Run the WebFinger server tests with your application running anywhere (including localhost)

Your application can run anywhere, as long as FediTest running on your development machine can perform HTTP GET requests on it. For example, your application can be installed on your development machine if you simply have an alias example.com to 127.0.0.1 in your /etc/hostname; no need to put it on a real server. You can pick any DNS name you like as long as you also use it below.

• Get FediTest:

  % pip install feditest
  

• Get the tests that test the Fediverse:

  % git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/fediverse-devnet/feditest-tests-fediverse.git
  % cd feditest-tests-fediverse
  

• Run the following command:

  $ feditest run --testplan examples/testplans/webfinger-server-imp-vs-saas-any.json --html myapp-webfinger-results.html
  

  It will ask you a few questions (you are running a generic Test Plan after all). Make sure to enter account identifiers with an acct: scheme, such as acct:myaccount@example.com.

• Open the generated HTML file quickstart-results.html. You find the tests whose results you just opened in directory tests/webfinger/server.

To automate this further

If you run this Test Plan multiple times, you certainly don’t want to re-enter the same information every time. So you modify the Test Plan you referenced in the following way:

• Copy the JSON file containing the Test Plan you just ran:

  % cp examples/testplans/webfinger-server-imp-vs-saas-any.json myapp-webfinger-testplan.json
  

• In the copy, find the section that defines the test Constellation (look for keyword constellation) and in it, the section that defines the non-Imp Node called server. It looks like this:

          "server": {
              "nodedriver": "saas.SaasFediverseNodeDriver",
              "parameters": null
           }
  

• Replace it with a server section that looks like the following. You just need to add a parameters section:

          "server": {
              "nodedriver": "saas.SaasFediverseNodeDriver",
              "parameters": {
                  "app": "MyApp",
                  "hostname": "example.com",
                  "existing-account-uri": "acct:testuser@example.com",
                  "nonexisting-account-uri": "acct:does-not-exist@example.com"
              }
          }
  

  Use the values that apply to how you have installed your application.

• Then, re-run the test with this updated Test Plan:

  $ feditest run --testplan myapp-webfinger-testplan.json --html myapp-webfinger-results.html
  

  No more repetitive interactive prompts!

Drilling down on one failing test

Let’s say one of the WebFinger tests is failing, and you want to debug what is going on. In this case, you want to run that one test only for a while, and not run all the other tests that are passing. How could you do that?

The same way! You modify your Test Plan:

• Make another copy of the Test Plan JSON:

  % cp myapp-webfinger-testplan.json myapp-webfinger-focus.json
  

• In the copy, find the section that has the tests: look for keyword tests. Delete all the entries in this array that aren’t the test you want to focus on. Then, run your updated Test Plan:

  $ feditest run --testplan myapp-webfinger-focus.json --html myapp-webfinger-focus-results.html
  

This approach also lets you define your very own Test Plan for, say, continuous integration purposes.