HTTP Test

The details of the HTTP test that emulates a user accessing the web server component of a WebLogic server, are provided below. Since this test can be executed from a location external to the WebLogic server, this test presents an unbiased external perspective of the state of the web server component. This test uses the GET command to submit its parameters.

Target of the test : A WebLogic Application Server

Agent deploying this test : An external agent executing on an eG server

Outputs of the test : One set of outputs for every URL being monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameters Description

Test period

This indicates how often should the test be executed.

Host

The host for which the test is to be configured.

Port

The port to which the specified host listens.

URL

The web page being accessed. While multiple URLs (separated by commas) can be provided, each URL should be of the format URL name:URL value. URL name is a unique name assigned to the URL, and the URL value is the value of the URL. For example, a URL can be specified as HomePage:http://192.168.10.12:7077/, where HomePage is the URL name and http://192.168.10.12:7077/ is the URL value.

Cookiefile

Whether any cookies being returned by the web server need to be saved locally and returned with subsequent requests.

ProxyHost

The host on which a web proxy server is running (in case a proxy server is to be used).

ProxyPort

The port number on which the web proxy server is listening.

Proxyusername

The user name of the proxy server.

Proxypassword

The password of the proxy server.

Confirm password

Confirm the password by retyping it here.

Content

This parameter is a set of instruction:value pairs that are used to validate the content being returned by the test. If the Content value is none:none, no validation is performed. The number of pairs specified in this text box, must be equal to the number of URLs being monitored. The instruction should be one of Inc or Exc. Inc tells the test that for the content returned by the web server to be valid, the content must include the specified value (a simple string search is done in this case). An instruction of Exc instructs the test that the server's output is valid if it does not contain the specified value. In both cases, the content specification can include wild card patterns. For example, an Inc instruction can be Inc:*Home page*. An Inc and an Exc instruction can be provided in quick succession in the following format: Inc:*Home Page*,Exc:*home.

Credentials

This test supports HTTP authentication. The Credentials parameter is to be set if a specific user name / password has to be specified to login to a page. Against this parameter, the URLname of every configured URL will be displayed; corresponding to each listed URLname, a Username text box and a Password text box will be made available. If the web server on which HttpTest executes supports 'Anonymous user access', then this parameter will take either of the following values:

  • a valid Username and Password for every configured URLname
  • none in both the Username and Password text boxes of all configured URLnames (the default setting), if no user authorization is required

Some IIS web servers however, support NTLM (Integrated Windows) authentication, where valid Credentials are mandatory. In other words, a none specification will not be supported by such IIS web servers. Therefore, in this case, against each configured URLname, you will have to provide a valid Username in the format: domainname\username, followed by a valid Password.

Please be sure to check if your web site requires HTTP authentication while configuring this parameter. HTTP authentication typically involves a separate pop-up window when you try to access the page. Many sites use HTTP POST for obtaining the user name and password and validating the user login. In such cases, the username and password have to be provided as part of the POST information and NOT as part of the Credentials specification for the HTTP test.

Timeout

Here, specify the maximum duration (in seconds) for which the test will wait for a response from the server. The default Timeout period is 30 seconds.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

Availability

This measurement indicates whether the server was able to respond successfully to the query made by the test.

Percent

Availability failures could be caused by several factors such as the web server process(es) being down, the web server being misconfigured, a network failure, etc. Temporary unavailability may also occur if the web server is overloaded. Availability is determined based on the response code returned by the server. A response code between 200 to 300 indicates that the server is available. 

Total response time

This measurement indicates the time taken by the server to respond to the requests it receives.

Secs

Response time being high denotes a problem. Poor response times may be due to the server being overloaded or misconfigured. If the URL accessed involves the generation of dynamic content by the server, backend problems (e.g., an overload at the application server or a database failure) can also result in an increase in response time.

Tcp connection availability

This measure indicates whether the test managed to establish a TCP connection to the server.

Percent

Failure to establish a TCP connection may imply that either the web server process is not up, or that the process is not operating correctly. In some cases of extreme overload, the failure to establish a TCP connection may be a transient condition. As the load subsides, the server may start functioning properly again.

Tcp connect time

This measure quantifies the time for establishing a TCP connection to the web server host.

Secs

Typically, the TCP connection establishment must be very small (of the order of a few milliseconds). Since TCP connection establishment is handled at the OS-level, rather than by the application, an increase in this value signifies a system-level bottleneck on the host that supports the web server.

Server response time

This measure indicates the time period between when the connection was established and when the server sent back a HTTP response header to the client.

Secs

While the total response time may depend on several factors, the server response time is typically, a very good indicator of a server bottleneck (e.g., because all the available server threads or processes are in use).

Response code

The response code returned by the server for the simulated request

Number

A value between 200 and 300 indicates a good response. A 4xx value indicates a problem with the requested content (eg., page not found). A 5xx value indicates a server error.

Content length

The size of the content returned by the server

Kbytes

Typically the content length returned by the server for a specific URL should be the same across time. Any change in this metric may indicate the need for further investigation on the server side.

Content validity

This measure validates whether the server was successful in executing the request made to it.

Percent

A value of 100% indicates that the content returned by the test is valid. A value of 0% indicates that the content may not be valid. This capability for content validation is especially important for multi-tier web applications. For example, a user may not be able to login to the web site but the server may reply back with a valid HTML page where in the error message, say, "Invalid Login" is reported. In this case, the availability will be 100 % (since we got a valid HTML response). If the test is configured such that the content parameter should exclude the string "Invalid Login," in the above scenario content validity would have a value 0.