This section describes additional configuration settings for SOAtest and Virtualize available in the Parasoft> Preferences menu.

Browser Settings

The Browser panel lets you set options related to Web scenario recording. Available settings include:

• Firefox Executable Path: Specifies the path to the Firefox executable. On Windows machines, SOAtest and/or Virtualize will attempt to detect a Firefox installation automatically. Linux users will have to browse to the Firefox executable.

• Chrome Executable Path: Specifies the path to the Chrome executable. Paths set here will be used in web recording wizards and other applicable areas. On Linux, choose google-chrome (e.g. /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome)—not chrome.
• Proxy port: Specifies the proxy port. See Proxy Configuration Details below for more information and tips.
• Browser communication port: Specifies the browser communication port.

• Browser Timeout Settings: Specifies the length of delay (in milliseconds) after which SOAtest and/or Virtualize should stop waiting for browser startup or a user action and consider it to be "timed out."

• Wait Condition Default Timeout Settings: Specifies the length of delay (in seconds) after which SOAtest and/or Virtualize should stop waiting for the activity specified in the wait condition to occur and consider it to be "timed out."

• Debug Options> Print debugging information: During recording of a web scenario, it is possible that an action taken is not recorded by SOAtest and/or Virtualize. Enabling this option will allow messages to be printed to the message console during recording, with information about what events SOAtest and/or Virtualize handled, any locators that may have been generated, and if applicable, any exceptions that took place during recording.

• Error Reporting> Report website's scripting errors: Configures SOAtest and/or Virtualize to report scripting errors that occur during scenario execution. In Internet Explorer, the Selenium Web-Driver framework will not report JavaScript errors on the page to SOAtest and/or Virtualize; this reporting is supported only for the legacy engine.

• Allowable Binary Files in Traffic Viewer and Outputs: Allows binary files with the specified extensions or MIME types to be used in the Traffic Viewer and output. By default, only text files will be allowed.

• Browser Contents Viewer Rendering Engine: Enables you to specify what browser is used for the Browsear Contents Viewer tool , which can be attached to the Browser Playback tool.

  • The default option (Same browser used for playback) is generally the recommended option because some web applications generate their pages differently based on the browser used. Using the same browser that was used during the playback can help ensure that pages display properly in the Browser Contents Viewer. Note that if the playback browser was Chrome, the Firefox rendering engine is used.

  • When Internet Explorer is selected, the version of IE that is used depends on what version of IE is installed on the machine running SOAtest and/or Virtualize. The Internet Explorer option is available only on Windows.

  • When Firefox is selected, the version of Firefox that is used depends on what Eclipse is being used to run SOAtest and/or Virtualize. It can range from Firefox 3.0.1 to Firefox 10, depending on what OS is being used.

  • If the particular web application being tested does not render properly in the Browser Contents Viewer, you could try configuring this option to use either Internet Explorer or Firefox specifically (rather than use the default Same browser used for playback option) to see if using a specific rendering engine will improve how the page is shown in the Browser Contents Viewer.

• HTML Content Fetch Mode: Enables you to determine whether the contents of hidden frames are displayed in the pre- and post-action HTML viewer. This can impact record and playback speed, as well as file size. It is possible to use one mode on some of your team’s SOAtest and/or Virtualize machines (e.g., desktop installation), and a different mode on others (e.g, the Server machine running in command-line mode).

  • Fetch all HTML content Choose this option if you want to see the contents of hidden frames in the pre- and post-action HTML viewer 

  • Fetch content for all content except hidden frames: Choose this option if you do not need to see the contents of hidden frames in the pre- and post-action HTML viewer.

Proxy Configuration Details

When you record or run web scenarios in a browser, the proxy settings in the browser are set to an internal proxy maintained by SOAtest and/or Virtualize. All communication to and from the browser during recording and playback goes through the internal proxy, which is an intermediary used to capture traffic and otherwise facilitate execution. During recording and playback, SOAtest and/or Virtualize temporarily creates this proxy on localhost using the port specified by the Browser Playback setting’s Proxy port option.

The default host and port for the internal proxy is localhost:55555. Change the port number if this port is already in use using the controls Proxy port field. Do not change this from within the browser.

