1 $Cambridge: exim/test/README,v 1.8 2007/02/20 15:58:02 ph10 Exp $
3 EXPORTABLE EXIM TEST SUITE
4 --------------------------
6 This document last updated for:
8 Test Suite Version: 4.67
15 For a long time, the Exim test suite was confined to Philip Hazel's
16 workstation, because it relied on that particular environment. The problem is
17 that an MTA such as Exim interacts a great deal with its environment, so if you
18 run it somewhere else, the output will be different, which makes automatic
19 checking difficult. Even in a single environment, things are not all that easy.
20 For instance, if Exim delivers a message, the log line (which one would want to
21 compare) contains a timestamp and an Exim message id that will be different
22 each time. This issue is dealt with by a Perl script that munges the output by
23 recognizing changing sequences and replacing them with fixed values before
24 doing a comparison. Another problem with exporting the original test suite is
25 that it assumes a version of Exim with more or less every optional feature
28 This README describes a new test suite that is intended to be exportable and to
29 run in a number of different environments. The tests themselves are in no
30 particular order; they accumulated over the years as Exim was extended and
31 modified. They vary greatly in size and complexity. Some were specifically
32 constructed to test new features; others were made to demonstrate that a bug
35 A few of the original tests have had to be omitted from this more general
36 suite because differences in operating system behaviour make it impossible to
37 generalize them. An example is a test that uses a version of Exim that is
38 setuid to the Exim user rather than root, with the deliver_drop_privilege
39 option set. In Linux, such a binary is able to deliver a message as the caller
40 of Exim, because it can revert to the caller's uid. In FreeBSD this is not the
47 In order to run this test suite, the following requirements must be met:
49 (1) You should run the tests on a matching version of Exim, because the suite
50 is continuously updated to test the latest features and bug fixes. The
51 version you test does not, however, have to be installed as the live
52 version. You can of course try the tests on any version of Exim, but some
53 may fail. In particular, the test suite will fall apart horrible with
54 versions of Exim prior to 4.54.
56 (2) You can use any non-root login to run the tests, but there must be access
57 via "sudo" to root from this login. Privilege is required to override
58 configuration change checks and for things like cleaning up spool files,
59 but on the other hand, the tests themselves need to call Exim from a
60 non-root process. The use of "sudo" is the easiest way to achieve all this.
61 The test script uses "sudo" to do a number of things as root, so it is best
62 if you set a sudo timeout so that you do not have to keep typing a
63 password. For example, if you put
65 Defaults timestamp_timeout=480
67 in /etc/sudoers, a password lasts for 8 hours (a working day). It is
68 not permitted to run the tests as the Exim user because the test suite
69 tracks the two users independently. Using the same user would result
70 in false positives on some tests.
72 Further, some tests invoke sudo in an environment where there might not be
73 a TTY, so tickets should be global, not per-TTY. Taking this all together
74 and assuming a user of "exim-build", you might have this in sudoers:
76 Defaults:exim-build timestamp_timeout=480,!tty_tickets
78 (3) The login under which you run the tests must be in the exim group so that
79 it has access to logs, spool files, etc. The login should not be one of the
80 names "userx", "usery", "userz", or a few other simple ones such as "abcd"
81 and "xyz" and single letters that are used in the tests. The test suite
82 expects the login to have a gecos name; I think it will now run if the
83 gecos field is empty but there may be anomalies.
85 (4) The directory into which you unpack the test suite must be accessible by
86 the Exim user, so that code running as exim can access the files therein. A
87 world-readable directory is fine. However, there may be problems if the
88 path name of the directory is excessively long. This is because it
89 sometimes appears in log lines or debug output, and if it is truncated, it
90 is no longer recognized.
92 (5) Exim must be built with its user and group specified at build time, and
93 with certain minimum facilities, namely:
95 Routers: accept, dnslookup, manualroute, redirect
96 Transports: appendfile, autoreply, pipe, smtp
99 Most Exim binaries will have these included.
101 (6) A C compiler is needed to build some test programs, and the test script is
102 written in Perl, so you need that.
