Setting Browser-Emulation Authentication Options

  1. In Silk Performer, expand the Profiles node in the Project tree.
  2. Right-click the profile that you want to configure and choose Edit Profile.
    Tip: Alternatively, you can choose Settings > Active Profile from the menu bar.

    The Profile - [<profile name>] dialog box opens, and the Replay category is displayed in the shortcut list on the left.

  3. In the shortcut list on the left, click the Web icon.
  4. Click the Emulation tab. Use the Emulation area to set options for realistic Web-browser emulation.
  5. Check the Accept cookies check box to store cookies in Silk Performer's cookie database for each virtual user.
    Note: The cookie database is non-persistent and exists only as long as a load test runs.
  6. Check the Allow automatic redirections check box to automatically parse redirection responses and redirect requests to the specified server. When this option is selected, the user name and password entered on the Authentication page are used for automatic authentication to the server whenever necessary.
    1. In the text box to the right of the check box, enter the maximum number of automatic redirections. Silk Performer automatically parses redirection responses and redirects requests to the specified server.
  7. Check the Automatically load images check box to download images from the server. It may be helpful to deselect this option if you are testing dynamic parts of a Web application. Usually images are static objects that stress the network more than the server. Note that ignoring images limits the realism of simulated browser traffic.
  8. Check the Document cache check box to have Silk Performer emulate a document cache. Silk Performer can emulate a document cache by keeping local copies of frequently accessed documents, thus reducing server hits and the time connected to the network. For more details, see the WebSetDocumentCache function in the BDL Function Reference.
  9. Click the Once per session option button to, once per session, check whether or not a page has changed on the Web server since the virtual user last viewed the page. The term session includes the entire sequence of starting a Web browser, surfing the Web, and closing the Web browser. The correlation of a session to Silk Performer transactions can be adjusted using the Simulate user behavior for each transaction option on the Simulation page. Once per session works as follows: Each time you start your Web browser, it first looks in its cache before sending a request. The request will either be a conditional request (if the document resides in the cache and is requested for the first time in the session), a normal request (if the document can not be looked up in the cache), or a cache hit (if the document has already been requested in the session). Click the Every time option button to always check if a page has changed on the Web server since the virtual user last viewed it. Documents with a future expiration date are not requested until their dates expire. The Every time strategy is slightly different from Once per session caching in that it checks for newer documents each time you reload a page. Click the Never option button to never check whether a page has changed since the virtual user last viewed it. Selecting this option speeds up the display of pages the user has already viewed.
  10. In the Document history size text box, enter the maximum number of pages that are to be stored in the history. When the maximum number is exceeded, the oldest page is dropped from the history.
    Note: As long as a page is stored in the history, all HTML document related information (links, forms, embedded objects, frames) is kept in memory. As soon as a page is dropped from the history the information is no longer available. Therefore related WebPageLink and WebPageSubmit calls will not succeed and subsequent page-level calls to the same URL will no longer find the document in the cache.
  11. Check the Emulate DNS lookup check box to have Silk Performer emulate a DNS lookup mechanism for each virtual user , which can be helpful for DNS-based load balancing. When this option is combined with a user behavior option, it allows each virtual user to send its individual DNS query to the DNS server. For more details, review the WebSetOption and WebSetUserBehavior functions.
  12. Click OK to save your settings.