...
[10:41:56 CST(-0600)] <dd> i had it just at defaults, then i turned maxThreads and acceptCount up really high to test but that didn't make a difference
[10:42:11 CST(-0600)] <dd> would you mind taking a look at my server.xml?
[10:42:29 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> I don't think I'll find much there
[10:42:42 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> I'm not really a tomcat admin expert 
[10:43:50 CST(-0600)] <dd> i've seen a few examples of people's CAS jMeter tests in the wiki, are there any jmeter tests where they test CAS + uportal?
[10:44:07 CST(-0600)] <dd> no problem, here's the file, maybe i have something glaringly wrong: http://pastebin.com/s3sAUMe4
[10:44:50 CST(-0600)] <dd> or are there any tomcat configs in the wiki?
[10:45:01 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> honestly I'm not sure 
[10:45:06 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> I'd ahve to go search a bit
[10:58:00 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> dd how much pause have you scripted between simulated user actions in your jmeter scripts?
[10:59:34 CST(-0600)] <dd> i have a 5 sec pause when it submits credentials and when it logs out
[10:59:46 CST(-0600)] <dd> turned it down to 3 and no difference
[11:00:06 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> is that all the script does? log in and log out?
[11:00:36 CST(-0600)] <dd> logs in through CAS, gets ticket, goes to uPortal, goes to User preference page, logs out
[11:00:37 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> that's fine of so... just trying to get a picture
[11:01:25 CST(-0600)] <dd> drewwills: could i send you my test to look at? maybe i have something setup incorrectly, this is the first time i've used jmeter
[11:01:29 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> I'd suggest turning it up... try 6-10 sec pauses between any user action
[11:01:56 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> i can look quickly... no guarentee i'd cactch something though
[11:02:08 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> can you sent it to the user list?
[11:04:43 CST(-0600)] <dd> i don't have an account
[11:04:52 CST(-0600)] <dd> i was just going to give you a dropbox url
[11:05:26 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> sure
[11:05:30 CST(-0600)] <dd> https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1922282/test.jmx
[11:06:09 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> EricDalquist i was giving uPortal Platform training at USU last week... whipped up a fix for this on the plane: https://issues.jasig.org/browse/UP-3623
[11:06:19 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> great
[11:06:32 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> i was inspired, having just dealt with LDAP settings on like 8 different laptops
[11:07:44 CST(-0600)] <dd> drewwills: i have to run for a meeting but i will be back in ~30mins. thank you for your help
[11:08:20 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> k, i'll look in a few
[12:12:50 CST(-0600)] <dd> back
[12:25:57 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> dd – I think you realistically need a RAMPUP period of some number (i suggest 6) * number of threads
[12:26:32 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> you could try 3*threads as well... but ramping up all your threads in 3 sec is probably too quick
[12:29:22 CST(-0600)] <dd> drewwills: i'll try that, and i should have a constant timer on all user actions?
[12:31:21 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> i'll put it this way – a real user normally wais a number of seconds after getting a response before submitting the next request
[12:31:39 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> just choose a conservative but realistic model for that
[12:32:16 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> if you put zero pauses in, jmeter just hammers the portal as quick as it can, and I know it doesn't take too many threads of that to slow it down
[12:32:45 CST(-0600)] <dd> makes sense
[12:33:16 CST(-0600)] <dd> jmeter does give me connection refused errors sometimes, what tomcat settings does that correlate with?
[12:34:31 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> if all the tomcat request-serving threads fill up... i can't remember, i think there may be a fixed-sized queue after that
[12:34:52 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> but if the threads and the queue get exhausted, it will just start refusing them
[12:35:35 CST(-0600)] <dd> are those the maxThreads and acceptCount settings?
[12:36:05 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> i can't remember, but it sounds right
[12:36:22 CST(-0600)] <drewwills> there's decent docs online for tomcat... i always have to look
[12:37:54 CST(-0600)] <dd> yeah, i think that's what i read. one more question, we're trying to test for a good amount of users (500-750) using the portal at a time, will a large rampup time affect this? give that the whole test sequence doesn't take that long?
[12:38:16 CST(-0600)] <dd> would i need to artificially slow it down somewhere while the thread is still in the portal?
[12:39:11 CST(-0600)] <dd> or is that what looping is for?
[12:39:36 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> http://jmeter.apache.org/usermanual/component_reference.html#Constant_Throughput_Timer
[12:39:46 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> so what I usually do when testing is:
[12:40:00 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> determine desired throughput (requests / second usually)
[12:40:16 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> determine desired concurrent user base (number of threads)
[12:40:25 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> write the script for what each "user" does
[12:40:55 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> setup the thread count of X and ramp up time of X * 5
[12:41:17 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> have the test set to run with each thread looping "forever"
[12:41:26 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> that constant throughput timer is the key
[12:41:57 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> you set that do something like 60 samples/minute with the Calculate Throughput Based on "all active threads (shared)"
[12:42:22 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> then your portal will see no more than 1 request / second across all of the threads you have running
[12:42:38 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> it of course could be slower than that if the target system can't keep up
[12:42:46 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> but the CTT is your throttle
[12:43:06 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> and that "all active threads (shared)" setting is crucial
[12:43:14 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> otherwise it is per-thread throughput
[12:43:26 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> which is really impossible to get a decent repeatable test setup with
[12:43:33 CST(-0600)] <dd> ah, ok. i had that timer in there before but didn't have "all active threads"
[12:44:09 CST(-0600)] <dd> so you have it loop forever until you get errors or have enough data?
[12:44:34 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> yup
[12:44:47 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> generally we run tests where I'm watcfhing it
[12:45:08 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> if I wanted an automated test I'd set the scheduler bit in the thread group control to run for a fixed time
[12:45:13 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> so threads still loop forever
[12:45:21 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> but the whole test may only run for X minutes
[12:45:30 CST(-0600)] <EricDalquist> and 3-5 seconds per thread on ramp up is really needed
[12:46:54 CST(-0600)] <dd> ok, thank you EricDalquist and drewwills, great places to start, much appreciated