Using k6 for load testing

Grafana k6 is a modern load-testing tool. Its clean and approachable scripting API works locally or in the cloud. Its configuration makes it flexible.

The xk6-loki extension permits pushing logs to and querying logs from a Loki instance. It acts as a Loki client, simulating real-world load to test the scalability, reliability, and performance of your Loki installation.

Before you begin

k6 is written in Golang. Download and install a Go environment.

Installation

xk6-loki is an extension to the k6 binary. Build a custom k6 binary that includes the xk6-loki extension.

Install the xk6 extension bundler:
bash
```
go install go.k6.io/xk6/cmd/xk6@latest
```

Check out the grafana/xk6-loki repository:

git clone https://github.com/grafana/xk6-loki
cd xk6-loki

Build k6 with the extension:
bash
```
make k6
```

Usage

Use the custom-built k6 binary in the same way as a non-custom k6 binary:

./k6 run test.js

test.js is a Javascript load test. Refer to the k6 documentation to get started.

Scripting API

The custom-built k6 binary provides a Javascript loki module.

Your Javascript load test imports the module:

import loki from 'k6/x/loki';

Classes of this module are:

class	description
`Config`	configuration for the `Client` class
`Client`	client for writing and reading logs from Loki

Config and Client must be called on the k6 init context (see Test life cycle) outside of the default function so the client is only configured once and shared between all VU iterations.

The Client class exposes the following instance methods:

method	description
`push()`	shortcut for `pushParameterized(5, 8001024, 10241024)`
`pushParameterized(streams, minSize, maxSize)`	execute push request (POST /loki/api/v1/push
`instantQuery(query, limit)`	execute instant query (GET /loki/api/v1/query
`client.rangeQuery(query, duration, limit)`	execute range query (GET /loki/api/v1/query_range
`client.labelsQuery(duration)`	execute labels query (GET /loki/api/v1/labels
`client.labelValuesQuery(label, duration)`	execute label values query (GET /loki/api/v1/label/<name>/values
`client.seriesQuery(matchers, duration)`	execute series query (GET /loki/api/v1/series

Javascript load test example:

import loki from 'k6/x/loki';

const timeout = 5000; // ms
const conf = loki.Config("http://localhost:3100", timeout);
const client = loki.Client(conf);

export default () => {
   client.pushParameterized(2, 512*1024, 1024*1024);
};

Refer to grafana/xk6-loki for the complete k6/x/loki module API reference.