---
title: "Benchmark Testing"
date: 0001-01-01
summary: "Benchmark Testing # You are advised to use the Elasticsearch-dedicated benchmark tool Loadgen to test the gateway performance.
Highlights of Loadgen:
Robust performance Lightweight and dependency-free Random selection of template-based parameters High concurrency Balanced traffic control at the benchmark end Validate server responses. Download URL: http://release.infinilabs.com/loadgen/
Loadgen # Loadgen is easy to use. After the tool is downloaded and decompressed, two files are obtained: one executable program and one configuration file loadgen."
---
# Benchmark Testing
You are advised to use the Elasticsearch-dedicated benchmark tool `Loadgen` to test the gateway performance.
Highlights of Loadgen:
- Robust performance
- Lightweight and dependency-free
- Random selection of template-based parameters
- High concurrency
- Balanced traffic control at the benchmark end
- Validate server responses.
> Download URL: [http://release.infinilabs.com/loadgen/](http://release.infinilabs.com/loadgen/)
## Loadgen
Loadgen is easy to use. After the tool is downloaded and decompressed, two files are obtained: one executable program and one configuration file `loadgen.yml`. An example of the configuration file is as follows:
```
env:
ES_USERNAME: elastic
ES_PASSWORD: elastic
runner:
# total_rounds: 1
no_warm: false
log_requests: false
assert_invalid: false
assert_error: false
variables:
- name: ip
type: file
path: test/ip.txt
- name: user
type: file
path: test/user.txt
- name: id
type: sequence
- name: uuid
type: uuid
- name: now_local
type: now_local
- name: now_utc
type: now_utc
- name: now_unix
type: now_unix
requests:
- request:
method: GET
basic_auth:
username: $[[env.ES_USERNAME]]
password: $[[env.ES_PASSWORD]]
url: http://localhost:8000/medcl/_search
body: '{ "query": {"match": { "name": "$[[user]]" }}}'
```
### Runner Configurations
By default, `loadgen` will run under the benchmarking mode, repeating through all the `requests` during the specified duration (`-d`). If you only need to test the responses, setting `runner.total_rounds: 1` will let `loadgen` run for only once.
### HTTP Headers Canonization
By default, `loadgen` will canonilize the HTTP response header keys received from the server side (`user-agent: xxx` -> `User-Agent: xxx`). If you need to assert the header keys exactly, you can set `runner.disable_header_names_normalizing: true` to disable this behavior.
## Usage of Variables
In the above configuration, `variables` is used to define variable parameters and variables are identified by `name`. In a constructed request, `$[[Variable name]]` can be used to access the value of the variable. Supported variable types are as follows:
| Type | Description | Parameters |
| ----------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `file` | Load variables from file | `path`: the path of the data files
`data`: a list of values, will get appended to the end of the data specified by `path` file |
| `list` | Defined variables inline | use `data` to define a string array |
| `sequence` | 32-bit Variable of the auto incremental numeric type | `from`: the minimum of the values
`to`: the maximum of the values |
| `sequence64` | 64-bit Variable of the auto incremental numeric type | `from`: the minimum of the values
`to`: the maximum of the values |
| `range` | Variable of the range numbers, support parameters `from` and `to` to define the range | `from`: the minimum of the values
`to`: the maximum of the values |
| `random_array` | Generate a random array from the variable specified by `variable_key` | `variable_key`: the variable name for the source of array values
`size`: the size of array
`square_bracket`: `true/false`, whether to add `[]` for the outputed array
`string_bracket`: the string to surround the outputed elements. |
| `uuid` | Variable of the UUID character type | |
| `now_local` | Current time and local time zone | |
| `now_utc` | Current time and UTC time zone | |
| `now_unix` | Current time and Unix timestamp | |
| `now_with_format` | Current time，support parameter `format` to customize the output format， eg: `2006-01-02T15:04:05-0700` | `format`: the format of the time output ([Example](https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/time-formatting-in-golang/)) |
### Examples
Variable parameters of the `file` type are loaded from an external text file. One variable parameter occupies one line. When one variable of the file type is accessed, one variable value is taken randomly. An example of the variable format is as follows:
```
➜ loadgen git:(master) ✗ cat test/user.txt
medcl
elastic
```
Tips about how to generate a random string of fixed length, such as 1024 per line:
```
LC_CTYPE=C tr -dc A-Za-z0-9_\!\@\#\$\%\^\&\*\(\)-+= < /dev/random | head -c 1024 >> 1k.txt
```
### Environment Variables
`loadgen` supporting loading and using environment variables in `loadgen.yml`, you can specify the default values in `env` configuration. `loadgen` will overwrite the variables at runtime if they're also specified by the command-line environment.
The environment variables can be access by `$[[env.ENV_KEY]]`:
```
# Default values for the environment variables.
env:
ES_USERNAME: elastic
ES_PASSWORD: elastic
ES_ENDPOINT: http://localhost:8000
requests:
- request:
method: GET
basic_auth:
username: $[[env.ES_USERNAME]] # Use environment variables
password: $[[env.ES_PASSWORD]] # Use environment variables
url: $[[env.ES_ENDPOINT]]/medcl/_search # Use environment variables
body: '{ "query": {"match": { "name": "$[[user]]" }}}'
```
## Request Definition
The `requests` node is used to set requests to be executed by Loadgen in sequence. Loadgen supports fixed-parameter requests and requests constructed using template-based variable parameters. The following is an example of a common query request.
```
requests:
- request:
method: GET
basic_auth:
username: elastic
password: pass
url: http://localhost:8000/medcl/_search?q=name:$[[user]]
```
In the above query, Loadgen conducts queries based on the `medcl` index and executes one query based on the `name` field. The value of each request is from the random variable `user`.
### Simulating Bulk Ingestion
It is very easy to use Loadgen to simulate bulk ingestion. Configure one index operation in the request body and then use the `body_repeat_times` parameter to randomly replicate several parameterized requests to complete the preparation of a batch of requests. See the following example.
```
- request:
method: POST
basic_auth:
username: test
password: testtest
url: http://localhost:8000/_bulk
body_repeat_times: 1000
body: |
{ "index" : { "_index" : "medcl-y4","_type":"doc", "_id" : "$[[uuid]]" } }
{ "id" : "$[[id]]","field1" : "$[[user]]","ip" : "$[[ip]]","now_local" : "$[[now_local]]","now_unix" : "$[[now_unix]]" }
```
### Response Assertions
You can use the `assert` configuration to check the response values. `assert` now supports most of all the [condition checkers](https://www.infinilabs.com/en/docs/latest/gateway/references/flow/#condition-type) of INFINI Gateway.
```
requests:
- request:
method: GET
basic_auth:
username: elastic
password: pass
url: http://localhost:8000/medcl/_search?q=name:$[[user]]
assert:
equals:
_ctx.response.status: 201
```
The response value can be accessed from the `_ctx` value, currently it contains these values:
| Parameter | Description |
| ------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `_ctx.response.status` | HTTP response status code |
| `_ctx.response.header` | HTTP response headers |
| `_ctx.response.body` | HTTP response body text |
| `_ctx.response.body_json` | If the HTTP response body is a valid JSON string, you can access the JSON fields by `body_json` |
| `_ctx.elapsed` | The time elapsed since request sent to the server (milliseconds) |
If the request failed (e.g. the host is not reachable), `loadgen` will record it under `Number of Errors` as part of the testing output. If you configured `runner.assert_error: true`, `loadgen` will exit as `exit(2)` when there're any requests failed.
If the assertion failed, `loadgen` will record it under `Number of Invalid` as part of the testing output and skip the subsequent requests in this round. If you configured `runner.assert_invalid: true`, `loadgen` will exit as `exit(1)` when there're any assertions failed.
### Dynamic Variable Registration
Each request can use `register` to dynamically set the variables based on the response value, a common usage is to update the parameters of the later requests based on the previous responses.
In the below example, we're registering the response value `_ctx.response.body_json.test.settings.index.uuid` of the `$[[env.ES_ENDPOINT]]/test` to the `index_id` variable, then we can access it by `$[[index_id]]`.
```
requests:
- request:
method: GET
url: $[[env.ES_ENDPOINT]]/test
assert:
equals:
_ctx.response.status: 200
register:
- index_id: _ctx.response.body_json.test.settings.index.uuid
```
### Benchmark Test
Run Loadgen to perform the benchmark test as follows:
```
➜ loadgen git:(master) ✗ ./bin/loadgen -d 30 -c 100 -compress
__ ___ _ ___ ___ __ __
/ / /___\/_\ / \/ _ \ /__\/\ \ \
/ / // ///_\\ / /\ / /_\//_\ / \/ /
/ /__/ \_// _ \/ /_// /_\\//__/ /\ /
\____|___/\_/ \_/___,'\____/\__/\_\ \/
[LOADGEN] A http load generator and testing suit.
[LOADGEN] 1.0.0_SNAPSHOT, 83f2cb9, Sun Jul 4 13:52:42 2021 +0800, medcl, support single item in dict files
[07-19 16:15:00] [INF] [instance.go:24] workspace: data/loadgen/nodes/0
[07-19 16:15:00] [INF] [loader.go:312] warmup started
[07-19 16:15:00] [INF] [app.go:306] loadgen now started.
[07-19 16:15:00] [INF] [loader.go:316] [GET] http://localhost:8000/medcl/_search
[07-19 16:15:00] [INF] [loader.go:317] status: 200,,{"took":1,"timed_out":false,"_shards":{"total":1,"successful":1,"skipped":0,"failed":0},"hits":{"total":{"value":0,"relation":"eq"},"max_score":null,"hits":[]}}
[07-19 16:15:00] [INF] [loader.go:316] [GET] http://localhost:8000/medcl/_search?q=name:medcl
[07-19 16:15:00] [INF] [loader.go:317] status: 200,,{"took":1,"timed_out":false,"_shards":{"total":1,"successful":1,"skipped":0,"failed":0},"hits":{"total":{"value":0,"relation":"eq"},"max_score":null,"hits":[]}}
[07-19 16:15:01] [INF] [loader.go:316] [POST] http://localhost:8000/_bulk
[07-19 16:15:01] [INF] [loader.go:317] status: 200,,{"took":120,"errors":false,"items":[{"index":{"_index":"medcl-y4","_type":"doc","_id":"c3qj9123r0okahraiej0","_version":1,"result":"created","_shards":{"total":2,"successful":1,"failed":0},"_seq_no":5735852,"_primary_term":3,"status":201}}]}
[07-19 16:15:01] [INF] [loader.go:325] warmup finished
5253 requests in 32.756483336s, 524.61KB sent, 2.49MB received
[Loadgen Client Metrics]
Requests/sec: 175.10
Request Traffic/sec: 17.49KB
Total Transfer/sec: 102.34KB
Avg Req Time: 5.711022ms
Fastest Request: 440.448µs
Slowest Request: 3.624302658s
Number of Errors: 0
Number of Invalid: 0
Status 200: 5253
[Estimated Server Metrics]
Requests/sec: 160.37
Transfer/sec: 93.73KB
Avg Req Time: 623.576686ms
```
Loadgen executes all requests once to warm up before the formal benchmark test. If an error occurs, a prompt is displayed, asking you whether to continue.
The warm-up request results are also output to the terminal. After execution, an execution summary is output.
You can set `runner.no_warm: true` to skip the warm-up stage.
> The final results of Loadgen are the cumulative statistics after all requests are executed, and they may be inaccurate. You are advised to start the Kibana dashboard to check all operating indicators of Elasticsearch in real time.
### CLI Parameters
Loadgen cyclically executes requests defined in the configuration file. By default, Loadgen runs for `5s` and then automatically exits. If you want to prolong the running time or increase the concurrency, you can set the tool's startup parameters. The help commands are as follows:
```
➜ loadgen git:(master) ✗ ./bin/loadgen --help
Usage of ./bin/loadgen:
-c int
Number of concurrent threads (default 1)
-compress
Compress requests with gzip
-config string
the location of config file, default: loadgen.yml (default "loadgen.yml")
-d int
Duration of tests in seconds (default 5)
-debug
run in debug mode, loadgen will quit with panic error
-l int
Limit total requests (default -1)
-log string
the log level,options:trace,debug,info,warn,error (default "info")
-r int
Max requests per second (fixed QPS) (default -1)
-v version
```
### Limiting the Client Workload
You can use Loadgen and set the CLI parameter `-r` to restrict the number of requests that can be sent by the client per second, so as to evaluate the response time and load of Elasticsearch under fixed pressure. See the following example.
```
➜ loadgen git:(master) ✗ ./bin/loadgen -d 30 -c 100 -r 100
```
> Note: The client throughput limit may not be accurate enough in the case of massive concurrencies.
### Limiting the Total Number of Requests
You can set the `-l` parameter to control the total number of requests that can be sent by the client, so as to generate a fixed number of documents. Modify the configuration as follows:
```
requests:
- request:
method: POST
basic_auth:
username: test
password: testtest
url: http://localhost:8000/medcl-test/doc2/_bulk
body_repeat_times: 1
body: |
{ "index" : { "_index" : "medcl-test", "_id" : "$[[uuid]]" } }
{ "id" : "$[[id]]","field1" : "$[[user]]","ip" : "$[[ip]]" }
```
Configured parameters use the content of only one document for each request. Then, the system executes Loadgen.