If your machine is configured to use your own proxy, you should configure SOAtest and/or Virtualize to point to that proxy. This enables SOAtest and/or Virtualize to configure its internal proxy to forward all traffic to the specified proxy configured in Proxy Settings.

Internet Explorer Notes

SOAtest and Virtualize modify the global registry settings prior to starting its instance of the browser. If an instance of Internet Explorer was running on the machine prior to launching SOAtest or Virtualize (not recommended), the global registry settings will not be set in the existing browser instance.

In these cases, check the Internet Options panel in the existing browser instance while a web scenario is running to verify that the settings point to SOAtest’s or Virtualize's proxy and click OK in the Internet Options panel. If you click OK, the proxy settings are updated in the existing browser instance. If you click Cancel, or do not go to the Internet Options panel, then the existing browser instance never picks up the proxy settings and should continue to navigate fine.

Proxy settings may not be reset properly if the browser exited abnormally, if there is a hanging browser process, etc. Such issues can affect new browser instances (or other programs that connect to the internet). If this happens, you can resolve it by resetting your machine’s proxy settings to the appropriate settings or killing any hanging browser processes.

Console Settings

The Console panel allows you to determine the amount of information that is reported to the Console view and whether it is automatically activated when it contains messages.

Continuous Testing Platform Settings

If you have Continuous Testing Platform (CTP) and a valid license, you can configure your connection to CTP:

• Use DTP settings: Enable this option to use the connections settings specified in DTP. See Connecting to DTP. 
• Server Name: Specifies a name for the server you are connecting to CTP. This is the name that will be used to identify this server within CTP.
• CTP URL: Specifies the location of the CTP to which you are connecting (e.g., http://emdemo:8080).

• Notify CTP of virtual asset deployment: Determines whether the  server notifies Parasoft CTP when virtual assets are first deployed.

• Username: Specifies the username for logging into CTP.
• Password: Specifies the password for logging into CTP.

Global Data Source Settings

Global data sources can be reused and shared across Virtualize deployments. The Global Data Source panel lets you determine how information about global data sources is saved. For information on how to configure global data sources, see Adding a Data Source at the Suite, Project, or Global Level.

Technical Support Settings

Use the Technical Support interface to create a zip archive containing the related files if you are experiencing issues. Send the zip file to Parasoft's support team so that they can assist you.Virtualize can automatically create an archive when problems occur. Archives are approximately half a megabyte and are created in about 60 seconds.

By default, an archive is not created when problems occur. You can either manually prepare and send a support archive when needed, or you can modify Parasoft  archive creation options so that the product automatically prepares and sends an archive when problems occur.

To configure the product  to automatically prepare and send archives when problems occur:

1. Open the Technical Support panel by choosing Parasoft> Preferences, then selecting the Parasoft> Technical Support category.
2. Check Enable auto-creation of support archives.
3. Customize additional options as needed. Note that Enable auto-creation of support archives and Send archives by email are not applicable to Virtualize.
4. Click Apply, then OK.

To manually create a support archive:

1. Choose Parasoft> Preferences and click the Technical Support category
2. Choose your archive options and click Create Archive.

To open the Technical Support Archive Manager, which allows you to review, e-mail, or delete recent support archives:

1. Choose Parasoft> Preferences and click the Technical Support category
2. Click Browse Recent Archives.

Enabling Debug Logging

You can add the following system properties when starting Virtualize from the command line to enable debug logging and to ensure that the all relevant information is included when creating a support archive.

-J-Dparasoft.logging.config.jar.file=/com/parasoft/xtest/logging/log4j/config/verbose.console.xml

-J-Dparasoft.logging.config.file=<PATH_TO_LOG4J_CONF_FILE>

MIME Type Settings

The MIME Types panel lets you add and remove MIME types. In addition, it lets you specify the location of your preferred text and XML editors and lets you specify what editor you want to use to edit all files that have a particular MIME type.

To add, edit, or remove a MIME type:

• To add a MIME type, click Add MIME Type, enter the new MIME type in the dialog box that opens, then enter the file extensions that you want to assign to this MIME type, and (optionally) indicate the implied MIME type by checking the appropriate check boxes. If you enter multiple extensions for a MIME type, separate the extensions with one space character.
• To edit a MIME type’s settings, select the MIME type whose settings you want to edit, then modify the settings as needed.
• To remove a MIME type, select the MIME type that you want to remove, then click Delete MIME Type.

Miscellaneous Settings

The Misc panel allows you to set the following miscellaneous settings:

• Show tool descriptions: Enables/disables showing tool descriptions in applicable wizards. 

• Character Encoding: You can enable System default to configure SOAtest and/or Virtualize to use the default character set for the particular system being used. Enable Custom to encode characters from the list of encodings available on the JVM being used.

• Save settings: Specifies what file format to use for saving project files (e.g., .pva, .pvn,  .changetemplate). See Understanding the Available Project File Formats.

• Default timeout (milliseconds): Allows you to enter the length of delay (in milliseconds) after which SOAtest should consider your FTP, telnet, or HTTP requests to be “timed out.” The default is 30000 milliseconds.
• Report each duplicate error that occurs on the same line: Tells SOAtest to show only the first instance of duplicate errors that occur for the same line of code.
• Reset Cookies: Allows you to clear the current global cookies so that next HTTP invocations start a new session.
• Enable the Automatically backup project files option and specify a file size threshold for .tst and/or .pva files in the Warn on file size large than (MB) field to be notified when the size of the file exceeds the threshold. You can then reduce the size (and prevent performance problems) by dividing it into smaller files.

Proxy Settings

The Proxy panel controls how SOAtest and/or Virtualize works with proxy servers. It does not control the separate intermediary proxy used for web scenarios (for details on this other proxy, see Proxy Configuration Details). 

• If Windows and IE (which use the same settings) are configured to properly use the proxy to access the relevant websites, select Use system proxy configuration.

• Otherwise, select Enable proxy and manually enter the correct settings. These settings should be equivalent to what you would use in the browser outside of SOAtest/Virtualize.

  • To use an automatic configuration script, select Use automatic configuration script, then enter the proxy address in the Address field.
  • If you want to use the same proxy server for all protocols, check the Same proxy server for all protocols check box, then enter the address and port of the proxy server you want to use in the Proxy Address and Proxy Port fields.
  • If you want to use different proxy servers for different protocols, clear the Same proxy server for all protocols check box, then enter the address and port of each proxy server you want to use in the Proxy Address and Proxy Port fields.
  • If your proxy server requires authentication, check the Enable proxy authentication check box, then enter a valid user name and password in the Username and Password fields.
  • If you want to allow Web traffic from designated IP addresses to pass through directly (avoiding the proxy), enter those IP addresses in the Proxy Exceptions text field. If you enter multiple addresses, use a semicolon (;) to separate the entries.
  • The Proxy Address value should be a URL to the script: either an HTTP(S) URL or a file URL. File URLs should be formatted as "file:///" followed by the file system path where the proxy autoconfiguration script lives. For example, on Windows this could be file:///c:/Users/user/scripts/proxy.pac. On Linux, it might be file:///home/machine/scripts/proxy.pac.

HTTP proxies that do not require authentication can be used while managing remote SOAtest and Virtualize servers. HTTP proxies that require authentication will not be applied when adding a remote SOAtest or Virtualize server to the server tree.

Scripting Settings

The Scripting panel allows you to specify properties used for custom scripts.

• • Java: For Java, you can specify the Java home directory and the path to the javac compiler. You need to specify these parameters if you want to compile Java methods in the editor.   

    Note

    The javac compiler is not included.

    • Java home: Specifies the Java installation directory.
    • Javac classpath: Specifies the Java classpath.
  • JavaScript: If you create scripts using Jython or JavaScript, you can specify a script template in the Script Template field.
    • Script Template: Whatever code is specified in this field will be used as the default code for inlined scripting in the language with which the field is associated. This is prmarily useful for setting default inputs and common global variables. Script templates apply to scripts used in Extension tools; they do not apply to JavaScript that runs in a browser context.

  • Jython: For Jython, you can specify the jython.home and jython.path variables. Both variables are used to locate Jython modules. Jython code that does not import any Jython modules can use the Jython scripting support without setting either variable. If you set the jython.home and jython.path variables, you need to restart SOAtest or Virtualize before the changes will take effect.

