Running external agents for load testing
You can use Yandex Load Testing for service load testing with external agents.
An external agent is a physical or virtual server with the load testing tool and load generators, which is hosted outside Load Testing.
Running load testing and viewing its results from an external agent is similar to doing that from the Load Testing agent. For more information, see Getting started with Yandex Load Testing.
Load testing with an external agent is used when:
- The testing target includes multiple instances, and the total inbound and outgoing traffic from them does not exceed the Load Testing agent capacity.
- The requests being sent to the testing target require large computing capacity.
- The information security rules require that the agent resides in its own infrastructure.
- Compute Cloud VM computing resources are limited.
To run load testing using an external agent:
- Prepare your cloud.
- Prepare your infrastructure.
- Configure the environment.
- Install the external agent.
- Run the external agent.
- Create a test.
- View the testing results.
If you no longer need the connected external agent, delete it from Load Testing.
Getting started
Sign up for Yandex Cloud and create a billing account:
- Go to the management console
and log in to Yandex Cloud or create an account if you do not have one yet. - On the Yandex Cloud Billing
page, make sure you have a billing account linked and it has theACTIVE
orTRIAL_ACTIVE
status. If you do not have a billing account, create one.
If you have an active billing account, you can go to the cloud page
Learn more about clouds and folders.
Required paid resources
At the Preview stage, Load Testing is free of charge.
Prepare the infrastructure
Set up a service account
-
Create a service account, e.g.,
sa-loadtest
, in the folder where you are going to connect the external agent. -
Assign the
loadtesting.editor
andloadtesting.generatorClient
roles to the service account. -
Create authorized keys for the service account.
Save public and private keys as a single file by clicking Download file with keys.
Create a secret with authorized keys
-
In the management console
, select the folder where you want to connect the external agent. -
In the list of services, select Lockbox.
-
Click Create secret.
-
In the Name field, enter a name for the secret, e.g.,
secret-loadtest
. -
Under Version:
- In the Key field, enter a non-secret ID, e.g.,
key-loadtest
. - In the Value field, upload the file with the public and private authorized keys.
- In the Key field, enter a non-secret ID, e.g.,
-
Click Create.
Save the name and key of the secret.
Configure the environment
-
Install and initialize the Yandex Cloud CLI.
-
Install
and run Docker. -
Authenticate in Container Registry as a user or with a Docker credential helper.
Use the endpoint of the registry with external agent Docker images:
cr.yandex/yc/
.
Install the external agent
-
Pull a Docker image with the external agent by running this command:
docker pull cr.yandex/yc/ya-lt-agent:latest
Result:
latest: Pulling from yc/ya-lt-agent df6635ed1257: Pull complete 7a51fa4387ba: Pull complete Digest: sha256:fad262e94a8b4021b13336ae31c738ec1e77eb6a8971528429c67d2827f1e47b Status: Downloaded newer image for cr.yandex/yc/ya-lt-agent:latest cr.yandex/yc/ya-lt-agent:latest
-
Download the file with the public and private authorized keys from Lockbox:
yc lockbox payload get <secret_name> \ --key <secret_key> \ > <file_name>
Where:
<secret_name>
: Name of the secret with the authorized keys, such assecret-loadtest
.<secret_key>
: Non-secret ID of the secret with the authorized keys, such askey-loadtest
.<file_name>
: Name of the file where the authorized keys are saved, such assecret-key.json
.
Warning
In Windows, use CMD to run the above command. If you use PowerShell, the file will have incorrect encoding. Make sure the encoding of the downloaded file is
UTF-8
. -
Create a configuration file for the external agent, e.g.,
config.yaml
, and copy the following parameters into it:client_workdir: '/var/lib/tank_agent/client' tankapi_host: localhost tankapi_port: 8083 load_testing_host: 'loadtesting.api.cloud.yandex.net' load_testing_port: '443' logging_host: 'ingester.logging.yandexcloud.net' logging_port: '443' object_storage_url: 'https://storage.yandexcloud.net' storage_file: '/tmp/yandex-tank/storage.data' iam_token_service_url: 'iam.api.cloud.yandex.net:443' agent_id_file: '/run/agentid' private_key: '/run/sa_key.json' agent_name: <external_agent_name> folder_id: <folder_ID>
Where:
agent_name
: External agent name, e.g.,external-agent
.folder_id
: ID of the folder where you are going to connect the external.
