Manage Vusers during a run

This topic describes the runtime options for managing the behavior of Vusers during a performance test run.

In this topic:

View Vuser details

You can view status details of Vusers, and run or stop a single Vuser currently in the down or run state, irrespective of its defined schedules.

To view Vuser details:

1. In the Run Dashboard, click the Vusers Details button (available in the Graphs view, Groups view, and Transactions view). The Vuser Details dialog box opens, displaying the Vuser's ID, status, group, load generators in the test, and the amount of time each Vuser has been running.

   To automatically refresh the displayed information with live updates, turn on the Auto refresh switch.

2. To display runtime information for the selected Vuser, click the Log button . The Activity log opens, displaying logged Vuser messages.

   • To export the activity log, click the Export log button .

   • To refresh the information displayed in the log, click the Refresh button .

   • To download a graphical representation of the Web page which contains the data generated by the traffic between the client and the server when the script is replayed, click the Snapshot button .

     Note: Before using this feature, you must enable the Generate snapshot on error option in the script's runtime settings. For details on the runtime settings, see Configure runtime settings.

3. You can perform the following actions on Vusers from the Vuser Details dialog box.

   Action	Description
   Run Vusers	Click the Start button to run the selected Vusers.
   Pause Vusers	Click the Pause button to pause the selected Vusers.
   Stop Vusers gradually	Click the Stop button to stops the selected Vusers gradually. The Vusers complete the current iteration before stopping.
   Stop Vusers immediately	Click the Stop Now button to stop the selected Vusers immediately.
   Reset Vusers	Click the Reset button to reset the selected Vusers to the Down state.

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Run Vusers

You can initialize, run, or stop any number of Vusers irrespective of their defined schedules. In addition, you can add new Vusers to the performance test.

To run Vusers:

1. In the Run Dashboard, click the Run Vusers button (available in the Graphs view, Groups view, and Transactions view). The Add Vusers dialog box opens, enabling you to run additional Vusers.

2. Select the action to perform.

   Action	Description
   Add new Vusers to Down state	Adds the desired number of Vusers to the Down state.
   Add new VUFDs to Down state	Adds the desired number of VUFDs to the Down state.
   Initialize Vusers from Down	Initializes the desired number of Vusers currently in the Down state.
   Initialize VUFDs from Down	Initializes the desired number of VUFDs to the Down state.

   Note: You cannot perform an action on more Vusers than are currently in the selected state. For example, if you define 10 Vusers and select Initialize Vusers from Down, but there are only five Vusers in the Down state, only those five Vusers are initialized.

3. Select the method for adding Vusers.

   Method	Description
   Number	Enables you to give an instruction to a specific number of Vusers per Vuser group or load generator.
   Percentage	Enables you to give an instruction to a specific number of Vusers, which are then distributed among the Vuser groups or load generators according to a percentage which you define. Enter the number of Vusers to add in the box. Example: If you choose to run an additional 200 Vusers, among three Vuser groups, A, B, and C, and you define the percentage distribution as A = 75%, B = 20%, and C = 5%, then the Vusers would be distributed as follows: A. 150 Vusers B. 40 Vusers C. 10 Vusers

4. Determine the mode for distributing Vusers.

   Distribution Mode	Description
   Load Generator	To distribute Vusers by load generators: Turn on the Show distribution by Load Generators switch to distribute Vusers according to load generators. The load generators in the test are listed. Enter the number of Vusers per load generator in the Vusers box, or the percentage distribution per load generator to add in the Vusers % box.
   Group	To distribute Vusers by groups: Turn off the Show distribution by Load Generators switch to distribute Vusers according to Vuser groups. The Vuser groups in the test are listed. Enter the number of Vusers per Vuser group in the Vusers box, or the percentage distribution per Vuser group to add in the Vusers % box.

   Tip: When distributing by percentage, click Divide Vusers evenly to distribute the number of Vusers evenly among the Vuser groups or load generators configured in the test.

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Add or edit Vuser groups

You can add Vuser groups to a running performance test, or edit existing Vuser group settings during a test run.

Action	Description
Add a group	In the Run Dashboard, select More > Add Group (available in the Graphs view, Groups view, and Transactions view). The Add Group dialog box opens, enabling you to add a Vuser group. Enter a group name, select a script, enter the number of Vusers to run.
Edit a group	In the Run Dashboard, open the Groups tab, and place the mouse cursor over the name of the group you want to edit. Click the down arrow that appears adjacent to the name, and select Edit Group. The Edit Group dialog box opens, enabling you to edit the group's details. Group Name. The name of the Vuser group. Note: Do not use non-English characters in group names. Load Generators. The load generators on which the group is running. Protocol. The Vuser script's protocol. Script. The name of the Vuser script. Vusers. The number of Vusers assigned to the group. Note: You can edit Vusers when they are in the Down state only.
View/edit runtime settings	To view or edit runtime settings: In the Run Dashboard, open the Groups tab and place the mouse cursor over the group whose runtime settings you want to edit. Click the down arrow that appears adjacent to the name, and Edit Group. In the Edit Group dialog box, click the Runtime Settings button to view and change the runtime settings for the Vuser script. For details, see Configure runtime settings.
Send parameter	To send a parameter: In the Run Dashboard, open the Groups tab and place the mouse cursor over a group name. Click the down arrow that appears adjacent to the name, and Edit Group. In the Edit Group dialog box, type the name and value of the parameter you want to send in the Command line box using the format, <Parameter_Name> <value>. For information about the command line parsing functions, or for details about including arguments on a command line, see the VuGen Function Reference, provided with OpenText Virtual User Generator.

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View Vuser scripts

You can view the code for each action in a running Vuser script.

1. In the Run Dashboard, open the Groups tab and place the mouse cursor over a group name.

2. Click the down arrow that appears adjacent to the name, and click the View Script button .

   The View Script dialog box displays the script details including script name, type, the last updated date and time, and the actions included in the script.

3. To edit parameters in the script, click Edit Parameters. For details on editing parameters, see Edit script parameters.

4. To download the script to the Downloads folder of the client user, click Download.

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Release Vusers from a rendezvous

You can manually release Vusers from a rendezvous before the Controller releases them.

In the Run Dashboard, select More > View Rendezvous (available in the Graphs view, Groups view, and Transactions view). The Rendezvous Policy dialog box opens. For details, see Set rendezvous policies.

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See also:

• Run performance tests