Have you ever been attacked by a goose?
Goose is a Rust load testing tool inspired by Locust. User behavior is defined with standard Rust code. Load tests are applications that have a dependency on the Goose library. Web requests are made with the Reqwest HTTP Client.
The in-line documentation offers much more detail about Goose specifics. For a general background to help you get started with Rust and Goose, read on.
Cargo is the Rust package manager. To create a new
load test, use Cargo to create a new application (you can name your application anything,
we've generically selected loadtest):
bash
$ cargo new loadtest
Created binary (application) `loadtest` package
$ cd loadtest/
This creates a new directory named loadtest/ containing loadtest/Cargo.toml and
loadtest/src/main.rs. Start by editing Cargo.toml adding Goose under the dependencies
heading:
toml
[dependencies]
goose = "^0.6"
At this point it's possible to compile all dependencies, though the resulting binary only displays "Hello, world!":
$ cargo run
Updating crates.io index
Downloaded goose v0.6.1
...
Compiling reqwest v0.10.4
Compiling goose v0.6.1
Compiling loadtest v0.1.0 (/home/jandrews/devel/rust/loadtest)
Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 52.97s
Running `target/debug/loadtest`
Hello, world!
To create an actual load test, you first have to add the following boilerplate
to the top of src/main.rs:
rust
use goose::GooseAttack;
use goose::goose::{GooseTaskSet, GooseClient, GooseTask};
Then create a new load testing function. For our example we're simply going to load the front page of the website we're load-testing. Goose passes all load testing functions a mutable pointer to a GooseClient object, which is used to track statistics and make web requests. Thanks to the Reqwest library, the Goose client manages things like cookies, headers, and sessions for you.
In load tests functions you typically do not set the host, and instead configure the host at run time, so you can easily run your load test against different environments without recompiling:
rust
fn loadtest_index(client: &mut GooseClient) {
let _response = client.get("/");
}
Finally, edit the main() function, removing the hello world text and replacing
it as follows:
rust
fn main() {
GooseAttack::initialize()
.register_taskset(GooseTaskSet::new("LoadtestTasks")
.register_task(GooseTask::new(loadtest_index))
)
.execute();
}
And that's it, you've created your first load test! Let's run it and see what happens.
bash
$ cargo run
Compiling loadtest v0.1.0 (/home/jandrews/devel/rust/loadtest)
Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 3.56s
Running `target/debug/loadtest`
12:09:56 [ERROR] Host must be defined globally or per-TaskSet. No host defined for LoadtestTasks.
Goose is unable to run, as it doesn't know the domain you want to load test. So,
let's try again, this time passing in the --host flag. After running for a few
seconds, we then press ctrl-c to stop Goose:
``bash
$ cargo run -- --host http://apache.fosciana/
Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.07s
Runningtarget/debug/loadtest --host 'http://apache.fosciana/'`
Name | # reqs | # fails | req/s | fail/s
Name | Avg (ms) | Min | Max | Median
Slowest page load within specified percentile of requests (in ms):
Name | 50% | 75% | 98% | 99% | 99.9% | 99.99%
GET / | 3000 | 4000 | 5000 | 6000 | 8000 | 8000 ```
When printing statistics, Goose displays three tables. The first shows the total number of requests made (905), how many of those failed (0), the everage number of requests per second (301), and the average number of failed requests per second (0).
The second table shows the average time required to load a page (3139 milliseconds), the mininimum time to load a page (952 ms), the maximum time to load a page (102412 ms) and the median time to load a page (3000 ms).
The final table shows the slowest page load time for a range of percentiles. In our example, in the 50% fastest page loads, the slowest page loaded in 3000 ms. In the 75% fastest page loads, the slowest page loadd in 4000 ms, etc.
In most load tests you'll make have different tasks being run, and each will be split out in the statistics, along with a line showing all totaled together in aggregate.