  • Jython Home: Specifies the Jython installation directory. This must be a single directory. Use a forward slash (/) or backslash (\) to escape special characters.
  • Jython Path: Used to add to your path modules that are not in your jython.home/Lib directory. Multiple paths can be listed. Use a forward slash (/) or backslash (\) to escape special characters.
  • Script Template:Jy thon code that does not import any Jython modules can use the Jython scripting support without setting either the jython.home or jython.path.

• Timeout Settings: Specify how many minutes SOAtest or Virtualize should wait before attempting to stop an unresponsive script and log an error message.

Security Settings

You can configure default security settings for Responders used in your projects. In most cases, the security settings can be overridden by configurations set locally in your suites:

Global HTTP Authentication Properties

Configure global HTTP authentication properties that can be used when configuring HTTP protocols within an applicable tool.

1. Enables the Perform Authentication option and enter the Username and Password to authenticate the request
2. Choose the authentication type from the drop-down menu. Supported types are Basic, NTLM, Kerberos, or Digest.
3. If you are using Kerberos authentication, enter the Service Principal to authenticate the request. If the correct username and password, or the correct service principal, are not used, the request will not be authenticated.
   1. Kerberos realm: Specify the Kerberos realm associated with your network. By convention, this is typically your domain name in all caps (e.g. PARASOFT.COM).
   2. KDC server: Specify the hostname of your Key Distribution Center (e.g. kdc.parasoft.com).
   3. Check Ticket: This will execute a simple test to locate a cached Kerberos TGT (Ticket Granting Ticket) to grant access to the service. SOAtest and/or Virtualize will not be able to communicate with the service if it cannot first locate a valid TGT. For more information about Kerberos, see Configuring Kerberos Authentication.

About Kerberos Authentication

Kerberos authentication is known as a trusted third-party authentication mechanism. A client requests access to a service not directly, but from another service: the Key Distribution Center, which manages network-wide authorization. This mechanism facilitates Single Sign-On (SSO) so that a client need only provide authorization credentials once in a given time period (usually 8-10 hours). The authorization is granted in the form of a ticket which can then be cached and reused throughout the granted time period without re-authenticating.

Entities in a Kerberos-protected network, such as clients and servers, are known as principals. The network-space that Kerberos protects is known as a realm. Microsoft's IIS (Internet Information Services) Server provides HTTP-based services with Kerberos through the Negotiation protocol. Other server vendors provide their own implementations of Microsoft's Negotiate protocol.

The ticket that is received upon initial authentication is known as a Ticket Granting Ticket, or TGT. For example, in a Windows environment, the TGT is generated when first logging on to the workstation in the morning. SOAtest and/or Virtualize authorizes itself to use a Kerberos-protected service by retrieving a user's TGT from the system cache.

Configuring Kerberos Authentication for Tools

1. Select the tool for which you intend to use Kerberos authentication.
2. Select the Transport tab and select Security from the left pane of the Transport tab. 
3. Configure the following options from the security panel of the Transport tab:
   1. Perform Authentication: Select this option to activate authentication.
   2. Use Global Preferences: Select this option if you have authentication properties setup in Security Preferences.
   3. Type: Select Kerberos to perform Kerberos Authentication.
   4. Service Principal: Specify the name of the service/server as defined in the Kerberos database (e.g. HTTP/soatest.parasoft.com).

Now when you invoke your tool, the required Negotiate token will automatically be generated and send as an HTTP header. Kerberos provides a mechanism to prevent so-called "replay" attacks where a user tries to provide captured duplicate credentials for a service in order to gain access to them. 

Server Certificate Settings

Enable the Trust all certificates option to accept any certificate. This is useful if you want to load pages whose certificates are not "trusted."

Enable the Use default Java cacerts option to accept only certificates from the standard list of Java-trusted certificate vendors.

Client Key Store Settings

Enable the Use client keystore option to specify settings for both the server side and client side certificates for SSL through the Client Keystore options.

Keystores are specified at the test or responder suite level. If this option is selected, the following options are available in the Certificate and Private Key tabs:

Certificate Tab

• Use same key store for private key: Select if the Key Store contains private keys for the certificate.
• Key store file: Specify the key store file by clicking the Browse button and using the file chooser that opens. If you want the path saved as a relative path (for example, to facilitate project sharing), check the Persist as Relative Path option.
• Key store password: Specify the Key Store password.
• Key store type: Specify the type of Key Store being used (e.g. JKS, PKCS12, BKS, PEM, UBER)
• Load: Click to populate the aliases with the available certificates/keys if the path, type, and key store password are valid.
• Certificate alias: Specify the certificate alias.

