LOAD TESTINGWITH PYTHON

dan kuebrich / dan.kuebrich@gmail.com / @dankosaur

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$finger dkuebric

• Currently: Tracelytics

• Before: Songza.com / AmieStreet.com

• Likes websites, soccer, and beer

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MENU• What is load testing?

• How does it work?

• One good way to do it

• (with Python, no less!)

• A few examples

• Survey: making sense of it all

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WHAT IS LOAD TESTING• AKA stress testing

• Putting demand on a system (web app) and measuring its response (latency, availability)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/60258236@N02/5515327431/

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Q: WILL IT PERFORM

Do my code + infrastructure provide the desired level of performance in terms of

latency and throughput for real user workloads?

And if not, how can I get there?

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http://www.flickr.com/photos/dvs/3540320095/

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WHEN TO LOAD TEST

• Launching a new feature (or site!)

• Expect a big traffic event

• Changing infrastructure

• “I just don’t like surprises”

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A PAGEVIEW IS BORN

give me search results

DNS

First HTTP request

Retrieve assets

and run js

t=0 t=done

now I can lolcats

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THE WATERFALL CHART

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A PAGEVIEW IS BORN

DNS, connectionFulfill HTTP Request (“Time to first byte”)

Download + render page contents(+js)

yslow?

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HOW TO TEST IT

• “F*ck it, we’ll do it live!”

• Synthetic HTTP requests(“Virtual Users / VUs”)

• Synthetic clicks in real browsers (“RBUs”)

most common

least common

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VU vs RBUVU

• Simulate individual protocol-level requests

• Low overhead

• Scripts must parallel user behavior

• Tough to get AJAX-heavy sites exactly right, maintain

RBU• Operate a browser

• Higher overhead

• Scripts must parallel user behavior

• Accurate simulation of AJAX

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MULTI-MECHANIZE

• FOSS (LGPL v3), based on mechanize

• Load generation framework for VUs

• Written in Python, scripted in Python

• Heavyweight for bandwidth-bound tests, but stocked with py-goodness

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MULTI-MECHANIZE

• Basic idea:

• Write a few scripts that simulate user actions or paths

• Specify how you want to run them: x VUs in parallel on script A, y on script B, ramping up, etc.

• Run and watch

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A SIMPLE M-M SCRIPT

import  requests

class  Transaction(object):    def  run(self):        r  =  requests.get(‘http://website.com/’)        r.raw.read()

get_index.py

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A SIMPLE PROJECT• A multi-mechanize “project” is a set of

test scripts and a config that specifies how to run them:

dan@host:~/mm/my_project$  ls  -­‐1  ...config.cfg                #  config  filetest_scripts/          #  your  tests  are  hereresults/                    #  result  files  go  here

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A SIMPLE PROJECT

[global]run_time:  60rampup:  60results_ts_interval:  60console_logging:  offprogress_bar:  on

[user_group-­‐1]threads:  25script:  get_index.py

config.cfg

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A FEW M-M FEATURES

import  requestsimport  time

class  Transaction(object):    def  run(self):        r  =  requests.get(‘http://website.com/a’)        r.raw.read()        assert  (r.status_code  ==  200),  ‘not  200’        assert  (‘Error’  not  in  r.text)

       t1  =  time.time()        r  =  requests.get(‘http://website.com/b’)        r.raw.read()        latency  =  time.time()  -­‐  t1        self.custom_timers[‘b’]  =  latency

features.py

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[  $  multimech-­‐run  example  ]

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INTERACTION

import  mechanize  as  m

class  MyTransaction(object):    def  run(self):        br  =  m.Browser()        br.set_handle_equiv(True)        br.set_handle_gzip(True)        br.set_handle_redirect(True)        br.set_handle_referer(True)        br.set_handle_robots(False)        br.set_handle_refresh(m._http.HTTPRefreshProcessor(),                                                      max_time=1)        _  =  br.open(‘http://reddit.tlys.us’)

       br.select_form(nr=1)        br.form['user']  =  u        br.form['passwd']  =  p        r  =  br.submit()        r.read()

login.py

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[  $  cat  more-­‐advanced-­‐example.py  ][  $  multimech-­‐run  more-­‐advanced    ]

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GETTING INSIGHT

• First, is the machine working hard?

• Inspect basic resources: CPU/RAM/IO

• Ganglia/Munin/etc.

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MUNIN

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GETTING INSIGHT

• Second, why is the machine working hard?

• What is my app doing?

• What are my databases doing?

• How are my caches performing?

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REDDIT: A PYLONS APP

nginx

uwsgi pylons

memcached

postgresql cassandra

queued jobs

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REDDIT: A PYLONS APP

nginx

uwsgi pylons

memcached

postgresql cassandra

queued jobs

request start

request end

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REDDIT: A PYLONS APP

nginx

uwsgi pylons

memcached

postgresql cassandra

queued jobs

request start

request end

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INSIDE THE APPPROFILING

• Fine-grained analysis of Python code

• Easy to set up

• No visibility into DB, cache, etc.

• Distorts app performance

• profile, cProfile

INSTRUMENTATION

• Gather curated set of information

• Requires monkey-patching (or code edits)

• Can connect DB, cache performance to app

• Little (tunable) overhead

• django-debug-toolbar, statsd, Tracelytics, New Relic

VS

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PROFILING 101

ncalls tottime percall cumtime percall filename:lineno(function) 892048 12.643 0.000 17.676 0.000 thing.py:116(__getattr__)14059/2526 9.475 0.001 34.159 0.014 template_helpers.py:181(_replace_render) 562060 7.384 0.000 7.384 0.000 {posix.stat}204587/163113 6.908 0.000 51.302 0.000 filters.py:111(mako_websafe)115192/109693 6.590 0.000 9.700 0.000 {method 'join' of 'str' objects} 1537933 6.584 0.000 15.437 0.000 registry.py:136(__getattr__)1679803/1404938 5.294 0.000 11.767 0.000 {hasattr}2579769/2434607 5.173 0.000 12.713 0.000 {getattr} 139 4.809 0.035 106.065 0.763 pages.py:1004(__init__) 8146 3.967 0.000 15.031 0.002 traceback.py:280(extract_stack) 43487 3.942 0.000 3.942 0.000 {method 'recv' of '_socket.socket' objects} 891579 3.759 0.000 21.430 0.000 thing.py:625(__getattr__) 72021 3.633 0.000 5.910 0.000 memcache.py:163(serverHashFunction) 201 3.319 0.017 38.667 0.192 pages.py:336(render) 392 3.236 0.008 3.236 0.008 {Cfilters.uspace_compress} 1610797 3.208 0.000 3.209 0.000 registry.py:177(_current_obj) 2017343 3.113 0.000 3.211 0.000 {isinstance}

• ncalls: # of calls to method

• tottime: total time spent exclusively in that method

• cumtime: time spent in that method and all child calls

• Try repoze.profile for WSGI

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INSTRUMENTATION• DB queries

• Cache usage

• RPC calls

• Optionally profile critical segments of code

• Exceptions

• Associate with particular codepaths or URLs

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DJANGO-DEBUG-TOOLBAR

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STATSD/GRAPHITE

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TRACELYTICS/NEW RELIC

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THANKS!

• Multi-mechanize: testutils.org/multi-mechanize/

• Email me: dan.kuebrich@gmail.com

• My job: tracelytics.com

(any questions?)

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APPENDIX• Multi-mechanize

• Download: testutils.org/multi-mechanize

• Development: github.com/cgoldberg/multi-mechanize

• Mechanize: wwwsearch.sourceforge.net/mechanize/

• Reddit

• Source: github.com/reddit/reddit

• Demo load test: github.com/dankosaur/reddit-loadtest

• RBU load testing

• BrowserMob: browsermob.com/performance-testing

• LoadStorm: loadstorm.com

• New, but promising: github.com/detro/ghostdriver

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APPENDIX• Machine monitoring:

• Ganglia: ganglia.sourceforge.net

• Munin: munin-monitoring.org

• Application monitoring:

• repoze.profile: docs.repoze.org/profile/

• Django-Debug-Toolbar: github.com/django-debug-toolbar/django-debug-toolbar

• Graphite: graphite.wikidot.com

• and statsd: github.com/etsy/statsd

• and django instrumentation: pypi.python.org/pypi/django-statsd/1.8.0

• Tracelytics: tracelytics.com

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We’ve got a 14-day trial; with only minutes to install, you’ll have plenty of time for load testing. No credit card

required!

http://tracelytics.com

AND: TRACELYTICS FREE TRIAL

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