Testing Websockets for Redis

A simple Chat server

In the examples directory, there are two demo chat servers. To start them, first initialize the SQLite database

# create python2 virtualenv
virtualenv - p /path/to/python2 /path/to/virtualenv

# activate virtualenv
source /path/to/virtualenv/bin/activate

# Make sure you're in the examples/ directory
cd examples/

# install pip requirements
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Django 1.7+
# Load test data
./manage.py migrate
./manage.py loaddata chatserver/fixtures/data.json

and then start the server

# start Redis Server from a different shell prompt
# (or follow quickstart instructions http://redis.io/topics/quickstart)
redis-server

# start Django
./manage.py runserver

Point a browser onto http://localhost:8000/admin/, login as the ‘admin’ user using the password ‘secret’ and add additional users. Enable their staff status, so that they can use the admin interface to log into the testing application.

With http://localhost:8000/chat/ you can send messages to specific users, provided they are logged in. To log in as another user, use Django’s admin interface.

Simple Broadcasting

On http://localhost:8000/chat/ there is a chat server, which simply broadcasts messages to all browsers accessing this same URL.

Testing uWSGI

Before configuring NGiNX to run in front of two instances of uWSGI, it is recommended to run uWSGI as a stand alone server for testing purpose. The entry point of this server makes the distinction between normal HTTP and Websocket requests. In directory examples, start uwsgi as

uwsgi --virtualenv /path/to/virtualenvs --http :9090 --gevent 100 --http-websockets --module wsgi

Both chat server tests from above should run in this configuration.

Running Unit Tests

./manage.py test chatserver --settings=chatserver.tests.settings

Currently it is not possible to simulate more than one client at a time. Django’s built in LiveServerTestCase can not handle more than one simultaneous open connection, and thus more sophisticated tests with more than one active Websockets are not possible.

Running Stress Tests

To run stress tests, change into directory stress-tests. Since stress tests shall check the performance in a real environment, the server and the testing client must be started independently.

First start the server, as you would in productive environments.

# Open a new shell and activate your virtualenv in it
source /path/to/virtualenv/bin/activate

# Install the uwsgi package
pip install uwsgi

# Then start the uwsgi server
uwsgi --http :8000 --gevent 1000 --http-websockets --master --workers 2 --module wsgi_websocket

then go back to the other shell (also with the virtualenv activated) and start one of the testing clients, using the nose framework

nosetests test_uwsgi_gevent.py

(this test, on my MacBook, requires about 1.5 seconds)

or start a similar test using real threads instead of greenlets

nosetests test_uwsgi_threads.py

(this test, on my MacBook, requires about 2.5 seconds)

Both clients subscribe to 1000 concurrent Websockets. Then a message is published from another Websocket. If all the clients receive that message, the test is considered as successful. Both perform the same test, but test_uwsgi_gevent.py uses greenlet’s for each client to simulate, whereas test_uwsgi_threads.py uses Python thread’s.

If these tests do not work in your environment, check your file descriptors limitations. Use the shell command ulimit -n and adopt it to these requirements. Alternatively reduce the number of concurrent clients in the tests.