Playback.exe: Playback

Server-only: This tool is included in the Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit only.

The Playback tool records requests coming into your Microsoft® Internet Information Services (IIS) site and allows them to be played back against the same or another IIS server that mirrors the original server's content. The tool consists of two key parts:

• Recorder.dll - an ISAPI Filter that records the traffic to your web site and creates a log file.
• Playback.exe - a command-line tool that is used to play back the traffic recorded by Recorder.dll.

Playback is not a stress tool. It is a simulation tool that is designed to reproduce request traffic as closely as possible. Playback can work in conjunction with stress tools such as the Web Application Stress Tool, assisting in scenarios such as the following:

• Real world simulation - capture traffic in a production environment and play it back in a test environment.
• Deployment testing - capture some traffic from an IIS 3.0 or 4.0 site and play it against an IIS 5.0 computer that has the original computer's content mirrored. This will help to ensure that IIS 5.0 can cleanly run your application under a real world load.
• User scenarios - record user scenarios and play them back as regression testing.
• Capacity Planning - record traffic in a production site and tune servers using real-world load in a testing environment.

Playback Topics

• Installing Playback
• Using Playback
• Playback Syntax
• Playback Example
• Playback Technical Notes
• Troubleshooting Playback

Files Required

• Playback.exe
• Lkhash.dll
• Recorder.dll

Note

Playback.exe and Recorder.dll are installed in the user-defined installation directory during Windows 2000 Resource Kit setup. Lkhash.dll is installed in the <windir>\system32 directory.