Testing in Harness

Introduction

This guide is intended for XMPP Server developers who are building their server with Harness CI. It demonstrates how to add XMPP Interoperability and Standards Conformance tests integrated into a build & test pipeline. This assumes that you already have a pipeline established, and wish to add the additional checks.

Note that the plugin that you’ll use in Harness can be shared between Drone, Harness, Woodpecker, and possibly other continuous integration solutions. This is why you’ll see references to ‘drone’ in this document: that same plugin is re-used for various systems. The instructions provided herein are, however, specific to Harness.

The checks are executed within the pipeline by a plugin that we’re providing. The only prerequisite is that you’ve got a built XMPP server and have started it (presumably as a background service)

Assuming that you have a pre-existing pipeline that build your server and starts it for integration testing, then adding our plugin is as easy as adding one step to your pipeline, like this:

- step:
    type: Plugin
    name: Run XMPP Interop Framework tests against XMPP server
    identifier: Run_Drone_plugin_against_XMPP_server
    description: Executes the Drone Plugin against the XMPP server that has been created earlier in this Pipeline
    spec:
      image: ghcr.io/xmpp-interop-testing/drone-xmpp-test:latest
      settings:
        host: xmppserver
        domain: shakespeare.lit

This example demonstrates one possible way to provision accounts. It assumes your server is running and reachable on the host xmppserver, serving the XMPP domain shakespeare.lit, and that it supports In-Band Registration (as defined in XEP-0077) to provision accounts. Other configuration methods are also available, and you can explore the full set of options in the sections below.

A Full Example

Harness relies heavily on containerization. The following example assumes that your pipeline is set up for building an XMPP server and making available the corresponding container image, called myorg/xmppserver

To execute the tests from the XMPP Integration Testing Framework, the server needs to be running. That can be achieved by running your server as a background service, as shown in this example:

- step:
    type: Background
    name: xmppserver
    identifier: xmppserver
    spec:
      connectorRef: MyOrg_Container_Registry
      image: myorg/xmppserver:latest
      shell: Sh
      entrypoint:
        - /sbin/entrypoint.sh
        - "-MyCustomStartupArgument 1234"
  contextType: Pipeline

The host on which your XMPP service is running will match the identifier value of the step.

Optionally, include a Run step that checks the health of your xmppserver service.

Next, you’re ready to add a step that runs the XMPP Interop Framework Testing plugin.

- step:
    type: Plugin
    name: Run XMPP Interop Framework tests against XMPP server
    identifier: Run_Tests_against_XMPP_server
    description: Executes the Drone Plugin against the XMPP server that has been created earlier in this Pipeline
    spec:
      image: ghcr.io/xmpp-interop-testing/drone-xmpp-test:latest
      reports:
        type: JUnit
        spec:
          paths:
            - "**/*.xml"
      settings:
        host: xmppserver
        domain: shakespeare.lit
        adminAccountUsername: juliet
        adminAccountPassword: O_Romeo_Romeo
        enabledSpecifications: XEP-0115,XEP-0199,XEP-0352

The above assumes that your server is running and reachable on the host xmppserver, serving the XMPP domain shakespeare.lit and that it is provisioned with an administrative account (one that is allowed to create other users, per XEP-0133) that uses the username juliet and the provided password. You’ll find the full range of available configuration options below.

Furthermore, the “JUnit” configuration makes available the test results in the Harness user interface, under the ‘Tests’ tab of each build result.

Harness does not make available the XMPP stanza logs that are generated by the XMPP Interop Framework plugin. To have access to these logs, which are very helpful to diagnose test failures, the logs can be uploaded as an artifact to a storage provider of your choice.

Configuration

Various options are available when calling xmpp-interop-testing/drone-xmpp-test, and whilst none of them are absolutely required, the defaults are unlikely to be perfect for everyone.

For the latest updates to the documentation of the configuration updates, consult the GitHub repository of the Drone plugin.

Option Description Default value
host IP address or DNS name of the XMPP service to run the tests on. 127.0.0.1
domain the XMPP domain name of server under test. example.org
timeout the amount of milliseconds after which an XMPP action (typically an IQ request) is considered timed out. 5000 (five seconds)
adminAccountUsername (optional) The account name of a pre-existing user that is allowed to create other users, per XEP-0133. See: “Provisioning Test Accounts -
adminAccountPassword (optional) The password of the admin account -
accountOneUsername (optional) The first account name of a set of three accounts used for testing. See: “Provisioning Test Accounts -
accountOnePassword (optional) The password of the accountOneUsername account. -
accountTwoUsername (optional) The second account name of a set of three accounts used for testing. See: “Provisioning Test Accounts -
accountTwoPassword (optional) The password of the accountTwoUserName account -
accountThreeUsername (optional) The third account name of a set of three accounts used for testing. See: “Provisioning Test Accounts -
accountThreePassword (optional) The password of the accountThreeUserName account -
disabledTests (optional) A comma-separated list of tests that are to be skipped. For example: EntityCapsTest,SoftwareInfoIntegrationTest -
disabledSpecifications (optional) A comma-separated list of specifications (not case-sensitive) that are to be skipped. For example: XEP-0045,XEP-0060 -
enabledTests (optional) A comma-separated list of tests that are the only ones to be run. For example: EntityCapsTest,SoftwareInfoIntegrationTest -
enabledSpecifications (optional) A comma-separated list of specifications (not case-sensitive) that are the only ones to be run. For example: XEP-0045,XEP-0060 -
logDir (optional) The directory in which the test output and logs are to be stored. This directory will be created, if it does not already exist. ./output

Provisioning Test Accounts

To be able to run the tests, the server that is being tested needs to be provisioned with test accounts. Three different mechanisms can be used for this:

  • Admin Account - By configuring the username and password of a pre-existing administrative user, using the adminAccountUsername and adminAccountPassword configuration options, three test accounts will be created using XEP-0133: Service Administration functionality.
  • Explicit Test Accounts - You can configure three pre-existing accounts that will be used for testing, using the accountOneUsername, accountOnePassword, accountTwoUsername, accountTwoPassword, accountThreeUsername and accountThreePassword configuration options.
  • In-Band Registration - If no admin account and no explicit tests accounts are provided, in-band registration (XEP-0077) will be used to provision accounts.

For more information on provisioning accounts, consult the ‘Test Account Provisioning’ guide.

Next steps

Now that you have integrated the XMPP Interoperability and Standards Conformance tests into your build pipeline, it is time to start working with the tests!

We’ve compiled the following resources to help you with any run-time challenges that you may run into:

  • Choosing what test to run - helps you choose how to disable specific tests (useful when you want to ignore a particular test for some reason).
  • Diagnose test failures - explains what you can do to find the reason that test is failing. Did we identify an issue in your server software? Find out!

Splash image courtesy of Harness