Running Tests on remote machines

WebPageTest Private Instances
1

Hi,

I’m currently running WPT Private instance on Windows 7 Professional 64-bit machine. I have IE9 installed on my local machine but i would also like the private instance to test pages for IE8. We can accomplish that if somehow i can execute the test on a remote machine which has IE8 installed. Can you guide me on how can i execute the tests on remote machine if the user selects IE8 instead of IE9 from the private instance. Also it would help me if you could let me know how can i add IE8 in the dropdown along with IE9 as we have on “www.webpagetest.org” - main site.

Thanks!

2

Add another entry for the relevant location in locations.ini, and then relevant browser section.

Then set up the IE8 test agent and set it to retrieve jobs from the Win 7 PC

3

In case you haven’t seen it, these docs may help: https://sites.google.com/a/webpagetest.org/docs/private-instances/locations

4

[color=#0000CD]Oh! I see. Thanks Andy and Patrick for your reply.[/color]

5

[color=#9400D3]I’ve setup an agent on another pc on the same network and I made following changes :[/color]

[color=#0000CD]Win7-PC (server machine which hosts WPT)[/color]

[color=#1E90FF]locations.ini:[/color]

[locations]
1=Local
2=Local_Network
default=Local

[Local]
1=Local-IE9
2=Local-Others
label=Local
connectivity=LAN

[Local-IE9]
browser=IE 9
latency=0
label=“Local - IE 9”
;browserExe=pagetest.exe
key=TestKey123
connectivity=LAN

[Local-Others]
;browser=Chrome,Firefox
browser=Chrome
label=“Local”
connectivity=LAN

[Local_Network]
1=WPT_LocalNetwork_IE8
label=“Local Network IE8”
connectivity=LAN

[WPT_LocalNetwork_IE8]
browser=IE 8
latency=0
label=“Local Network IE8”
connectivity=LAN

[color=#0000CD]Win-XP (Another PC on lan)[/color]

[color=#1E90FF]locations.ini:[/color]

[locations]
1=Local_Network
default=Local_Network

[Local_Network]
1=WPT_LocalNetwork_IE8
label=“Local Network - IE8”
connectivity=LAN

[WPT_LocalNetwork_IE8]
browser=IE 8
latency=0
label=“Local_Network”
browserExe=pagetest.exe
key=TestKey123
connectivity=LAN

[color=#1E90FF]wptdriver.ini:[/color]

[WebPagetest]
[color=#FF0000]url=[/color]
location=Local-WPTDriver
browser=Chrome
key=TestKey123
software=http://www.webpagetest.org/installers/software.dat

[Chrome]
exe=“C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe”
options=‘–load-extension=“%WPTDIR%\extension” --user-data-dir=“%profile%” --no-proxy-server’
installer=http://www.webpagetest.org/installers/browsers/chrome.dat

[Firefox]
exe=“C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe”
options=‘-profile “%profile%” -no-remote’
installer=http://www.webpagetest.org/installers/browsers/firefox.dat
template=firefox

[color=#1E90FF]urlBlast.ini[/color]

[Configuration]
Startup Delay=30
Log File=C:\wamp\webpagetest\agent\urlblast
Timeout=120
use current account=1

; Where to get work from
[color=#FF0000]Url Files Url=/work/[/color]
Location=WPT_LocalNetwork_IE8
Location Key=TestKey123

[color=#9400D3]Now after making these changes i’m able to see an option on Test location as “Local Network IE8” and Browse as “IE8” but when i click on test it waits in the queue indefinitely.

The scheduled requests especially the ones in chrome are coming from the server pc and they’re executing just fine, the only problem is that i’m not able to execute it by selecting second option of IE8 on remote PC (WinXP).

Could you please point out where am i making the mistake.

Kindly note that when i close the agent on Win7 (server machine), the URLs are getting tested on WinXP machine on IE 8. The only problem arises when i turn on agents on both the machines.

Thanks again for your help with this![/color]

6

The XP machine should not run wptdriver at all (unless you want to be able to test Chrome and Firefox on it as well). Your locations.ini and urlblast.ini look correct and it should be picking up work. Check your access log on the Windows 7 machine to see if there are requests to getwork.php for the WPT_LocalNetwork_IE8 location. If the Windows 7 machine has a firewall enabled then the requests might be getting blocked.

7

[color=#000080]Thank you Patrick! I’ve just kept urlBlaster active now since i want that machine to run tests on IE8 only. Its working perfectly fine now.[/color]