Refer to the examples directory for more complicated and useful load test examples.
unwrap() in your task functions -- Goose generates a lot of load, and this tends
to trigger errors. Embrace Rust's warnings and properly handle all possible errors, this
will save you time debugging later.--release flag to generate
optimized code. This can generate considerably more load test traffic.Passing the included simple example the -h flag you can see the
run-time configuration options available to Goose load tests:
``` client 0.6.1 CLI options available when launching a Goose loadtest, provided by StructOpt
USAGE: simple [FLAGS] [OPTIONS]
FLAGS: -h, --help Prints help information -l, --list Shows list of all possible Goose tasks and exits -g, --log-level Log level (-g, -gg, -ggg, etc.) --manager Enables manager mode --only-summary Only prints summary stats --no-stats Don't print stats in the console --reset-stats Resets statistics once hatching has been completed --status-codes Includes status code counts in console stats -V, --version Prints version information -v, --verbose Debug level (-v, -vv, -vvv, etc.) --worker Enables worker mode
OPTIONS:
-c, --clients
-r, --hatch-rate <hatch-rate> How many users to spawn per second [default: 1]
-H, --host <host> Host to load test, for example: http://10.21.32.33 [default: ]
--log-file <log-file> Log file name [default: goose.log]
--manager-bind-host <manager-bind-host> Define host manager listens on, formatted x.x.x.x [default: 0.0.0.0]
--manager-bind-port <manager-bind-port> Define port manager listens on [default: 5115]
--manager-host <manager-host> Host manager is running on [default: 127.0.0.1]
--manager-port <manager-port> Port manager is listening on [default: 5115]
-t, --run-time <run-time>
Stop after the specified amount of time, e.g. (300s, 20m, 3h, 1h30m, etc.) [default: ]
```
The examples/simple.rs example copies the simple load test documented on the locust.io web page, rewritten in Rust for Goose. It uses minimal advanced functionality, but demonstrates how to GET and POST pages. It defines a single Task Set which has the client log in and then load a couple of pages.
Goose can make use of all available CPU cores. By default, it will launch 1 client per core, and it can be configured to launch many more. The following was configured instead to launch 1,024 clients. Each client randomly pauses 5 to 15 seconds after each task is loaded, so it's possible to spin up a large number of clients. Here is a snapshot of top when running this example on an 8-core VM with 10G of available RAM -- there were ample resources to launch considerably more "clients", though ulimit had to be resized:
``` top - 11:14:57 up 16 days, 4:40, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.04, 0.01 Tasks: 129 total, 1 running, 128 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie %Cpu(s): 0.3 us, 0.3 sy, 0.0 ni, 99.2 id, 0.0 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.2 si, 0.0 st MiB Mem : 9993.6 total, 6695.1 free, 1269.3 used, 2029.2 buff/cache MiB Swap: 10237.0 total, 10234.7 free, 2.3 used. 8401.5 avail Mem
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
19776 goose 20 0 9.8g 874688 8252 S 6.3 8.5 0:42.90 simple
```
Here's the output of running the loadtest. The -v flag sends INFO and more critical messages to stdout (in addition to the log file). The -c1024 tells Goose to spin up 1,024 clients. The -r32 option tells Goose to spin up 32 clients per second. The -t 10m option tells Goose to run the load test for 10 minutes, or 600 seconds. The --print-stats flag tells Goose to collect statistics during the load test, and the --status-codes flag tells it to include statistics about HTTP Status codes returned by the server. Finally, the --only-summary flag tells Goose to only display the statistics when the load test finishes, otherwise it would display running statistics every 15 seconds for the duration of the test.
``
$ cargo run --release --example simple -- --host http://apache.fosciana -v -c1024 -r32 -t 10m --print-stats --status-codes --only-summary
Finished release [optimized] target(s) in 0.05s
Runningtarget/release/examples/simple --host 'http://apache.fosciana' -v -c1024 -r32 -t 10m --print-stats --status-codes --only-summary`
18:42:48 [ INFO] Output verbosity level: INFO
18:42:48 [ INFO] Logfile verbosity level: INFO
18:42:48 [ INFO] Writing to log file: goose.log
18:42:48 [ INFO] run_time = 600
18:42:48 [ INFO] global host configured: http://apache.fosciana
18:42:53 [ INFO] launching client 1 from WebsiteUser...
18:42:53 [ INFO] launching client 2 from WebsiteUser...
18:42:53 [ INFO] launching client 3 from WebsiteUser...
18:42:53 [ INFO] launching client 4 from WebsiteUser...
18:42:53 [ INFO] launching client 5 from WebsiteUser...
18:42:53 [ INFO] launching client 6 from WebsiteUser...
18:42:53 [ INFO] launching client 7 from WebsiteUser...
18:42:53 [ INFO] launching client 8 from WebsiteUser...
...
18:43:25 [ INFO] launching client 1022 from WebsiteUser...
18:43:25 [ INFO] launching client 1023 from WebsiteUser...
18:43:25 [ INFO] launching client 1024 from WebsiteUser...
18:43:25 [ INFO] launched 1024 clients...
18:53:26 [ INFO] stopping after 600 seconds...
Name | # reqs | # fails | req/s | fail/s
GET / | 34,077 | 582 (1.7%) | 53 | 0
GET /about/ | 34,044 | 610 (1.8%) | 53 | 0
POST /login | 1,024 | 0 (0%) | 1 | 0
------------------------+----------------+----------------+-------+----------
Name | Avg (ms) | Min | Max | Median
GET / | 12.38 | 0.01 | 1001.10 | 0.09
GET /about/ | 12.80 | 0.01 | 1001.10 | 0.08
POST /login | 0.21 | 0.15 | 1.82 | 0.20
------------------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------
Slowest page load within specified percentile of requests (in ms):
Name | 50% | 75% | 98% | 99% | 99.9% | 99.99%
GET / | 0.09 | 0.10 | 345.18 | 500.60 | 1000.93 | 1001.09 GET /about/ | 0.08 | 0.10 | 356.65 | 500.61 | 1000.94 | 1001.08 POST /login | 0.20 | 0.22 | 0.27 | 0.34 | 1.36 | 1.82 ------------------------+------------+------------+------------+-------------
Name | Status codes
GET / | 33,495 [200], 582 [0]
GET /about/ | 33,434 [200], 610 [0]
Aggregated | 67,953 [200]
```
Goose also supports distributed load testing. A Gaggle is one Goose process running in manager mode, and 1 or more Goose processes running in worker mode. The manager coordinates starting and stopping the workers, and collects aggregated statistics. Gaggle support is a cargo feature that must be enabled at compile-time as documented below. To launch a Gaggle, you must copy your load test application to all servers from which you wish to generate load.
Gaggle support is a compile-time Cargo feature that must be enabled. Goose uses
the nng library to manage network connections, and
compiling nng requires that cmake be available.
The gaggle feature can be enabled from the command line by adding
--features gaggle to your cargo command.
When writing load test applications, you can default to compiling in the Gaggle
feature in the dependencies section of your Cargo.toml, for example:
toml
[dependencies]
goose = { version = "^0.6", features = ["gaggle"] }
To launch a Gaggle, you first must start a Goose application in manager
mode. All configuration happens in the manager. To start, add the --manager
flag and the --expect-workers flag, the latter necessary to tell the Manager
process how many Worker processes it will be coordinating. For example:
cargo run --features gaggle --example simple -- --manager --expect-workers 2 --host http://local.dev/ -v
This configures a Goose manager to listen on all interfaces on the default port (0.0.0.0:5115) for 2 Goose worker processes.
At this time, a Goose process can be either a manager or a worker, not both. Therefor, it makes sense to launch your first worker on the same server that the manager is running on. If not otherwise configured, a Goose worker will try to connect to the manager on the localhost. This can be done as folows:
cargo run --features gaggle --example simple -- --worker -v
In our above example, we expected 2 workers. The second Goose process should be started on a different server. This will require telling it the host where the Goose manager proocess is running. For example:
cargo run --example simple -- --worker --manager-host 192.168.1.55 -v
Once all expected workers are running, the distributed load test will
automatically start. We set the -v flag so Goose provides verbose output
indicating what is happening. In our example, the load test will run until
it is canceled. You can cancel the manager or either of the worker processes,
and the test will stop on all servers.
--manager: starts a Goose process in manager mode. There currently can only be one manager per Gaggle.--worker: stars a Goose process in worker mode. How many workers are in a given Gaggle is defined by the --expect-workers option, documented below.The --no-stats, --only-summary, --reset-stats, and --status-codes flags must be set on the manager. Workers inheret these flags from the manager
--manager-bind-host <manager-bind-host>: configures the host that the manager listens on. By default Goose will listen on all interfaces, or 0.0.0.0.--manager-bind-port <manager-bind-port>: configures the port that the manager listens on. By default Goose will listen on port 5115.--manager-host <manager-host>: configures the host that the worker will talk to the manager on. By default, a Goose worker will connect to the localhost, or 127.0.0.1. In a distributed load test, this must be set to the IP of the Goose manager.--manager-port <manager-port>: configures the port that a worker will talk to the manager on. By default, a Goose worker will connect to port 5115.The --clients, --hatch-rate, --host, and --run-time options must be set on the manager. Workers inheret these options from the manager.
Goose uses nng to send network messages between
the manager and all workers. Serde
and Serde CBOR are used to serialize messages
into Concise Binary Object Representation.
Workers initiate all network connections, and push a HashMap containing load test statistics up to the manager process.
The Goose project roadmap is documented in TODO.md.