Recorder Settings

This topic explains the settings that are used by the Silk Performer recording and script generation program, the Silk Performer Recorder. These settings are used for capturing and recording the network traffic that is modeled in your test scripts. These settings comprise profiles that are applied to client applications during data capture and recording. Proxies can be added or removed, and their settings edited. You can set the port for the integrated Web server that is used by the Silk Performer Recorder, and enable recording to begin as soon as the client application is started. You can also configure recording rules that define how the Recorder captures network traffic.

Recording profiles

The Silk Performer Recorder uses recording profiles to determine what applications to record and how to record them. You can create new recording profiles and edit, remove, or copy existing ones. Within a recording profile you can specify the application that is to be recorded, a working directory, application arguments, additional executables to be recorded, protocol settings, and more.

Proxies

New proxies can be set up on your computer, and existing proxies can be edited or removed. A wide number of options can be specified for each proxy, including the protocol type, the listen port, details of the server to which the Silk Performer Recorder forwards intercepted traffic, and details concerning the client certificate that the Silk Performer Recorder presents to the Web server. When a SOCKS proxy is being set up, automatic protocol detection can be disabled for any port you want to specify. Whenever a client application sends SOCKS traffic to one of these specified ports, the Silk Performer Recorder records traffic at the TCP/IP level without trying to detect a familiar protocol first. A port range can be specified for which the recording of data by the Silk Performer Recorder will be suppressed.

Services

Options can be set for the Web server that is integrated into Silk Performer, and also for recording with the Silk Performer Recorder. The port that the integrated Web server listens to can be specified, and you can use this server to retrieve the root CA certificate that signed the Silk Performer Recorder server certificate. The root CA certificate may be downloaded from this Web site and installed into the Web browser to avoid security warnings by the browser.

The Silk Performer Recorder can be set to begin recording function calls automatically when an application is started from within the Silk Performer Recorder.

Recording Rules

The Silk Performer Recorder can be configured using recording rule files. Recording rule files are XML-based files that contain the rules by which the Silk Performer Recorder functions.

Recording rules allow you to configure the Recorder in a number of ways. Example use cases include session customizations, excluding JPG images from download while recording Web pages, and excluding Web pop-ups and ads that originate from a specific URL.

  • TCP/IP: By providing protocol descriptions of proprietary TCP/IP based protocols.
  • HTTP: By specifying the scenarios in which the Recorder should script parsing functions for dynamically changing values and generate replacements for those values.

Silk Performer enables you to create, edit, copy, and remove recording rules via the Recording Rules tab (System Settings > Recorder > Recording Rules).

Note: Creating recording rules based on existing templates, and editing individual rule properties as required, is the easiest method of configuring recording rules. Advanced users can manually script recording rules. Manually scripting recording rules requires extensive experience with Silk Performer and a thorough understanding of the involved protocols (TCP/IP, HTTP, and HTML). To learn about the structure and syntax of recording rules, and to see rule-file design examples, see the Rule-based Recording section.

You can create a new recording rule in TrueLog Explorer using values that you have specified in a parsing function. For example, creating a recording rule from a session-customization parsing function allows you to record an application while avoiding session customization issues entirely.

Note: All active recording rules are taken into account by the Recorder during recording. To avoid unwanted BDL scripting, ensure that only those rules that you require are active during recording. Recording rules are activated/deactivated via check boxes on the Recording Rules tab (System Settings > Recorder > Recording Rules).

Storing Recording Rules

The recording rules wizard saves recording rules in XRL format to <public user documents>\Silk Performer 20.5\RecordingRules. These rules can be shared between team members and can be added to any Silk Performer installation by copying the XRL file to any other \RecordingRules folder. Once in the folder, they are global in scope and are applied to all future projects.

You can control which recording rules are applied to subsequent recordings via Settings > System > Recorder > Recording Rules. To apply a rule, ensure the corresponding checkbox is checked. To have a rule ignored during recording uncheck the rule checkbox.