Application Center Test, VS, and robots.txt
While attempting to write some stress testing using Application Center Test (that name just seems backwards to me), and stress testing a site with Robots.txt denying access to our authenticated folders for those search engine bots, I came across some interesting issues:
1) Lack of recorded SSL support (hence the (C)2001 on the about page -- this product is clearly dated).
2) If it sees robots.txt, even if that file allows the "Stress-Agent" user agent it claims to look for, it won't run the test
3) Visual studio integration doesn't allow you to change the option to ignore robots.txt
4) Lack of recorded SSL support (this really does annoy me! -- especially MS' workaround which I may post on separately)
1/4 I may tackle in a separate post; as for 2/3, by editing the non-included "properties.xml" in your Application Center Test project in visual studio, you can turn off cookies with the following section of xml at the top of the file:
<DefaultValues >
<Project >
<ProxyEnable type="bool" value="false"/>
<ProxyName type="string" value=""/>
<ProxyPort type="long" value="80"/>
<KeepOneRecycledFile type="bool" value="false"/>
<RecycleSize type="long" value="20"/>
<LogPath type="string" value="(automatic)"/>
<LogEnable type="bool" value="true"/>
<CheckRobots type="bool" value="false"/>
<UseAbortiveTcpClose type="bool" value="true"/>
<SocketTimeout type="long" value="120"/>
</Project>
...
(the file continues on)...
Save and you're good to go...just right click your test, and the output window in visual studio should tell you the test is running.