http-webtest-general

[Http-webtest-general] Error messages from StatusTest

[William M. <wi...@kn...>]

Greetings Ilya,

I received a couple of error messages today from a script which I'm 
running every minute via a crontab. The errors indicate that WebTest 
received a 500 - Internal Server Error message. However, I saw no such 
errors in my server logs.

I began to wonder whether WebTest just couldn't connect to the server. So 
I created a sample script (see below) to try to test this theory. Indeed, 
it seems that when WebTest cannot access a server (due to an invalid url 
or a connection timeout), it is returning a 500 error.

This response does not seem accurate. I'm not sure where this status code 
is coming from but was able to track the actual error message to the 
StatusTest.pm module. Could you test and verify my results? Do you use the 
LWP to make the actual connections? Is this error message generated from 
those libraries?

Thanks,
William


---------------
#!/usr/bin/perl -Tw
#
# TESTING HTTP::WEBTEST
#
use strict;
use HTTP::WebTest;

my $wtscript_testfile;
my $webtest = new HTTP::WebTest;
my $tests = [
# Test 1
{
	test_name         	=> 'Yahoo Homepage',
	url          	=> 'http://www.yahoo.com',
	text_require 	=> [ 'Yahoo'],
	text_forbid		=> [ 'The server encountered an internal error' ],
},
# Test 2
{
	test_name		=> 'Bad URL',
	url				=> 'http://www.yahoo.edu',
	params		=> {},
	text_require 	=> [ 'Yahoo U' ],
	text_forbid		=> [ 'The server encountered an internal error' ],
},
];

my $params = {
	ignore_case		=> 'yes',
	terse			=> 'failed_only',
	show_html		=> 'yes',
};

$webtest->run_tests($tests, $params);
--------------

-- 
 Lead Developer
 Knowmad Services Inc. || Internet Applications & Database Integration
 http://www.knowmad.com
 

[Http-webtest-general] Re: Error messages from StatusTest

[Ilya M. <il...@ma...>]

>>>>> On Tue, 1 Oct 2002 21:02:13 -0400, "William McKee" <wi...@kn...> said:

WM> Greetings Ilya,

Hi William,

WM> I received a couple of error messages today from a script which I'm 
WM> running every minute via a crontab. The errors indicate that WebTest 
WM> received a 500 - Internal Server Error message. However, I saw no such 
WM> errors in my server logs.

WM> I began to wonder whether WebTest just couldn't connect to the server. So 
WM> I created a sample script (see below) to try to test this theory. Indeed, 
WM> it seems that when WebTest cannot access a server (due to an invalid url 
WM> or a connection timeout), it is returning a 500 error.

WM> This response does not seem accurate. I'm not sure where this status code 
WM> is coming from but was able to track the actual error message to the 
WM> StatusTest.pm module. Could you test and verify my results? Do you use the 
WM> LWP to make the actual connections? Is this error message generated from 
WM> those libraries?

Yes, I'm using LWP for networking operations. Yes, LWP generates such
error messages itself. When it encounters an error it just generates
HTTP::Response object with status code 500. Frankly I don't know if it
is possible at all to distinguish errors received from a server from LWP
generated errors (other than using regexps on error messages what is
very error prone).

-- 
Ilya Martynov (http://martynov.org/)

[Http-webtest-general] Re: Error messages from StatusTest

[William M. <wi...@kn...>]

On 2 Oct 2002 at 12:41, Ilya Martynov wrote:
> Yes, I'm using LWP for networking operations. Yes, LWP generates such
> error messages itself. When it encounters an error it just generates
> HTTP::Response object with status code 500. Frankly I don't know if it is
> possible at all to distinguish errors received from a server from LWP
> generated errors (other than using regexps on error messages what is very
> error prone).

Hi Ilya,

Thanks for the reply. I've created a test script using LWP which 
demonstrates the error message received when an invalid url is used or a 
valid url is used but a connection cannot be made (I disconnected my 
ethernet cable for this test). See code at end for my sample test.

Both tests result in the following error message from LWP:
"500 (Internal Server Error) Can't connect to www.yahoo.edu:80 (Bad 
hostname 'www.yahoo.edu')"

That doesn't seem like a valid response from LWP. I've searched their 
mailling list archives and found one message which suggests that a 504 
response should be returned for an invalid dns entry. However, I saw no 
discussion about what a timeout should return. I've just joined the list 
and posted this query. Should be interesting to see what feedback I get... 
I'll keep you posted.

Cheers,
William

---------
#!/usr/bin/perl -Tw
use strict;

#
# TESTING HTTP::RESPONSE
#
use LWP::UserAgent;
use HTTP::Request;
use HTTP::Response;

my $url = 'http://www.yahoo.edu'; # invalid url
#my $url = 'http://www.yahoo.com'; # valid url - be sure your connection 
times out to see error
my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
my $request = HTTP::Request->new(GET => $url);
my $response = $ua->request($request);
if ($response->is_success) {
	print $response->content;
} else {
	print $response->as_string;
}
------------
-- 
 Lead Developer
 Knowmad Services Inc. || Internet Applications & Database Integration
 http://www.knowmad.com