Writing inspec tests in the rspec style

· by Artem Sidorenko · Read in about 3 min · (492 words)

Inspec is a modern framework for infrastructure testing. It can be used as replacement for Serverspec.

Usually the inspec tests are describing a particial resource:

describe file('/etc/passwd') do
  its('mode') { should cmp '0644' }
end

However in some case it might be useful to use the common RSpec style with nested describe-context-it statements.

For instance, you can ship some script within cookbook, so you might want to test the script functionality in relation to the changing environment.

Example:

#!/bin/bash
# example-script
# Managed by Chef, do not change

if [ -f /tmp/testfile ]; then
  echo "Test file is present"
else
  echo "Test file does not exist"
  exit 1
fi
# chef recipe
cookbook_file '/usr/local/bin/magicscript' do
  source 'example-script'
  mode '0755'
end

It would be great if had following steps in the integration tests:

  1. Run magicscript, its output should be Test file does not exist and exit code should be 1
  2. Create /tmp/testfile
  3. Run magicscript, its output should be Test file is present and exit code should be 0
  4. Remove /tmp/testfile

Usually you will write the RSpec tests for a such example like this:

describe 'magicscript' do
  context 'when test file does not exist' do
    it 'should print "Test file does not exist"'
    it 'should exit with exit code 1'
  end

  context 'when test file is present' do
    before :all do
      #create /tmp/testfile
    end

    after :all do
      #remove /tmp/testfile
    end

    it 'should print "Test file is present"'
    it 'should exit with exit code 0'
  end
end

How to do it with inspec?

Instead of using the describe [resource] syntax, you can use the objects returned by inspec resources and verify the results on the usual rspec way:

# magicscript_functional_spec.rb
describe 'magicscript' do
  let(:resource) { command('/usr/local/bin/magicscript') }

  context 'when test file does not exist' do
    it 'should print "Test file does not exist"' do
      expect(resource.stdout).to include 'Test file does not exist'
    end

    it 'should exit with exit code 1' do
      expect(resource.exit_status).to eq 1
    end
  end

  context 'when test file is present' do
    before :all do
      expect(command('touch /tmp/testfile').exit_status).to eq 0
    end

    after :all do
      expect(command('rm /tmp/testfile').exit_status).to eq 0
    end

    it 'should print "Test file is present"' do
      expect(resource.stdout).to include 'Test file is present'
    end
    it 'should exit with exit code 0' do
      expect(resource.exit_status).to eq 0
    end
  end
end

As you can see, in this particular case you can even use the inspec command resource to create the test files. But please keep in mind, you should invoke one of the resource methods (exit_status in this example) in order to get it executed.

If you would run the tests, you will get the usual rspec output:

$ kitchen verify
...
  magicscript when
     ✔  test file does not exist should print "Test file does not exist"test file does not exist should exit with exit code 1test file is present should print "Test file is present"test file is present should exit with exit code 0

Test Summary: 4 successful, 0 failures, 0 skipped
...