key -out example.pem -subj "/C=NL/O=Tester/CN=example.com/emailAddress=test@example.com"
commandprompt> openssl pkcs12 -export -out example.pfx -inkey example.key -in example.pem 
#openssl will ask you for a password. Don't forget it

This will output the following:

File Description
example.key Your private key.
example.pem The certificate. This also contains your public key
example.pfx An encrypted, password protected file that contains both your private and public key

You can see your public key with the following command:

commandprompt> openssl x509 -in example.pem -pubkey
-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY-----
MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQC52G+QBJsz1m/rzINSjzABnLjQ
18c+PGMn+w0CxCHsOkIGBRYP80k8+ZznhlMJ2pJ7knM5McHUuYxfBaMU1GraTjS5
c0nb/5AbPR6iWM5rI/Ha02CMmZmSsspq2RhSZZU0Buco0sAqjf9KPn6/uuoNdvTe
kDTMIH7cgB+NsJSadwIDAQAB
-----END PUBLIC KEY-----

You can see the contents of your certificate using the following command:

commandprompt> openssl x509 -in example.pem -text
Certificate:
    Data:
        Version: 3 (0x2)
        Serial Number:
            fd:22:40:d8:00:b8:68:fa
        Signature Algorithm: sha1WithRSAEncryption
        Issuer: C=NL, O=Tester, CN=example.com/emailAddress=test@example.com
        Validity
            Not Before: Apr 16 12:52:39 2015 GMT
            Not After : Apr 15 12:52:39 2016 GMT
        Subject: C=NL, O=Tester, CN=example.com/emailAddress=test@example.com
        Subject Public Key Info:
            Public Key Algorithm: rsaEncryption
            RSA Public Key: (1024 bit)
                Modulus (1024 bit):
                    00:b9:d8:6f:90:04:9b:33:d6:6f:eb:cc:83:52:8f:
                    30:01:9c:b8:d0:d7:c7:3e:3c:63:27:fb:0d:02:c4:
                    21:ec:3a:42:06:05:16:0f:f3:49:3c:f9:9c:e7:86:
                    53:09:da:92:7b:92:73:39:31:c1:d4:b9:8c:5f:05:
                    a3:14:d4:6a:da:4e:34:b9:73:49:db:ff:90:1b:3d:
                    1e:a2:58:ce:6b:23:f1:da:d3:60:8c:99:99:92:b2:
                    ca:6a:d9:18:52:65:95:34:06:e7:28:d2:c0:2a:8d:
                    ff:4a:3e:7e:bf:ba:ea:0d:76:f4:de:90:34:cc:20:
                    7e:dc:80:1f:8d:b0:94:9a:77
                Exponent: 65537 (0x10001)
        X509v3 extensions:
            X509v3 Subject Key Identifier: 
                B4:82:EE:F5:8A:75:34:82:BD:23:03:3B:96:E4:A9:AE:B7:3B:5F:A9
            X509v3 Authority Key Identifier: 
                keyid:B4:82:EE:F5:8A:75:34:82:BD:23:03:3B:96:E4:A9:AE:B7:3B:5F:A9
                DirName:/C=NL/O=Tester/CN=example.com/emailAddress=test@example.com
                serial:FD:22:40:D8:00:B8:68:FA

            X509v3 Basic Constraints: 
                CA:TRUE
    Signature Algorithm: sha1WithRSAEncryption
        76:27:e2:e6:07:a2:cd:db:3a:6a:14:f4:a1:17:8e:7e:ff:97:
        da:b4:78:29:a1:33:be:ca:49:5f:26:83:6c:f8:40:9e:65:67:
        91:ae:b8:14:5c:09:85:7f:e6:a0:6d:bb:a5:7d:e7:16:2e:c9:
        6b:86:39:16:74:6f:e6:5c:40:8a:a0:4e:ec:eb:70:1a:85:e4:
        a1:7c:21:e1:a5:71:76:3b:dc:43:74:f2:ee:a7:eb:d2:f9:5b:
        44:3e:26:7a:f8:e8:c7:40:c9:71:b9:e7:ad:93:8d:69:00:69:
        16:e2:fb:e5:6d:45:b2:fb:8f:df:fc:2b:c7:a9:58:59:35:22:
        56:7f
-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----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-----END CERTIFICATE-----

Entity Framework Code First migrations and the [StringLength] annotation

Recently I needed to change my model so that a field would be checked for uniqueness. I eagerly added the [StringLength(3)] and [Index(IsUnique = true)] annotations to the model and ran Add-Migration and Update-Database. Close, but no cigar unfortunately. Update-Database kept throwing the following error: System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException (0x80131904): Column 'IsoCode' in table 'dbo.CurrencyModels' is of a type that is invalid for use as a key column in an index.

This is due to the fact that the generated code migration, was only applying the index and not the length restriction. You can fix this directly in the Up() and Down() methods of the code migration by using AlterColumn() as follows:

    public partial class UniqueCurrency : DbMigration
    {
        public override void Up()
        {
            AlterColumn("dbo.CurrencyModels", "IsoCode", c => c.String(maxLength: 3));
            CreateIndex("dbo.CurrencyModels", "IsoCode", unique: true);
        }
        
        public override void Down()
        {
            AlterColumn("dbo.CurrencyModels", "IsoCode", c => c.String(maxLength: null));
            DropIndex("dbo.CurrencyModels", new[] { "IsoCode" });
        }
    }