Access log sampler Step-by-step

28. Access log sampler Step-by-step

This is a short tutorial on JMeter’s access log sampler. The purpose of the Access Log Sampler is to provide an easy way to simulate production traffic. There are several benefits to using access logs.

Rather than guess what users are doing, the test plan is using real traffic data
As the traffic pattern changes, the access log provides a record of individual changes and general shifts in usage
Access logs contain a lot of useful data, which may provide some insight
Access logs can be minded to determine different types of users
Access logs can capture detailed session information

The down side of using access logs for test plans is you have to configure the webserver to output the request information. This may not be appropriate where security is an issue. For example, if the webserver dumps the post data from each request to the access logs, users login and password would be stored in plain text. Here are some general cases where access logs might be inappropriate.

Security sensitive applications where the data is encrypted
The application does not allow fine grain control of which request parameters are written to the access logs
The application needs correlation between requests
The webserver cannot be configured to append the post data to the access log
The webserver is hosting multiple applications, but doesn’t provide a way to log the requests of one application to a separate file

To take advantage of access logs, the first thing is the webserver needs to be configured to use extended log format. Links for configuring the popular containers are provided below.

In some cases, it may be desirable to write custom logging, so that sensitive information is not written to the access logs. This article does not cover the techniques for writing custom logging.

28.1 Step-by-Step

Start JMeter
Select Test Plan
Right click Add → Threads (Users) → Thread Group Add Thread Group
Select Thread Group
Right click Add → Sampler → Access Log Sampler Add Access Log Sampler
Right click on Thread Group Add → Listener → Aggregate Report Add Aggregate Report
Select the Access Log Sampler Access Log Sampler
Enter the IP address or hostname in Server
Enter the port in Port
If you want to download the images, set Parse images to true.
Select a file for Log File Location Filled in Access Log Sampler
Select Aggregate Report
Enter results.jtl for filename Aggregate Report with filename