Private Key Tab

• Key store file: (Only available if the Key Store Contains Keys option is unselected in the Certificate tab) Specify the key store file by clicking the Browse button and using the file chooser that opens. If you want the path saved as a relative path (for example, to facilitate project sharing), check the Persist as Relative Path option.
• Key store password: (Only available if the Key Store Contains Keys option is unselected in the Certificate tab) Specify the Key Store password.
• Key store type: (Only available if the Use same key store for private key option is unselected in the Certificate tab) Specify the type of Key Store being used (e.g. JKS, PKCS12, BKS, PEM, UBER)
• Load: Click to populate the aliases with the available certificates/keys if the path, type, and key store password are valid.
• Private key alias: Specify the private key alias.
• Private key password: Specify the private key password.

MQ SSL

You can specify the trust store, key store, and key store password for clients that interact with AUTs over MQ SSL. These settings are not applicable to Virtualize. If you need to configure virtual assets that transport MQ messages over SSL, see Configuring Server and Deployment Settings. For details on MQ SSL settings, see IBM WebSphere MQ> SSL.

JCE Prerequisite

SOAtest and Virtualize ship with their own instance of Java that include the Unlimited Strength Java Cryptography Extension so that they can perform security operations that use XML Signature Verifier, XML Signer, XML Encryption tools, and Key Stores. If you installed SOAtest or Virtualize from the update site (see Eclipse p2 Update Site Installation) and are using your instance of Java, you will need to download and install the unlimited JCE if it's not already on your system. Refer to the Oracle website for downloads and documentation. MacOS users should install Java 8 newer than update 161 to get the unlimited JCE.

Server Settings

The Server panel allows you to configure the following settings for the SOAtest and/or Virtualize server. 

• Start server: Enable this option to automatically start the server when SOAtest and/or Virtualize starts up.  

• Server port: Specifies the ports that the server use for HTTP/HTTPS.

SOAP Settings

The SOAP panel allows you to specify the following settings:

• Default Transport: Allows you to set the default transport protocol.

• Attachment Encapsulation Format: Allows you to choose MIME, DIME, or MTOM, for the default attachment encapsulation. See Working with Attachments for details.

• SOAP Version: Allows you to select SOAP 1.1 or SOAP 1.2.
• Outgoing Message Encoding: Allows you to choose the encoding for outgoing messages. You can choose any Character Encoding you wish to read and write files, but the Outgoing Message Encoding provides additional flexibility so you can set a different charset encoding for the SOAP request.

System Properties Settings

The System Properties panel lets you add JAR files, class folders, and Java projects to the classpath if needed. Use the available controls to add or remove JAR files, class folders, and Java projects. The specified JAR files, classpaths, and Java projects  will be added to the system's classpath and the corresponding classes will be loaded into the JVM after SOAtest or Virtualize is restarted.

Click Reload to force classes from the class path entries to reload.

Enable the Automatically reload classes option if you want SOAtest/Virtualize to reload classes from your Eclipse project after being modified or recompiled.

Traffic File Processing Settings

The Traffic File Processing panel lets you globally indicate that you want certain values (such as times-tamps) ignored whenever:

• you are creating parameterized .pvas from traffic, and
• request body correlations are configured automatically.

Virtualize is automatically configured to ignore timestamps—based on the regular expression [0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}T[0-9]{2}:[0-9]{2}:[0-9]{2}([.][0-9]{1,3})?(([+-][0-9]{2}:[0-9]{2})|Z)?

You can add or modify exclusions using the table controls. Element names are specified as exact matches or using a wildcard (*) to match everything. Values are specified as regular expressions.

WSDL History

The WSDL panel lets you review or modify the WSDLs that have been used in tools and projects. These WSDLs will be available for selection in relevant drop-down boxes. This way, if you need to specify the same WSDL multiple times, you don’t need to constantly type it in over and over again. 

