Avocado is a set of tools and libraries to help with automated testing.
One can call it a test framework with benefits. Native tests are written in Python and they follow the unittest (https://docs.python.org/2.7/library/unittest.html) pattern, but any executable can serve as a test.
Avocado is composed of:
- A test runner that lets you execute tests. Those tests can be either written in your language of choice, or be written in Python and use the available libraries. In both cases, you get facilities such as automated log and system information collection.
- Libraries that help you write tests in a concise, yet expressive and powerful way. You can find more information about what libraries are intended for test writers at: http://avocado-framework.readthedocs.io/en/latest/api/utils/avocado.utils.html
- Plugins that can extend and add new functionality to the Avocado Framework. More info at: http://avocado-framework.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Plugins.html
Avocado is built on the experience accumulated with Autotest (http://autotest.github.io), while improving on its weaknesses and shortcomings.
Avocado is available in stock Fedora 24 and later. The main package
name is python-avocado, and can be installed with:
dnf install python-avocado
Other available packages (depending on the Avocado version) may include:
python-avocado-examples: contains example tests and other example filespython2-avocado-plugins-output-html: HTML job report pluginpython2-avocado-plugins-runner-remote: execution of jobs on a remote machinepython2-avocado-plugins-runner-vm: execution of jobs on a libvirt based VMpython2-avocado-plugins-runner-docker: execution of jobs on a Docker container
The Avocado project also makes the latest release, and the LTS (Long Term Stability) releases available from its own package repository. To use it, first get the package repositories configuration file by running the following command:
sudo curl https://repos-avocadoproject.rhcloud.com/static/avocado-fedora.repo -o /etc/yum.repos.d/avocado.repo
Now check if you have the avocado and avocado-lts repositories configured by running:
sudo dnf repolist avocado avocado-lts ... repo id repo name status avocado Avocado 50 avocado-lts Avocado LTS (Long Term Stability) disabled
Regular users of Avocado will want to use the standard avocado
repository, which tracks the latest Avocado releases. For more
information about the LTS releases, please refer to the Avocado Long
Term Stability thread
(https://www.redhat.com/archives/avocado-devel/2016-April/msg00038.html)
and to your package management docs on how to switch to the
avocado-lts repo.
Finally, after deciding between regular Avocado releases or LTS, you can install the RPM packages by running the following commands:
dnf install python-avocado
Additionally, other Avocado packages are available for Fedora:
python-avocado-examples: contains example tests and other example filespython2-avocado-plugins-output-html: HTML job report pluginpython2-avocado-plugins-runner-remote: execution of jobs on a remote machinepython2-avocado-plugins-runner-vm: execution of jobs on a libvirt based VMpython2-avocado-plugins-runner-docker: execution of jobs on a Docker container
Avocado packages for Enterprise Linux are available from the Avocado project RPM repository. Additionally, some packages from the EPEL repo are necessary, so you need to enable it first. For EL7, running the following command should do it:
yum install https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm
Then you must use the Avocado project RHEL repo (https://repos-avocadoproject.rhcloud.com/static/avocado-el.repo). Running the following command should give you the basic Avocado installation ready:
curl https://repos-avocadoproject.rhcloud.com/static/avocado-el.repo -o /etc/yum.repos.d/avocado.repo yum install python-avocado
Other available packages (depending on the Avocado version) may include:
python-avocado-examples: contains example tests and other example filespython2-avocado-plugins-output-html: HTML job report pluginpython2-avocado-plugins-runner-remote: execution of jobs on a remote machinepython2-avocado-plugins-runner-vm: execution of jobs on a libvirt based VMpython2-avocado-plugins-runner-docker: execution of jobs on a Docker container
The LTS (Long Term Stability) repositories are also available for
Enterprise Linux. For more information about the LTS releases, please
refer to the Avocado Long Term Stability thread
(https://www.redhat.com/archives/avocado-devel/2016-April/msg00038.html)
and to your package management docs on how to switch to the
avocado-lts repo.
The OpenSUSE project packages LTS versions of Avocado (https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/Virtualization:Tests/avocado). You can install packages by running the following commands:
zypper install avocado
DEB package support is available in the source tree (look at the
contrib/packages/debian directory. No actual packages are
provided by the Avocado project or the Debian repos.
If you want to develop Avocado, or just run it directly from the GIT repository, fetch the source code and run:
make develop
From this point on, running avocado should load everything from
your current source code checkout.
To list available tests, call the list subcommand. For example:
avocado list INSTRUMENTED <examples_path>/tests/abort.py:AbortTest.test INSTRUMENTED <examples_path>/tests/canceltest.py:CancelTest.test ... SIMPLE <examples_path>/tests/passtest.sh
To run a test, call the run command:
avocado run <examples_path>/tests/passtest.sh JOB ID : <id> JOB LOG : <job-results>/job-<date>-<shortid>/job.log (1/1) <examples_path>/tests/passtest.sh: PASS (0.04 s) RESULTS : PASS 1 | ERROR 0 | FAIL 0 | SKIP 0 | WARN 0 | INTERRUPT 0 | CANCEL 0 JOB TIME : 0.14 s
To continue exploring Avocado, check out the output of avocado --help
and the test runner man-page, accessible via man avocado.
Avocado comes with in tree documentation about the most advanced features and
its API. It can be built with sphinx, but a publicly available build of
the latest master branch documentation and releases can be seen on read the
docs:
http://avocado-framework.readthedocs.org/
If you want to build the documentation yourself:
Make sure you have the package
python-sphinxinstalled. For Fedora:$ sudo yum install python-sphinx
For Mint/Ubuntu/Debian:
$ sudo apt-get install python-sphinx
Optionally, you can install the read the docs theme, that will make your in-tree documentation look just like the online version:
$ sudo pip install sphinx_rtd_theme
Build the docs:
$ make -C docs html
Once done, point your browser to:
$ [your-browser] docs/build/html/index.html