```
./bin/loadgen -config loadgen-gw.yml -d 600 -c 100 -l 50000
```
After execution, `50000` records are added for the Elasticsearch index `medcl-test`.
### Using Auto Incremental IDs to Ensure the Document Sequence
If the IDs of generated documents need to increase regularly to facilitate comparison, you can use the auto incremental IDs of the `sequence` type as the primary key and avoid using random numbers in the content. See the following example.
```
requests:
- request:
method: POST
basic_auth:
username: test
password: testtest
url: http://localhost:8000/medcl-test/doc2/_bulk
body_repeat_times: 1
body: |
{ "index" : { "_index" : "medcl-test", "_id" : "$[[id]]" } }
{ "id" : "$[[id]]" }
```
### Reuse variables in Request Context
In a request, we might want use the same variable value, such as the `routing` parameter to control the shard destination, also store the field in the JSON document.
You can use `runtime_variables` to set request-level variables, or `runtime_body_line_variables` to define request-body-level variables.
If the request body set `body_repeat_times`, each line will be different, as shown in the following example:
```
variables:
- name: id
type: sequence
- name: uuid
type: uuid
- name: now_local
type: now_local
- name: now_utc
type: now_utc
- name: now_unix
type: now_unix
- name: suffix
type: range
from: 10
to: 15
requests:
- request:
method: POST
runtime_variables:
batch_no: id
runtime_body_line_variables:
routing_no: uuid
basic_auth:
username: ingest
password: password
#url: http://localhost:8000/_search?q=$[[id]]
url: http://192.168.3.188:9206/_bulk
body_repeat_times: 10
body: |
{ "create" : { "_index" : "test-$[[suffix]]","_type":"doc", "_id" : "$[[uuid]]" , "routing" : "$[[routing_no]]" } }
{ "id" : "$[[uuid]]","routing_no" : "$[[routing_no]]","batch_number" : "$[[batch_no]]", "random_no" : "$[[suffix]]","ip" : "$[[ip]]","now_local" : "$[[now_local]]","now_unix" : "$[[now_unix]]" }
```
We defined the `batch_no` variable to represent the same batch number in a batch of documents, and the `routing_no` variable to represent the routing value at each document level.
### Customize Header
```
requests:
- request:
method: GET
url: http://localhost:8000/test/_search
headers:
- Agent: "Loadgen-1"
disable_header_names_normalizing: false
```
By default, `loadgen` will canonilize the HTTP header keys before sending the request (`user-agent: xxx` -> `User-Agent: xxx`), if you need to set the header keys exactly as is, set `disable_header_names_normalizing: true`.
## Running Testing Suites
If you want to run multiple `loadgen` test cases against different environments, you can use `loadrun` to ease the process.
> Download URL: [http://release.infinilabs.com/loadrun/](http://release.infinilabs.com/loadrun/)
After the tool is downloaded and decompressed, two files are obtained: one executable program `loadrun` and one configuration file `loadrun.yml`. An example of the configuration file is as follows:
```
env:
LR_LOADGEN_CMD: ./bin/loadgen # The path to the executable of loadgen tool.
LR_TEST_DIR: ./testing # The path to the test cases.
# If you want to start gateway dynamically and automatically:
LR_GATEWAY_CMD: ./bin/gateway # The path to the executable of INFINI Gateway
LR_GATEWAY_HOST: 0.0.0.0:18000 # The binding host of the INFINI Gateway
LR_GATEWAY_API_HOST: 0.0.0.0:19000 # The binding host of the INFINI Gateway API server
# Set up other envrionments for the gateway and loadgen
LR_ELASTICSEARCH_ENDPOINT: http://localhost:19201
CUSTOM_ENV: myenv
tests:
