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+<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
+ xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
+ xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
+ version="5.0"
+ xml:id="sec-writing-nixos-tests">
+ <title>Writing Tests</title>
+
+ <para>
+ A NixOS test is a Nix expression that has the following structure:
+<programlisting>
+import ./make-test.nix {
+
+ # Either the configuration of a single machine:
+ machine =
+ { config, pkgs, ... }:
+ { <replaceable>configuration…</replaceable>
+ };
+
+ # Or a set of machines:
+ nodes =
+ { <replaceable>machine1</replaceable> =
+ { config, pkgs, ... }: { <replaceable>…</replaceable> };
+ <replaceable>machine2</replaceable> =
+ { config, pkgs, ... }: { <replaceable>…</replaceable> };
+ …
+ };
+
+ testScript =
+ ''
+ <replaceable>Perl code…</replaceable>
+ '';
+}
+</programlisting>
+ The attribute <literal>testScript</literal> is a bit of Perl code that
+ executes the test (described below). During the test, it will start one or
+ more virtual machines, the configuration of which is described by the
+ attribute <literal>machine</literal> (if you need only one machine in your
+ test) or by the attribute <literal>nodes</literal> (if you need multiple
+ machines). For instance,
+ <filename
+xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/tests/login.nix">login.nix</filename>
+ only needs a single machine to test whether users can log in on the virtual
+ console, whether device ownership is correctly maintained when switching
+ between consoles, and so on. On the other hand,
+ <filename
+xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/tests/nfs.nix">nfs.nix</filename>,
+ which tests NFS client and server functionality in the Linux kernel
+ (including whether locks are maintained across server crashes), requires
+ three machines: a server and two clients.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ There are a few special NixOS configuration options for test VMs:
+<!-- FIXME: would be nice to generate this automatically. -->
+ <variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <option>virtualisation.memorySize</option>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The memory of the VM in megabytes.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <option>virtualisation.vlans</option>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ The virtual networks to which the VM is connected. See
+ <filename
+ xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/tests/nat.nix">nat.nix</filename>
+ for an example.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <option>virtualisation.writableStore</option>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ By default, the Nix store in the VM is not writable. If you enable this
+ option, a writable union file system is mounted on top of the Nix store
+ to make it appear writable. This is necessary for tests that run Nix
+ operations that modify the store.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ </variablelist>
+ For more options, see the module
+ <filename
+xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/modules/virtualisation/qemu-vm.nix">qemu-vm.nix</filename>.
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The test script is a sequence of Perl statements that perform various
+ actions, such as starting VMs, executing commands in the VMs, and so on. Each
+ virtual machine is represented as an object stored in the variable
+ <literal>$<replaceable>name</replaceable></literal>, where
+ <replaceable>name</replaceable> is the identifier of the machine (which is
+ just <literal>machine</literal> if you didn’t specify multiple machines
+ using the <literal>nodes</literal> attribute). For instance, the following
+ starts the machine, waits until it has finished booting, then executes a
+ command and checks that the output is more-or-less correct:
+<programlisting>
+$machine->start;
+$machine->waitForUnit("default.target");
+$machine->succeed("uname") =~ /Linux/ or die;
+</programlisting>
+ The first line is actually unnecessary; machines are implicitly started when
+ you first execute an action on them (such as <literal>waitForUnit</literal>
+ or <literal>succeed</literal>). If you have multiple machines, you can speed
+ up the test by starting them in parallel:
+<programlisting>
+startAll;
+</programlisting>
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ The following methods are available on machine objects:
+ <variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>start</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Start the virtual machine. This method is asynchronous — it does not
+ wait for the machine to finish booting.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>shutdown</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Shut down the machine, waiting for the VM to exit.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>crash</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Simulate a sudden power failure, by telling the VM to exit immediately.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>block</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Simulate unplugging the Ethernet cable that connects the machine to the
+ other machines.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>unblock</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Undo the effect of <methodname>block</methodname>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>screenshot</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Take a picture of the display of the virtual machine, in PNG format. The
+ screenshot is linked from the HTML log.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>getScreenText</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Return a textual representation of what is currently visible on the
+ machine's screen using optical character recognition.
+ </para>
+ <note>
+ <para>
+ This requires passing <option>enableOCR</option> to the test attribute
+ set.
+ </para>
+ </note>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>sendMonitorCommand</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Send a command to the QEMU monitor. This is rarely used, but allows doing
+ stuff such as attaching virtual USB disks to a running machine.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>sendKeys</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Simulate pressing keys on the virtual keyboard, e.g.,
+ <literal>sendKeys("ctrl-alt-delete")</literal>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>sendChars</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Simulate typing a sequence of characters on the virtual keyboard, e.g.,
+ <literal>sendKeys("foobar\n")</literal> will type the string
+ <literal>foobar</literal> followed by the Enter key.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>execute</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Execute a shell command, returning a list
+ <literal>(<replaceable>status</replaceable>,
+ <replaceable>stdout</replaceable>)</literal>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>succeed</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Execute a shell command, raising an exception if the exit status is not
+ zero, otherwise returning the standard output.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>fail</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Like <methodname>succeed</methodname>, but raising an exception if the
+ command returns a zero status.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>waitUntilSucceeds</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Repeat a shell command with 1-second intervals until it succeeds.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>waitUntilFails</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Repeat a shell command with 1-second intervals until it fails.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>waitForUnit</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Wait until the specified systemd unit has reached the “active” state.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>waitForFile</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Wait until the specified file exists.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>waitForOpenPort</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Wait until a process is listening on the given TCP port (on
+ <literal>localhost</literal>, at least).
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>waitForClosedPort</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Wait until nobody is listening on the given TCP port.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>waitForX</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Wait until the X11 server is accepting connections.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>waitForText</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Wait until the supplied regular expressions matches the textual contents
+ of the screen by using optical character recognition (see
+ <methodname>getScreenText</methodname>).
+ </para>
+ <note>
+ <para>
+ This requires passing <option>enableOCR</option> to the test attribute
+ set.
+ </para>
+ </note>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>waitForWindow</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Wait until an X11 window has appeared whose name matches the given
+ regular expression, e.g., <literal>waitForWindow(qr/Terminal/)</literal>.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>copyFileFromHost</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Copies a file from host to machine, e.g.,
+ <literal>copyFileFromHost("myfile", "/etc/my/important/file")</literal>.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ The first argument is the file on the host. The file needs to be
+ accessible while building the nix derivation. The second argument is the
+ location of the file on the machine.
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term>
+ <methodname>systemctl</methodname>
+ </term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Runs <literal>systemctl</literal> commands with optional support for
+ <literal>systemctl --user</literal>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+<programlisting>
+$machine->systemctl("list-jobs --no-pager"); // runs `systemctl list-jobs --no-pager`
+$machine->systemctl("list-jobs --no-pager", "any-user"); // spawns a shell for `any-user` and runs `systemctl --user list-jobs --no-pager`
+</programlisting>
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ </variablelist>
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ To test user units declared by <literal>systemd.user.services</literal> the
+ optional <literal>$user</literal> argument can be used:
+<programlisting>
+$machine->start;
+$machine->waitForX;
+$machine->waitForUnit("xautolock.service", "x-session-user");
+</programlisting>
+ This applies to <literal>systemctl</literal>, <literal>getUnitInfo</literal>,
+ <literal>waitForUnit</literal>, <literal>startJob</literal> and
+ <literal>stopJob</literal>.
+ </para>
+</section>