104 (7) Some of the tests run Exim as a daemon, and others use a testing server
105 (described below). These require TCP ports. In the configurations and
106 scripts, the ports are parameterized, but at present, fixed values are
107 written into the controlling script. These are ports 1224 to 1229. If these
108 ports are not available for use, some of the tests will fail.
110 (8) There is an underlying assumption that the host on which the tests are
111 being run has an IPv4 address (which the test script seeks out). If there
112 is also an IPv6 address, additional tests are run when the Exim binary
113 contains IPv6 support. There are checks in the scripts for a running IPv4
114 interface; when one is not found, some tests are skipped (with a warning
117 (9) Exim must be built with TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST support, so that the test
118 configs can be placed into it. DISABLE_D_OPTION must not be used. If
119 ALT_CONFIG_PREFIX is used, it must contain the directory of the test-suite.
120 WHITELIST_D_MACROS should contain:
122 DIR:EXIM_PATH:AA:ACL:ACLRCPT:ACL_MAIL:ACL_PREDATA:ACL_RCPT:AFFIX:ALLOW:ARG1:ARG2:AUTHF:AUTHS:AUTH_ID_DOMAIN:BAD:BANNER:BB:BR:BRB:CERT:COM:COMMAND_USER:CONNECTCOND:CONTROL:CREQCIP:CREQMAC:CRL:CSS:D6:DATA:DCF:DDF:DEFAULTDWC:DELAY:DETAILS:DRATELIMIT:DYNAMIC_OPTION:ELI:ERROR_DETAILS:ERT:FAKE:FALLBACK:FILTER:FILTER_PREPEND_HOME:FORBID:FORBID_SMTP_CODE:FUSER:HAI:HAP:HARDLIMIT:HEADER_LINE_MAXSIZE:HEADER_MAXSIZE:HELO_MSG:HL:HOSTS:HOSTS_AVOID_TLS:HOSTS_MAX_TRY:HVH:IFACE:IGNORE_QUOTA:INC:INSERT:IP1:IP2:LAST:LDAPSERVERS:LENCHECK:LIMIT:LIST:LOG_SELECTOR:LS:MAXNM:MESSAGE_LOGS:MSIZE:NOTDAEMON:ONCE:ONLY:OPT:OPTION:ORDER:PAH:PEX:PORT:PTBC:QDG:QOLL:QUOTA:QUOTA_FILECOUNT:QWM:RCPT_MSG:REMEMBER:REQUIRE:RETRY:RETRY1:RETRY2:RETURN:RETURN_ERROR_DETAILS:REWRITE:ROUTE_DATA:RRATELIMIT:RT:S:SELECTOR:SELF:SERVER:SERVERS:SREQCIP:SREQMAC:SRV:STD:STRICT:SUB:SUBMISSION_OPTIONS:TIMEOUTDEFER:TIMES:TRUSTED:TRYCLEAR:UL:USE_SENDER:UTF8:VALUE:WMF:X:Y
124 (10) Exim must *not* be built with USE_READLINE, as the test-suite's automation
125 assumes the simpler I/O model.
132 If the Exim binary that is being tested contains extra functionality in
133 addition to the minimum specified above, additional tests are run to exercise
134 the extra functionality, except for a few special cases such as the databases
135 (MySQL, PostgreSQL, LDAP) where special data is needed for the tests.
138 RUNNING THE TEST SUITE
139 ----------------------
141 (1) Download the tarball exim-testsuite-x.xx.tar.bz2 and unpack it, preferably
142 in a directory alongside an Exim source directory (see below).
144 (2) cd into the exim-testsuite-x.xx directory.
146 (3) Run "./configure" and then "make". This builds a few auxiliary programs
147 that are written in C.
149 (4) echo $PWD/test-config >> your_TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST_filename
151 (5) Run "./runtest" (a Perl script) as described below.