Run the external agent
-
To run a Docker container with the external agent, run the following command in the terminal:
docker run \ -it \ --mount type=bind,source=<path_to_file_with_authorized_keys>,target=/run/sa_key.json \ --mount type=bind,source=<path_to_configuration_file>,target=/run/config.yaml \ --env LOADTESTING_AGENT_CONFIG=/run/config.yaml \ cr.yandex/yc/ya-lt-agent:latest
Where:
<path_to_file_with_authorized_keys>
: Absolute path to the file with the authorized keys, such as/home/user/secret-key.json
.<path_to_configuration_file>
: Absolute path to the configuration file, such as/home/user/config.yaml
.
You can also specify the external agent configuration using the environment variables for different Docker containers.
Example of running an external agent with environment variables
docker run \ -it \ --mount type=bind,source=<path_to_file_with_authorized_keys_in_host_OS>,target=/run/sa_key.json \ --env LOADTESTING_AGENT_CONFIG=<path_to_configuration_file_in_container> \ --env LOADTESTING_AGENT_NAME='<external_agent_name>' \ --env LOADTESTING_FOLDER_ID='<folder_ID>' \ --env LOADTESTING_SA_KEY_FILE=<path_to_file_with_authorized_keys_in_container> \ cr.yandex/yc/ya-lt-agent:latest
Where:
LOADTESTING_AGENT_CONFIG
: Required parameter that indicates the path to the configuration file of the external agent in the container.LOADTESTING_AGENT_NAME
: External agent name.LOADTESTING_FOLDER_ID
: Folder ID.LOADTESTING_SA_KEY_FILE
: Path to the file with the authorized keys in the container.
You can use the following environment variables instead of the authorized key file:
LOADTESTING_SA_ID
: Service account ID.LOADTESTING_SA_KEY_ID
: ID of the service account authorized key.LOADTESTING_SA_KEY_PAYLOAD
: Value of the service account private authorized key.
External agents are authorized using a JWT.
Each time the Docker container is run, the external agent is assigned a new ID in Load Testing. You can keep the same ID between container runs, for example, to link testing results to a specific agent. To do this, use a Docker volume to store a file with the external agent ID (the
agent_id_file
parameter in the agent configuration file). The volume data is stored independently of the Docker container: if you stop and delete the container, both the volume and the container data will remain intact.Example of running an external agent with a constant ID
Create a Docker volume, e.g.,
external_agent_1_volume
:docker volume create external_agent_1_volume
Run the external agent with a mounted volume:
docker run \ -it \ --mount source=external_agent_1_volume,target=/run \ --mount type=bind,source=<path_to_file_with_authorized_keys>,target=/run/sa_key.json \ --mount type=bind,source=<path_to_configuration_file>,target=/run/config.yaml \ --env LOADTESTING_AGENT_CONFIG=/run/config.yaml \ cr.yandex/yc/ya-lt-agent:latest
-
Check that the external agent is available in Load Testing:
Management console-
In the management console
, select Load Testing. -
In the left-hand panel, go to
Operations. -
Make sure the Register an agent operation completed successfully.
-
In the left-hand panel, go to
Agents. -
Make sure the external agent, e.g.,
external-agent
, has theReady for test
status.
-
Create a test
Run load testing. In the Agents field, select an external agent, e.g., external-agent
.
View the testing results
- In the management console
, select Load Testing. - In the left-hand panel, go to
Tests. - Choose the previously created test and view its results.
How to delete the resources you created
To delete the external agent from Load Testing:
- In the management console
, select Load Testing. - In the left-hand panel, go to
Agents. - Next to the agent to delete, click
and select Delete. - Confirm the deletion.