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8. Building an FTP Test Plan
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In this section, you will learn how to create a basic
Test Plan
to test an FTP site. You will
create four users that send requests for two files on the O'Reilly FTP site.
Also, you will tell the users to run their tests twice. So, the total number of
requests is (4 users) x (2 requests) x (repeat 2 times) = 16 FTP requests. To
construct the Test Plan, you will use the following elements:
Thread Group
,
FTP Request
,
FTP Request Defaults
, and
Spline Visualizer
.
This example uses the O'Reilly FTP site, www.oro.com. Please be considerate
when running this example, and (if possible) consider running against another
FTP site.
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8.1 Adding Users
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The first step you want to do with every JMeter Test Plan is to add a
Thread Group
element. The Thread Group tells
JMeter the number of users you want to simulate, how often the users should send
requests, and the how many requests they should send.
Go ahead and add the ThreadGroup element by first selecting the Test Plan,
clicking your right mouse button to get the Add menu, and then select
Add --> ThreadGroup.
You should now see the Thread Group element under Test Plan. If you do not
see the element, then "expand" the Test Plan tree by clicking on the
Test Plan element.
Next, you need to modify the default properties. Select the Thread Group element
in the tree, if you have not already selected it. You should now see the Thread
Group Control Panel in the right section of the JMeter window (see Figure 8.1
below)
![](../images/screenshots/ftptest/threadgroup.png)
Figure 8.1. Thread Group with Default Values
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Start by providing a more descriptive name for our Thread Group. In the name
field, enter O'Reilly Users.
Next, increase the number of users (called threads) to 4.
In the next field, the Ramp-Up Period, leave the the default value of 0
seconds. This property tells JMeter how long to delay between starting each
user. For example, if you enter a Ramp-Up Period of 5 seconds, JMeter will
finish starting all of your users by the end of the 5 seconds. So, if we have
5 users and a 5 second Ramp-Up Period, then the delay between starting users
would be 1 second (5 users / 5 seconds = 1 user per second). If you set the
value to 0, then JMeter will immediately start all of your users.
Finally, clear the checkbox labeled "Forever", and enter a value of 2 in
the Loop Count field. This property tells JMeter how many times to repeat your
test. If you enter a loop count value of 0, then JMeter will run your test only
once. To have JMeter repeatedly run your Test Plan, select the Forever
checkbox.
In most applications, you have to manually accept
changes you make in a Control Panel. However, in JMeter, the Control Panel
automatically accepts your changes as you make them. If you change the
name of an element, the tree will be updated with the new text after you
leave the Control Panel (for example, when selecting another tree element).
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See Figure 8.2 for the completed O'Reilly Users Thread Group.
![](../images/screenshots/ftptest/threadgroup2.png)
Figure 8.2. O'Reilly Users Thread Group
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8.2 Adding Default FTP Request Properties
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Now that we have defined our users, it is time define the tasks that they
will be performing. In this section, you will specify the default settings
for your FTP requests. And then, in section 8.3, you will add FTP Request
elements which use some of the default settings you specified here.
Begin by selecting the O'Reilly Users element. Click your right mouse button
to get the Add menu, and then select Add --> Config Element --> FTP Request
Defaults. Then, select this new element to view its Control Panel (see Figure 8.3).
![](../images/screenshots/ftptest/ftp-defaults.png)
Figure 8.3. FTP Request Defaults
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Like most JMeter elements, the
FTP Request Defaults
Control
Panel has a name field that you can modify. In this example, leave this field with
the default value.
Skip to the next field, which is the FTP Server's Server Name/IP. For the
Test Plan that you are building, all FTP requests will be sent to the same
FTP server, ftp.oro.com. Enter this domain name into the field.
This is the only field that we will specify a default, so leave the remaining
fields with their default values.
The FTP Request Defaults element does not tell JMeter
to send an FTP request. It simply defines the default values that the
FTP Request elements use.
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See Figure 8.4 for the completed FTP Request Defaults element
![](../images/screenshots/ftptest/ftp-defaults2.png)
Figure 8.4. FTP Defaults for our Test Plan
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8.3 Adding FTP Requests
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In our Test Plan, we need to make two FTP requests. The first one is for the
O'Reilly mSQL Java README file (ftp://ftp.oro.com/pub/msql/java/README), and the
second is for the tutorial file (ftp://ftp.oro.com/pub/msql/java/tutorial.txt).
JMeter sends requests in the order that you add them to the tree.
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Start by adding the first
FTP Request
to the O'Reilly Users element (Add --> Sampler --> FTP Request).
Then, select the FTP Request element in the tree and edit the following properties
(see Figure 8.5):
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Change the Name to "README".
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Change the File to Retrieve From Server field to "pub/msql/java/README".
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Change the Username field to "anonymous".
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Change the Password field to "anonymous".
You do not have to set the Server Name field because you already specified
this value in the FTP Request Defaults element.
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![](../images/screenshots/ftptest/ftp-request.png)
Figure 8.5. FTP Request for O'Reilly mSQL Java README file
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Next, add the second FTP Request and edit the following properties (see
Figure 8.6:
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Change the Name to "tutorial".
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Change the File to Retrieve From Server field to "pub/msql/java/tutorial.txt".
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Change the Username field to "anonymous".
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Change the Password field to "anonymous".
![](../images/screenshots/ftptest/ftp-request2.png)
Figure 8.6. FTP Request for O'Reilly mSQL Java tutorial file
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8.4 Adding a Listener to View/Store the Test Results
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The final element you need to add to your Test Plan is a
Listener
. This element is
responsible for storing all of the results of your FTP requests in a file and presenting
a visual model of the data.
Select the O'Reilly Users element and add a
Spline Visualizer
listener (Add --> Listener --> Spline Visualizer).
![](../images/screenshots/ftptest/spline-results.png)
Figure 8.7. Spline Visualizer Listener
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8.5 Saving the Test Plan
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Although it is not required, we recommend that you save the Test Plan to a
file before running it. To save the Test Plan, select Save Test Plan from the
File menu (with the latest release, it is no longer necessary to select the
Test Plan element first).
JMeter allows you to save the entire Test Plan tree or
only a portion of it. To save only the elements located in a particular "branch"
of the Test Plan tree, select the Test Plan element in the tree from which to start
the "branch", and then click your right mouse button to access the Save As menu item.
Alternatively, select the appropriate Test Plan element and then select Save As from
the Edit menu.
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8.6 Running the Test Plan
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From the Run menu, select Run.
JMeter lights up a green square in the upper-right-hand corner to indicate if a
test is currently running. The square is turned gray when all tests stop. Even after
you select "stop", the green light will stay on until all test threads have exited.
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