In the past it really was a major problem to load test the Flash Media Server because all the traditional Loadtesting tools do not support the RTMP protocol.

But now, since the release of Flash Media Server 3, this is very easy. Inside the Tools Directory you will find the fmscheck.exe File. This is a tool which only accepts command line parameters, so an perfect candidate for scriptiung.

I have prepared to batches, one for a live screnario, one for a vod scenario:

VOD-szenario (Application “vod” with VideoFile “vidfile” must exist):

set /A counter = 0
:start
start /B fmscheck.exe –host localhost –app vod –play vidfile 0 all –timeout 360
set /A counter = %counter% + 1
IF %counter% LEQ 100 goto :start

LIVE-Szenario: (Application “live” with stream “livestream” muss exist)

set /A counter = 0
:start
start /B fmscheck.exe –host localhost –app live –play livestream any all –timeout 36000
set /A counter = %counter% + 1
IF %counter% LEQ 100 goto :start

Both batches are going to start 100 instances of fmscheck.exe. By using the Flash Media Server Console you can watch wthat happens. For a real Load Test you should use serveral different Client PCs and you have to do this in your LAN whicht should have 1 GBit otherwise you do not have enough Bandwith.

PS: FMSCheck.exe also can Loadtest the old FMS2 Server.

Brilliant, thanks for posting this.

do you know if that tools works under linux wich is more script friendly ?

fmscheck.exe always exits within a few seconds regardless of how long the stream is. So using the script above you only get simultaneous connections for a few seconds. Looks like a limitation of fmscheck

If you specify the --timeout parameter and set it large enough, the entire file will indeed play. If you've specified --timeout and fmscheck is still exiting almost immediately, then you're not naming the file to play properly; remember to leave the ".flv" off the end for --app vod.

There is a Linux version of this tool; same command line options, and hence just as scriptable.

The biggest problem with this utility is there's no way to capture a simple success/fail exit status code. You have to grab the logfile (using the --logfile option) and parse the last line looking for success/failure information there. Pretty ugly. You want to be able to run lots of these and easily capture failures.

Flash Video Server is a powerful video streaming platform which provides services of streaming Flash videos and audios between the server side and client side. Flash Video Server offers you easy solution to enable your clients to play, record, and publish local Flash videos, live videos and audios to the server and share with other users. This program makes it possible for online meetings, live video publishing, recording, and playing.

http://www.flvsoft.com/

Flash Video Server is a powerful video streaming platform which provides services of streaming Flash videos and audios between the server side and client side. Flash Video Server offers you easy solution to enable your clients to play, record, and publish local Flash videos, live videos and audios to the server and share with other users. This program makes it possible for online meetings, live video publishing, recording, and playing.

http://www.flvsoft.com/

A linux version:

loadtest.sh

#!/bin/bash LIMIT=100

for ((i=1; i <= LIMIT; i++)) do ./fmscheck --host localhost --app vod --play sample 0 all --timeout 60 --auser someuser --apswd somepassword --logfile fmslog.txt & done

nice! tried it with 10/100/1000 connections against a 1,5mbit flv file - but this has no impact to my local network traffic?! still only 4% utilization?! (100mbit lan)

I tried running FMScheck.exe to load test FMS3.0. I've created a batch file based as follow:

set /A counter = 0 :start start /B fmscheck.exe –-host localhost –-app vod –-play sample 0 all –-timeout 360 set /A counter = %counter% + 1 IF %counter% LEQ 100 goto :start

However on Flash Media Server Console there no activity. Any ideas where i've gone wrong.

Trying to test this on Linux... the test works, but the logs are useless. How can I have the stats appended to the same log? The script above just overwrite the log for each connection attempt...

Hi, We have FMS 2 and we need to do a load test. At the end of this blog you mentioned that FMSCheck.exe can be used to loadtest FMS2. Can you please explain how to perform this test with FMS 2 and where can I find the FMSCheck.exe file.

Thanks in Advance

We've used this method to successfully test Red5 in addition to FMS. Great tip!