Enable the Save WSDLs used in message responders, SOAP clients, and projects if you want SOAtest/Virtualize to save tests' or assets' WSDL URIs. If you are using SOAtest only, the option will read Save WSDLs used in SOAP clients and projects. If you are using Virtualize only, the option will read Save WSDLs used in message responders and projects. 

The WSDL URI field lists the WSDL URIs that will be available in tools’ WSDL URI drop down menu. By default, all WSDL URIs used in related tools are added to this list. Click on a URI in the field and click Refresh WSDL to refresh the WSDL from the given location URL and re-parse it.

Enable the WSDL/Schema Parsing section to check all schema locations in order to locate components belonging to a give target namespace. Disable this option to use only the first schema location encountered in order to resolve components for a given target namespace.

XML Conversion Settings

The XML Conversion settings panel lets you register data models for fixed length messages. 

For details on using this setting, see Fixed Length Message Responder.

XML Schema History Settings

The XML Schema History panel lets you review or modify the XML Schemas that have been used in Messaging Clients (SOAtest), message responders (Virtualize), and projects. These Schemas will be available for selection in relevant drop-down boxes. This way, if you need to specify the same Schema multiple times, you don’t need to constantly type it in over and over again.

XML Schema Locations Settings

The XML Schema Locations panel lets you view, add, and remove schema locations.To add a new schema location:

1. Click the Add button beneath the Namespace and Location columns.
2. In the dialog that opens, specify the Namespace and Schema Location.
3. Click OK after you have added all of the necessary locations.

To specify namespaces to skip:

1. Click the Add button beneath the List of namespaces to skip during XML Validation table.
2. In the dialog that opens, specify the namespace you want to skip.
3. Click OK.

To add OASIS XML Catalog Locations:

1. Click the Add button beneath the OASIS XML Catalog Locations section of the Schema Locations tab. The Location dialog box displays.
2. Type in the OASIS XML Catalog Location or Browse to it by clicking the Browse button.
3. Click OK after you have added all of the necessary locations.

Virtualize Localsettings

There are two ways to define localsettings files:

• Enter them manually in a simple text file simple text file. There are no name or location requirements. Each local setting should be entered in a single line.
• Export your GUI preferences, then adjust or extend them as needed. To export, choose Parasoft> Preferences, select Parasoft (the root element in the left tree), click the Share link, specify which settings you want to export.

Localsettings files can specify the following settings.

Licensing Settings

See Manually Adding the License to localsetttings for additional notes and examples.

Virtualize Settings

Continuous Testing Platform Settings

Miscellaneous Settings

Manually Adding the License to localsetttings

To add or change license settings vialocalsettings:

1. If you will be using a custom edition license, define the appropriate license features in the localsettings as follows:
   [product].license.custom_edition_features= All enabled features
   Note that license feature settings apply only to custom edition licenses.

2. Define the main license settings in the localsettings as follows:

   virtualize.license.network.edition= Type of license edition 
   virtualize.license.use_network= Value (true or false) 
   license.network.host= Host name
   license.network.port= Port number

   If your server uses the HTTPS protocol, prepend https:// to the hostname.

Here are several examples of properly-configured license settings in localsettings file:

Virtualize network license - desktop edition

virtualize.license.network.edition=desktop_edition 
virtualize.license.use_network=true
license.network.host=main1.parasoft.com.pl 
license.network.port=2222

Virtualize network license -custom edition with various features

virtualize.license.custom_edition_features=Virtualize, Server, Message Packs, Unlimited Million Hits / Day
virtualize.license.network.edition=custom_edition
virtualize.license.use_network=true
license.network.host=main1.parasoft.com.pl
license.network.port=2222

Virtualize network license -custom edition with various features

virtualize.license.local.expiration=2014-04-15
virtualize.license.local.password=PARASOFT_353E2A7DA4F3D4B2FF142B0A262AF62B9DEC3449 C124773BAF0B4B508FF21139E867D9772F3702716FCE6D8EA16ACE668DE0EE629D154713599203BD85CE1213_7937E7ED374E70FDD62EE8411C2BB2D8EB465019E64BF3EF3A87DE6B67FB10BBCAF8611B08F70 D9420AC574FC5B3E5EB7241B20506DE2C60B0D80462CBEDBD
virtualize.license.use_network=false

Note that with local licenses, the enabled features are specified via the generated password.