Linux - Performance Testing
For the last 20 years my operating system of choice has been Linux., I know I’m crazy! However, in 2020 things typically just work on Linux. I even work on Linux using JMeter, Fiddler and Loadrunner Developer all natively. So in this article the intent is to show just what is possible.
Note: All screenshots are taken from my Fedora 32 (Workstation Edition) 64-bit, Gnome version 3.36.2 and Wayland.
Apache JMeter
To be fair JMeter is a Java application so can be run anywhere that Java is installed. However, you would be surprised how many people don’t know this.
Apache JMeter 5.3 can be downloaded directly from the jmeter.apache.org website here. All that you need to do is :-
Extract the apache-jmeter-5.3.tgz file
Navigate to jmeter extracted directory and run the apache-jmeter-5.3/bin/jmeter.
Fiddler Everywhere
Currently, in Beta Fiddler Everywhere is a standalone package that now runs on Linux. I wrote an article about Fiddler Everywhere Beta here which includes installation steps.
Open a terminal and navigate to the directory where Fiddler has been downloaded to.
Make the file executable with the following command “chmod a+x progress-telerik-fiddler.AppImage”
Launch the application with the following command “./progress-telerik-fiddler.AppImage”
Loadrunner Developer
Microfocus Loadrunner has always been a Windows based application with support for Linux generators. However, VUGen, the Controller and Analysis are only supported on Windows.
Recently, Loadrunner Developer has been released by Microfocus. It finally provides a method of using the Loadrunner libraries to generate load. I have written an article on Loadrunner Developer here.
Download Loadrunner-Developer
Launch via a command such as “DevWeb -mode=load scripts/martkosit/”
In the screenshots below I used the Microsoft Visual Code Editor with the Microfocus Loadrunner Developer template installed.
SoapUI
SoapUI is another tool which now has Linux support. It can be downloaded from here.
Open a terminal
Navigate to the download directory.
Run the following command to make it executable “chmod +x SoapUI-x64-5.5.0.sh”
Then execute ./SoapUI-x64-5.5.0.sh
Simply step through the wizard to chose your installation directory.
Gatling
Gatling is another performance testing tool that can run on Linux. It can be downloaded from Gatling.io here.
Download gatling
Extract gatling-charts-highcharts-bundle-3.3.1-bundle.zip
To launch the recorder run “gatling.sh”.
Loadrunner
Although not directly on Linux - Loadrunner can be run inside a Windows virtual machine. It’s far from ideal where you intend to generate significant load but can help to at least script and then move over to a larger machine later.
In this example I used Virtual Box running Microsoft Windows 10 and VUGen 2020.
This is far from an exhaustive list of tools but the focus was to show that Linux is no longer a barrier to Performance Testing.