How to use Loader.io to test performance for OAuth2

Phan Binh Minh (PBM), senior QA of the Safewhere team, knows a thing or two about doing load testing which she wrote about in this post.

Loader.io is a free load testing service that allows you to load test your web-apps and apis with huge amount of concurrent connections.

Beside web-interface, Loader.io also supports API to register and verify testing domains, create and run tests, view summary result data, and access a list of IP addresses that loader might send requests to your app from during a test.

With very simple steps, I can easily setup, run a test and view the test result:

1. Add your target host: use the web-interface or API to register your app for testing
2. Run a test
3. Watch the test in real-time

This post will walk you through how to use Loader.io to test performance for OAuth2 flows: refresh token flow and client credentials flow.

Set up target host

After registering a free Loader.io account, I need to register a target host that will be tested by clicking [+ New Host]

Enter domain of the web application and click [Next: Verify] to make sure Loader.io can reach the domain

Loader.io needs to verify that the domain belongs to us. I can do this by downloading the verification token file and uploading it to our server. Click on the [Verify] button to do verification.

If all are done correctly, loader.io will display a successful result: