[hobbit] - Internet sites testing

[Henrik Stoerner]

On Fri, Dec 08, 2006 at 11:26:27AM +0100, thomas.seglard.enata at cnp.fr wrote:

> I'm asking here if I can use Hobbit as a "probe" to test Internet sites. I 
> want to be able to trace requests and provide to customers response time 
> of these requests. Basically, the 'cont' test of Hobbit is not sufficient 
> 'cause you only test static pages. My main objective is to write some 
> scenarios like : login with this login/pass / go to these links (trying to 
> do some requests on Weblogic and database) / logout

I've done it for one or two sites, and abandoned it because it is
incredibly fragile when dealing with real-world websites. You're
basically going to mimic the behaviour of a browser, but you probably
don't have an engine that is fully capable of handling JavaScript,
cookies, automated redirects and form submissions like a real browser
does.

I did emulate a login to a web-based SAP system, and just the login
sequence ended up doing some 20-30 HTTP requests, because you got
bounced around webpages each of them setting a cookie, picking up a
form element, modifying a URL etc. 

If you must, then I'd suggest starting off with a network sniffer like
Ethereal (it has a new name now, I think), and then doing a trace of all
the requests that your browser performs. That will give you an idea of
how much work is involved, from the number of requests that actually go
out on the wire. Then you can start digging into each of the requests,
and see if you can automate them using some scripting tool.


Regards,
Henrik