jMeter - Environment

JMeter is a framework for Java, so the very first requirement is to have JDK installed in your machine.

System Requirement

JDK	1.6 or above.
Memory	No minimum requirement.
Disk Space	No minimum requirement.
Operating System	No minimum requirement.

Step 1 − Verify Java Installation

First of all, verify whether you have Java installed in your system. Open your console and execute one of the following java commands based on the operating system you are working on.

OS	Task	Command
Windows	Open Command Console	c:\> java -version
Linux	Open Command Terminal	$ java -version
Mac	Open Terminal	machine: ~ joseph$ java -version

If you have Java installed in your system, you would get an appropriate output based on the OS you are working on.

OS	Output
Windows	java version "1.7.0_25" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_25-b15) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 23.25-b01, mixed mode)
Linux	java version "1.7.0_25" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_25-b15) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 23.25-b01, mixed mode)
Mac	java version "1.7.0_25" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_25-b15) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 23.25-b01, mixed mode)

If you do not have Java installed, install the Java Software Development Kit (SDK) from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html. We are assuming Java 1.7.0_25 as the installed version for this tutorial.

Step 2 − Set Java Environment

Set the JAVA_HOME environment variable to point to the base directory location, where Java is installed on your machine. For example −

OS	Output
Windows	Set the environment variable JAVA_HOME to C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_25
Linux	export JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/java-current
Mac	export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/Home

Append Java compiler location to System Path.

OS	Output
Windows	Append the string; C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_25\bin to the end of the system variable, Path.
Linux	export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin/
Mac	not required

Verify Java Installation using java -version command as explained above.

Step 3 − Download JMeter

Download the latest version of JMeter from http://jmeter.apache.org/download_jmeter.cgi. For this tutorial, we downloaded apache-jmeter-2.9 and copied it into C:\>JMeter folder.
The directory structure should look like as shown below −

• apache-jmeter-2.9
• apache-jmeter-2.9\bin
• apache-jmeter-2.9\docs
• apache-jmeter-2.9\extras
• apache-jmeter-2.9\lib\
• apache-jmeter-2.9\lib\ext
• apache-jmeter-2.9\lib\junit
• apache-jmeter-2.9\printable_docs

You can rename the parent directory (i.e. apache-jmeter-2.9) if you want, but do not change any of the sub-directory names.

Step 4 − Run JMeter

After downloading JMeter, go to the bin directory. In this case, it is /home/manisha/apache-jmeter-2.9/bin. Now click on the following −

OS	Output
Windows	jmeter.bat
Linux	jmeter.sh
Mac	jmeter.sh

After a short pause, the JMeter GUI should appear, which is a Swing application, as seen in the following screenshot −
This is the main page and the default page of the tool.