# The relative path of test cases under `LR_TEST_DIR`
#
# - gateway.yml: (Optional) the configuration to start the INFINI Gateway dynamically.
# - loadgen.yml: the configuration to run the loadgen tool.
#
# The environments set in `env` section will be passed to the INFINI Gateway and loadgen.
- path: cases/gateway/echo/echo_with_context
```
### Environment Variables
`loadrun` controls the INFINI Gateway and `loadgen` by environment variables, you can set these environment variables in the `env` section of the YAML configuration. The following variables are required:
| Variable | Description |
| ---------------- | -------------------------------------- |
| `LR_TEST_DIR` | The parent directory of all test cases |
| `LR_LOADGEN_CMD` | The path to the `loadgen` executable |
If you need `loadrun` to start INFINI Gateway instances dynamically, the following variables are required:
| Variable | Description |
| --------------------- | --------------------------------------------- |
| `LR_GATEWAY_CMD` | The path to the INFINI Gateway executable |
| `LR_GATEWAY_HOST` | The binding host:port of INFINI Gateway entry |
| `LR_GATEWAY_API_HOST` | The binding host:port of INFINI Gateway API |
### Preparing Test Cases
You can add multiple test cases under the `tests` section, each path points to the relative path of the test case directory. `loadrun` will read the configuration `gateway.yml` (optional) and `loadgen.yml` in each directory.
All environment variables configured in the `env` section can be accessed within `gateway.yml` and `loadgen.yml`.
A sample configuraiton of `gateway.yml`:
```
path.data: data
path.logs: log
entry:
- name: my_es_entry
enabled: true
router: my_router
max_concurrency: 200000
network:
binding: $[[env.LR_GATEWAY_HOST]]
flow:
- name: hello_world
filter:
- echo:
message: 'hello world'
router:
- name: my_router
default_flow: hello_world
```
A sample configuraiton of `loadgen.yml`:
```
runner:
total_rounds: 1
no_warm: true
log_requests: true
assert_invalid: true
assert_error: true
requests:
- request:
method: GET
url: http://$[[env.LR_GATEWAY_HOST]]/
assert:
and:
- equals:
_ctx.response.status: 200
- equals:
_ctx.response.body: 'hello world'
```
### Executing the Test Cases
Once the `loadrun.yml` is ready, you can run `loadrun` with the command below:
```
loadrun -config ./loadrun.yml
```
`loadrun` will execute the test cases one by one, and output the testing result:
```
__ ___ _ ___ ___ __ __
/ / /___\/_\ / \/ _ \ /__\/\ \ \
/ / // ///_\\ / /\ / /_\//_\ / \/ /
/ /__/ \_// _ \/ /_// /_\\//__/ /\ /
\____|___/\_/ \_/___,'\____/\__/\_\ \/
[LOAD-RUNNER] A testing suite runner
[LOAD-RUNNER] 1.0.0_SNAPSHOT#001, 2023-02-21 02:49:57, 2023-12-31 10:10:10, b427e3657a1336b4839a7eff59f79f8e334f3934
[02-21 10:50:05] [INF] [app.go:192] initializing loadrun
[02-21 10:50:05] [INF] [app.go:193] using config: /Users/kassian/Workspace/infini/src/infini.sh/testing/suites/dev.yml
[02-21 10:50:05] [INF] [instance.go:78] workspace: /Users/kassian/Workspace/infini/src/infini.sh/testing/data/loadrun/nodes/cfpihf15k34iqhpd4d00
[02-21 10:50:05] [INF] [app.go:399] loadrun is up and running now.
[2023-02-21 10:50:05][TEST][SUCCESS] [setup/loadgen/cases/dummy] duration: 105(ms)
1 requests in 68.373875ms, 0.00bytes sent, 0.00bytes received
[Loadgen Client Metrics]
Requests/sec: 0.20
Request Traffic/sec: 0.00bytes
Total Transfer/sec: 0.00bytes
Avg Req Time: 5s
Fastest Request: 68.373875ms
Slowest Request: 68.373875ms
Number of Errors: 0
Number of Invalid: 0
Status 200: 1
[Estimated Server Metrics]
Requests/sec: 14.63
Transfer/sec: 0.00bytes
Avg Req Time: 68.373875ms
[2023-02-21 10:50:06][TEST][FAILED] [setup/gateway/cases/echo/echo_with_context/] duration: 1274(ms)
#0 request, GET http://$[[env.LR_GATEWAY_HOST]]/any/, assertion failed, skiping subsequent requests
1 requests in 1.255678s, 0.00bytes sent, 0.00bytes received
[Loadgen Client Metrics]
Requests/sec: 0.20
Request Traffic/sec: 0.00bytes
Total Transfer/sec: 0.00bytes
Avg Req Time: 5s
Fastest Request: 1.255678s
Slowest Request: 1.255678s
Number of Errors: 1
Number of Invalid: 1
Status 0: 1
[Estimated Server Metrics]
Requests/sec: 0.80
Transfer/sec: 0.00bytes
Avg Req Time: 1.255678s
```