open-consul/test/load/packer/README.md

# Terraform Consul Load Testing
Packer will output AMI IDs when it completes - save these AMI IDs as Terraform will require them later.
The generated ami will have common tag `Environment = "consul-load-test"`.

```
==> Builds finished. The artifacts of successful builds are:
--> amazon-ebs: AMIs were created:

us-east-1: ami-19601070
```
## Consul AMI:

Within the `consul-ami/` directory
1) Retrieve your [Datadog API key]((https://docs.datadoghq.com/account_management/api-app-keys/#api-keys)), set this as an environment variable, ex: `export DD_API_KEY=$YOURDDAPIKEYHERE`
2) Set the AWS_DEFAULT_REGION for Packer, ex: `export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1`
3) Set up AWS credentials, ex: `export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=#YOURAWSKEYID & export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=YOURAWSKEY`
4) Run `packer build consul.pkr.hcl`.

For additional customization you can add [tags](https://docs.datadoghq.com/getting_started/tagging/assigning_tags/?tab=noncontainerizedenvironments) within the `scripts/datadog.yaml` file. An example of a tag could be `"consul_version" : "consulent_175"`. These tags are searchable through the datadog dashboard. Another form of customization is changing the datacenter tag within `scripts/telemetry.json`, however it is defaulted to `us-east-1`.


## Load Test AMI

Within the `loadtest-ami/` directory

1) Set the AWS_DEFAULT_REGION for Packer, ex: `export AWS_DEFAULT_REGION=us-east-1`
2) Run the command `packer build loadtest.pkr.hcl`

The script that k6 runs is found within `scripts/loadtest.js`. This script can be updated to send requests to more Consul endpoints. For additional information on k6 please check out their [guides](https://k6.io/docs/getting-started/running-k6).