NeoLoad Launcher (neoload.jar)

The NeoLoad launcher allows interfacing with NeoLoad to run scenarii and get results and statistics.

Configuration

The neoload.xml file is just a template and must NOT be edited. It's used by the system to build dynamically the form that the user will be able to fill in from the GUI when creating a custom execution configuration.

Parameter	Description
General
Project root path	This must indicate where are located all the NeoLoad projects (.nlp files). This is a root path. Each test in XStudio has a canonical path that will be appended to this path. This path MUST not include an ending slash. Default value is: `C:/Users/Eric/Documents/NeoLoad Projects`
NeoLoad
NeoLoad install path	This must indicate where is installed NeoLoad on the host. The NeoLoad runner (`NeoLoadCmd.exe`) must be present in the bin folder included in this directory. Default value is: `C:/Program Files/NeoLoad 5.1`
Options	This can includes optional arguments to pass to the NeoLoad test runner. Default value is: `-noGUI`
Attach HTML report (may consume lot of space)	If set to true, the whole HTML report, including all graphics is included as attachment to each test case in XStudio Default value is: `true`

These values can be changed while creating the campaign session from XStudio.

Note about file path parameters:
Any parameter referring to a file or folder path (for instance Test root path) can be provided either using \ separator (if the tests are going to be executed on a Windows agent) or / separator (if the tests are going to be executed on a linux or MacOSX agent).

On windows, if you provide a path containing an OS-localizable folder such as C:\Program Files, always prefer the English version (i.e. NOT C:\Programmes if you're using a french-localized Windows) or the corresponding native environment variable (i.e. %PROGRAMFILES%).

Process

Each test in XStudio must have his dedicated .nlp script. The name of the script (without its .nlp extension) MUST be equal to the name of the test.
The NeoLoad test runner is launched by the launcher using this syntax:
<neoLoadInstallPath>/bin/NeoLoadCmd.exe -project "<projectRootPath>/<testPath>/<testName>.nlp" -launch "<testcaseName>" <options> -report %TEMP%/neoload_result_xxx.xml, %TEMP%/neoload_result_xxx.html
and from the working directory "<neoLoadInstallPath>/bin"
The result file %TEMP%/neoload_result_xxx.xml is parsed to retrieve the statistics and results of each test case
The main statistics and metrics are stored in XStudio
Several files are automatically uploaded to XStudio for each test case:
- The console output
- The XML report
- The zipped HTML report
- The summary chart generated by NeoLoad (summary.png)
- The errors chart generated by NeoLoad (errors.png)
- The throughput chart generated by NeoLoad (throughput.png)

Mapping

In XStudio you need to create a test for each NeoLoad Project
Under each test in XStudio, you need to create as many test cases as you have Scenarii in the NeoLoad Project

Permissions

WARNING: if you're running your tests on Windows, it may be required to run the tests as administrator.
Having an account with Administrators permissions may even not be enough in some cases (especially if you're using Windows 10) and you may need to disable completely the UAC (User Access Control) on your computer.
To do so:

Press the Windows + R key combination
Type in regedit
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
In the right-side pane, look for EnableLUA and set the value 0
Close the registry editor
Restart your computer

Debug

If your tests are not executed correctly or are reporting only failures, this is very likely because your configuration is incorrect or because you used a wrong naming convention for your tests and test cases.

The best way to quickly find out what's wrong is to look at the traces generated by XStudio (or XAgent).
The traces always include the detailed description of what the launcher performs (command line execution, script execution, API calling etc.) to run a test case. So, if you experiment some problems, the first thing to do is to activate the traces and look at what's happening when you run your tests.

Then, try to execute manually in a cmd box the exact same commands.
This will normally fail the same way.
At this point, you needs to figure out what has to be changed in these commands in order to have them run properly.

When you have something working, compare these commands to what's described in the Process chapter above. This will tell you exactly what you need to change.

Most of the time, this is related to: