Firefox Performance Testing : A Python framework for Windows Documentation

Framework Prerequisites

You'll need to download some software onto your Windows machine before running these performance tests:

• Python 2.4
  • The scripts all run from Python 2.4. You will need the windows version (not the cygwin version).

Extensions

• Python Win32 Extensions
  • These extensions provide some support for process management and performance monitoring.
• Numerical Python
  • This is required by Matplotlib.
• Matplotlib
  • This library is used to plot the graphs of performance characteristics of Firefox during the page load test.
• PySyc
  • This is used for reading/writing config files in YAML.
• Cygwin
  • For some reason, we can't get output from Firefox unless it's wrapped in a Cygwin sh shell. So we use cygwin for that, and to sync between Firefox runs.
• msvcp71.dll
  • You need a copy of this file to run Python with all the libraries.
  • If you have Visual Studio 2003 installed, you've already got it.

Framework Configuration

1. Make sure the prerequisites, above, are installed.
2. Download entire framework (directories and all subdirectories) onto your local disk (put zip file here)
3. Check/edit the paths in paths.py file:

• CYGWIN
  • Path to cygwin bash to get output from dump() in Firefox
• SYNC
  • Run sync between Ts runs
• BASE_PROFILE_DIR
  • Path to the base profile directory used for testing.
  • For the page load test to work, modify the hostperm.1 file, set to allow urls with scheme:file to open in new windows, and the preference to open new windows in a tab should be off.
• REPORTS_DIR
  • Path to the directory that the generated reports will go into
• INIT_URL
  • Path to the file url to load when initializing a new profile
• TS_URL
  • The path to the file url to load for startup test (Ts)
• TP_URL
  • The path to the file url to load for page load test (Tp)

1. Create a YAML config file (config.yaml) with info about the profiles you want to test. Copy and paste the following into config.yaml:

     # Filename will be appended to the timestamp in the report filename.
     # Use letters and underscores only
     filename: slowmachine
     # The title of the report
     title: 1 GHz Celeron

     # Name of profile to test
     Test profile 1:
       # Path to Firefox to test
       firefox: C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox 2 Beta 1\firefox.exe

       # Preferences to set in the test (use "preferences : {}" for no prefs)
       preferences:
         javascript.options.showInConsole : true
         xpinstall.enabled : true

       # Extensions to install in test (use "extensions: {}" for none)
       extensions:
         # Need quotes around guid because of curly braces
         "{12345678-1234-1234-1234-abcd12345678}" : c:\path\to\unzipped\xpi
         foo@sample.com : c:\path\to\other\unzipped\xpi

• Note:
  • Check that your firefox path is right
  • Preferences and extensions can be left as none:
    • use "preferences : {}" for no prefs
    • use "extensions: {}" for none

5. Run run_tests.py with the name of your config file as an argument. You can use a space-separated list of config files, to generate a report of startup and page load times. The report will be placed in the REPORTS_DIR directory you specified in paths.py.

DIRECTORY STRUCTURE:

  page_load_test/
    This directory contains the JavaScript files and html data files for the
    page load test. The page load test opens a new window and cycles through
    loading each html file, timing each load.
  startup_test/
    This directory contains the JavaScript to run the startup test.  It
    measures how long it takes Firefox to start up.
  base_profile/
    This directory contains the base profile used for testing.  A copy of
    this profile is made for each testing profile, and extensions or prefs
    are added according to the test_configs array in run_tests.py.  For the
    page load test to run correctly, the hostperm.1 file must be set to allow
    scheme:file uris to open in new windows, and the pref to force a window
    to open in a tab must not be set.  The dom.allow_scripts_to_close_windows
    pref should also be set to true.  The browser.shell.checkDefaultBrowser
    pref should be set to false.
  run_tests.py, paths.py
    These files should be configured to run the test on different machines,
    with different extensions or preferences.  See setup above.