153 (6) If you want to see what tests are available, run "./listtests".
156 BREAKING OUT OF THE TEST SCRIPT
157 -------------------------------
159 If you abandon the test run by typing ^C, the interrupt may be passed to a
160 program that the script is running, or it may be passed to the script itself.
161 In the former case, the script should detect that the program has ended
162 abnormally. In both cases, the script tries to clean up everything, including
163 killing any Exim daemons that it has started. However, there may be race
164 conditions in which the clean up does not happen. If, after breaking out of a
165 run, you see strange errors in the next run, look for any left-over Exim
166 daemons, and kill them by hand.
172 The individual test scripts are in subdirectories of the "scripts" directory.
173 If you do not supply any arguments to ./listtests, it scans all the scripts in
174 all the directories, and outputs the heading line from each script. The output
175 is piped through "less", and begins like this:
178 Basic/0001 Basic configuration setting
179 Basic/0002 Common string expansions
180 Basic/0003 Caseless address blocking
183 Lines that start === give the name of the subdirectory containing the test
184 scripts that follow. If you supply an argument to ./listtests, it is used as a
185 Perl pattern to match case-independently against the names of the
186 subdirectories. Only those that match are scanned. For example, "./listtests
189 === 1000-Basic-ipv6 ===
190 === Requires: support IPv6
191 Basic-ipv6/1000 -bh and non-canonical IPv6 addresses
192 Basic-ipv6/1001 recognizing IPv6 address in HELO/EHLO
194 === 2250-dnsdb-ipv6 ===
195 === Requires: support IPv6
197 dnsdb-ipv6/2250 dnsdb ipv6 lookup in string expansions
199 If you supply a second argument to ./listtests, it is used as a Perl pattern to
200 match case-independently against the individual script titles. For example,
201 "./listtests . mx" lists all tests whose titles contain "mx", because "."
202 matches all the subdirectory names.
208 If you do not supply any arguments to ./runtest, it searches for an Exim
209 source tree at the same level as the test suite directory. It then looks for an
210 Exim binary in a "build" directory of that source tree. If there are several
211 Exim source trees, it chooses the latest version of Exim. Consider the
215 exim-4.60/ exim-4.62/ exim-testsuite-x.xx/
217 A simple ./runtest from within the test suite will use a 4.62 binary if it
218 finds one, otherwise a 4.60 binary. If a binary cannot be found, the script
219 prompts for one. Alternatively, you can supply the binary on the command line:
221 ./runtest /usr/exim/bin/exim
223 A matching test suite is released with each Exim release; if you use a test
224 suite that does not match the binary, some tests may fail.
226 The test suite uses some of the Exim utilities (such as exim_dbmbuild), and it
227 expects to find them in the same directory as Exim itself. If they are not
228 found, the tests that use them are omitted. A suitable comment is output.
230 On the ./runtest command line, following the name of the binary, if present,
231 there may be a number of options and then one or two numbers. The full syntax
234 ./runtest [binary name] [runtest options] [exim options] \
235 [first test] [last test]
237 There are some options for the ./runtest script itself:
239 -DEBUG This option is for debugging the test script. It causes some
240 tracing information to be output.
242 -DIFF By default, file comparisons are done using a private compare
243 command called "cf", which is built from source that is provided in
244 the src directory. This is a command I've had for nearly 20 years -
245 look at the source comments for its history - whose output I
246 prefer. However, if you want to use "diff" instead, give -DIFF as a
247 runtest option. In that case, "diff -u" is used for comparisons.
248 (If it turns out that most people prefer to use diff, I'll change
251 -KEEP Normally, after a successful run, the test output files are
252 deleted. This option prevents this. It is useful when running a
253 single test, in order to look at the actual output before it is
254 modified for comparison with saved output.
256 -NOIPV4 Pretend that an IPv4 interface was not found. This is useful for
257 testing that the test suite correctly skips tests that require
258 a running IPv4 interface.
260 -NOIPV6 Pretend that an IPv6 interface was not found. This is useful for
261 testing that the test suite correctly skips tests that require
262 a running IPv6 interface.
264 -UPDATE If this option is set, any detected changes in test output are
265 automatically accepted and used to update the stored copies of the
266 output. It is a dangerous option, but it useful for the test suite
267 maintainer after making a change to the code that affects a lot of
268 tests (for example, the wording of a message).
270 The options for ./runtest must be given first (but after the name of the
271 binary, if present). Any further options, that is, items on the command line
272 that start with a hyphen, are passed to the Exim binary when it is run as part
273 of a test. The only sensible use of this is to pass "-d" in order to run a test
274 with debugging enabled. Any other options are likely to conflict with options
275 that are set in the tests. Some tests are already set up to run with debugging.
276 In these cases, -d on the command line overrides their own debug settings.
278 The final two arguments specify the range of tests to be run. Test numbers lie
279 in the range 1 to 9999. If no numbers are given, the defaults are 1 and 8999
280 (sic). Tests with higher numbers (9000 upwards) are not run automatically
281 because they require specific data (such as a particular MySQL table) that is
282 unlikely to be generally available.
284 Tests that require certain optional features of Exim are grouped by number, so
285 in any given range, not all the tests will exist. Non-existent tests are just
286 skipped, but if there are no tests at all in the given range, a message is
289 If you give only one number, just that test is run (if it exists). Instead of a
290 second number, you can give the character "+", which is interpreted as "to the
291 end". Normally this is 8999; if the starting number is 9000 or higher, "+" is
292 interpreted as 9999. Examples:
296 ./runtest /usr/sbin/exim 5000 +
297 ./runtest -DIFF -d 81
299 When the script starts up, the first thing it does is to check that you have
300 sudo access to root. Then it outputs the version number of the Exim binary that
301 it is testing, and also information about the optional facilities that are
302 present (obtained from "exim -bV"). This is followed by some environmental
303 information, including the current login id and the hosts's IP address. The
304 script checks that the current user is in the Exim group, and that the Exim
305 user has access to the test suite directory.
307 The script outputs the list of tests requested, and a list of tests that will
308 be omitted because the relevant optional facilities are not in the binary. You
309 are then invited to press Return to start the tests running.
315 When all goes well, the only permanent output is the identity of the tests as
316 they are run, and "Script completed" for each test script, for example:
318 Basic/0001 Basic configuration setting
320 Basic/0002 Basic string expansions
322 Basic/0003 Caseless address blocking
324 Basic/0004 Caseful address blocking
326 Basic/0005 -bs to simple local delivery
329 While a script is running, it shows "Test n" on the screen, for each of the
330 Exim tests within the script. There may also be comments from some tests when a
331 delay is expected, for example, if there is a "sleep" while testing a timeout.
333 Before each set of optional tests, an extra identifying line is output. For
336 >>> The following tests require: authenticator cram_md5
337 CRAM-MD5/2500 CRAM-MD5 server tests
339 CRAM-MD5/2501 CRAM-MD5 client tests
342 If a test fails, you are shown the output of the text comparison that failed,
343 and prompted as to what to do next. The output is shown using the "less"
344 command, or "more" if "less" is not available. The options for "less" are set
345 to that it automatically exits if there is less that a screenful of output. By
346 default, the output is from the "cf" program, and might look like this:
348 DBM/1300 DBM files and exim_dbmbuild
350 Lines 7-9 of "test-stdout-munged" do not match lines 7-11 of "stdout/1300".
352 exim_dbmbuild exit code = 1
353 Continued set of lines is too long: max permitted length is 99999
354 exim_dbmbuild exit code = 1
357 exim_dbmbuild exit code = 2
358 Continued set of lines is too long: max permitted length is 99999
360 exim_dbmbuild exit code = 2
363 "test-stdout-munged" contains 16 lines; "stdout/1300" contains 18 lines.
365 Continue, Update & retry, Quit? [Q]
367 This example was generated by running the test with a version of Exim
368 that had a bug in the exim_dbmbuild utility (the bug was fixed at release
369 4.53). See "How the tests work" below for a description of the files that are
370 used. In this case, the standard output differed from what was expected.
372 The reply to the prompt must either be empty, in which case it takes the
373 default that is given in brackets (in this case Q), or a single letter, in
374 upper or lower case (in this case, one of C, U, or Q). If you type anything
375 else, the prompt is repeated.
377 "Continue" carries on as if the files had matched; that is, it ignores the
378 mismatch. Any other output files for the same test will be compared before
379 moving on to the next test.
381 "Update & retry" copies the new file to the saved file, and reruns the test
382 after doing any further comparisons that may be necessary.
384 Other circumstances give rise to other prompts. If a test generates output for
385 which there is no saved data, the prompt (after a message stating which file is
386 unexpectely not empty) is:
388 Continue, Show, or Quit? [Q]
390 "Show" displays the data on the screen, and then you get the "Continue..."
391 prompt. If a test ends with an unexpected return code, the prompt is:
393 show stdErr, show stdOut, Continue (without file comparison), or Quit? [Q]
395 Typically in these cases there will be something interesting in the stderr
396 or stdout output. There is a similar prompt after the "server" auxiliary
400 OPENSSL AND GNUTLS ERROR MESSAGES
401 ---------------------------------
403 Some of the TLS tests deliberately cause errors to check how Exim handles them.
404 It has been observed that different releases of the OpenSSL and GnuTLS
405 libraries generate different error messages. This may cause the comparison with
406 the saved output to fail. Such errors can be ignored.
412 . Some of the tests are time-sensitive (e.g. when testing timeouts, as in test
413 461). These may fail if run on a host that is also running a lot of other
416 . Some versions of "ls" use a different format for times and dates. This can
417 cause test 345 to fail.
419 . Test 0142 tests open file descriptors; on some hosts the output may vary.
422 OTHER SCRIPTS AND PROGRAMS
423 --------------------------
425 There is a freestanding Perl script called "listtests" that scans the test
426 scripts and outputs a list of all the tests, with a short descriptive comment
427 for each one. Special requirements for groups of tests are also noted.
429 The main runtest script makes use of a second Perl script and some compiled C
432 patchexim A Perl script that makes a patched version of Exim (see the
433 next section for details).
435 bin/cf A text comparison program (see above).
437 bin/checkaccess A program that is run as root; it changes uid/gid to the
438 Exim user and group, and then checks that it can access
439 files in the test suite's directory.
441 bin/client A script-driven SMTP client simulation.
443 bin/client-gnutls A script-driven SMTP client simulation with GnuTLS support.
444 This is built only if GnuTLS support is detected on the host.
446 bin/client-ssl A script-driven SMTP client simulation with OpenSSL support.
447 This is built only if OpenSSL support is detected on the
450 bin/fakens A fake "nameserver" for DNS tests (see below for details).
452 bin/fd A program that outputs details of open file descriptors.
454 bin/iefbr14 A program that does nothing, and returns 0. It's just like
455 the "true" command, but it is in a known place.
457 bin/loaded Some dynamically loaded functions for testing dlfunc support.
459 bin/mtpscript A script-driven SMTP/LMTP server simulation, on std{in,out}.
461 bin/server A script-driven SMTP server simulation, over a socket.
463 bin/showids Output the current uid, gid, euid, egid.
465 The runtest script also makes use of a number of ordinary commands such as
466 "cp", "kill", "more", and "rm", via the system() call. In some cases these are
467 run as root by means of sudo.
470 STANDARD SUBSTITUTIONS
471 ----------------------
473 In the following sections, there are several references to the "standard
474 substitutions". These make changes to some of the stored files when they are
475 used in a test. To save repetition, the substitutions themselves are documented
478 CALLER is replaced by the login name of the user running the tests
479 CALLERGROUP is replaced by the caller's group id
480 CALLER_GID is replaced by the caller's group id
481 CALLER_UID is replaced by the caller's user id
482 DIR is replaced by the name of the test-suite directory
483 EXIMGROUP is replaced by the name of the Exim group
484 EXIMUSER is replaced by the name of the Exim user
485 HOSTIPV4 is replaced by the local host's IPv4 address
486 HOSTIPV6 is replaced by the local host's IPv6 address
487 HOSTNAME is replaced by the local host's name
488 PORT_D is replaced by a port number for normal daemon use
489 PORT_N is replaced by a port number that should never respond
490 PORT_S is replaced by a port number for normal bin/server use
491 TESTNUM is replaced by the current test number
492 V4NET is replaced by an IPv4 network number for testing
493 V6NET is replaced by an IPv6 network number for testing
495 PORT_D is currently hard-wired to 1225, PORT_N to 1223, and PORT_S to 1224.
496 V4NET is hardwired to 224 and V6NET to ff00. These networks are used for DNS
497 testing purposes, and for testing Exim with -bh. The only requirement is that
498 they are networks that can never be used for an IP address of a real host. I've
499 chosen two multicast networks for the moment.
501 If the host has no IPv6 address, "<no IPv6 address found>" is substituted but
502 that does not matter because no IPv6 tests will be run. A similar substitution
503 is made if there is no IPv4 address, and again, tests that actually require a
504 running IPv4 interface should be skipped.
506 If the host has more than one IPv4 or IPv6 address, the first one that
507 "ifconfig" lists is used. If the only available address is 127.0.0.1 (or ::1
508 for IPv6) it is used, but another value is preferred if available.
510 In situations where a specific test is not being run (for example, when setting
511 up dynamic data files), TESTNUM is replaced by an empty string, but should not
512 in fact occur in such files.
518 Each numbered script runs Exim (sometimes several times) with its own Exim
519 configuration file. The configurations are stored in the "confs" directory,
520 and before running each test, a copy of the appropriate configuration, with the
521 standard substitutions, is made in the file test-config. The -C command line
522 option is used to tell Exim to use this configuration.
524 The -D option is used to pass the path of the Exim binary to the configuration.
525 This is not standardly substituted, because there are two possible binaries
526 that might be used in the same test (one setuid to root, the other to the exim
527 user). Some tests also make use of -D to vary the configuration for different
528 calls to the Exim binary.
530 Normally, of course, Exim gives up root privilege when -C and -D are used by
531 unprivileged users. We do not want this to happen when running the tests,
532 because we want to be able to test all aspects of Exim, including receiving
533 mail from unprivileged users. The way this is handled is as follows:
535 At the start of the runtest script, the patchexim script is run as root. This
536 script makes a copy of the Exim binary that is to be tested, patching it as it
537 does so. (This is a binary patch, not a source patch.) The patch causes the
538 binary, when run, to "know" that it is running in the test harness. It does not
539 give up root privilege when -C and -D are used, and in a few places it takes
540 other special actions, such as delaying when starting a subprocess to allow
541 debug output from the parent to be written first. If you want to know more,
542 grep the Exim source files for "running_in_test_harness".
544 The patched binary is placed in the directory eximdir/exim and given the normal
545 setuid root privilege. This is, of course, a dangerous binary to have lying
546 around, especially if there are unprivileged users on the system. To protect
547 it, the eximdir directory is created with the current user as owner, exim as
548 the group owner, and with access drwx--x---. Thus, only the user who is running
549 the tests (who is known to have access to root) and the exim user have access
550 to the modified Exim binary. When runtest terminates, the patched binary is
553 Each set of tests proceeds by interpreting its controlling script. The scripts
554 are in subdirectories of the "scripts" directory. They are split up according
555 to the requirements of the tests they contain, with the 0000-Basic directory
556 containing tests that can always be run. Run the "listtests" script to obtain a
563 Output from script runs is written to the files test-stdout and test-stderr.
564 When an Exim server is involved, test-stdout-server and test-stderr-server are
565 used for its output. Before being compared with the saved output, the
566 non-server and server files are concatenated, so a single saved file contains
569 A directory called spool is used for Exim's spool files, and for Exim logs.
570 These locations are specified in every test's configuration file.
572 When messages are delivered to files, the files are put in the test-mail
573 directory. Output from comparisons is written to test-cf.
575 Before comparisons are done, output texts are modified ("munged") to change or
576 remove parts that are expected to vary from run to run. The modified files all
577 end with the suffix "-munged". Thus, you will see test-stdout-munged,
578 test-mainlog-munged, test-mail-munged, and so on. Other files whose names start
579 with "test-" are created and used by some of the tests.
581 At the end of a successful test run, the spool directory and all the files
582 whose names begin with "test-" are removed. If the run ends unsuccessfully
583 (typically after a "Q" response to a prompt), the spool and test files are left
584 in existence so that the problem can be investigated.
590 Each test script consists of a list of commands, each optionally preceded by
591 comments (lines starting with #) and (also optionally) a line containing an
592 expected return code. Some of the commands are followed by data lines
593 terminated by a line of four asterisks.
595 The first line of each script must be a comment that briefly describes the
598 # -bS Use of HELO/RSET
600 A line consisting just of digits is interpreted as the expected return code
601 for the command that follows. The default expectation when no such line exists
602 is a zero return code. For example, here is a complete test script, containing
605 # -bS Unexpected EOF in headers
608 mail from:<someone@some.where>
609 rcpt to:<blackhole@HOSTNAME>
614 The expected return code in this case is 1, and the data lines are passed to
615 Exim on its standard input. Both the command line and the data lines have the
616 standard substitions applied to them. Thus, HOSTNAME in the example above will
617 be replaced by the local host's name. Long commands can be continued over
618 several lines by using \ as a continuation character. This does *not* apply to
621 Here follows a list of supported commands. They can be divided into two groups:
624 Commands with no input
625 ----------------------
627 These commands are not followed by any input data, or by a line of asterisks.
630 dbmbuild <file1> <file1>
632 This command runs the exim_dbmbuild utility to build a DBM file. It is used
633 only when DBM support is available in Exim, and typically follows the use of a
634 "write" command (see below) that creates the input file.
639 This command runs the exim_dumpdb utility on the testing spool directory, using
640 the database name given, for example: "dumpdb retry".
645 The text is written to the screen; this is used to output comments from
649 exim_lock [options] <file name>
651 This command runs the exim_lock utility with the given options and file name.
652 The file remains locked with the following command (normally exim) is obeyed.
657 This command runs the exinext utility with the given argument data.
662 This command runs the exigrep utility with the given data (the search pattern)
663 on the current mainlog file.
668 This command is present at the start of all but one of the tests that use
669 GnuTLS. It copies a pre-existing parameter file into the spool directory, so
670 that Exim does not have to re-create the file each time. The first GnuTLS test
671 does not do this, in order to test that Exim can create the file.
676 This command must be given in any script that starts an Exim daemon, normally
677 at the end. It searches for the PID file in the spool directory, and sends a
678 SIGINT signal to the Exim daemon process whose PID it finds. See below for
679 comments about starting Exim daemons.
684 This command causes the script to sleep for m milliseconds. Nothing is output
690 This command must be at the head of a script. If no IPv4 interface has been
691 found, the entire script is skipped, and a comment is output.
696 This command must be at the head of a script. If no IPv6 interface has been
697 found, the entire script is skipped, and a comment is output.
702 This command must be at the head of a script. If the Exim binary does not
703 suppport large files (off_t is <= 4), the entire script is skipped, and a
707 need_move_frozen_messages
709 This command must be at the head of a script. If the Exim binary does not have
710 support for moving frozen messages (which is an optional feature), the entire
711 script is skipped, and a comment is output.
716 If this command is encountered anywhere in the script, messages that are
717 delivered when the script runs are not compared with saved versions.
722 If this command is encountered anywhere in the script, message log files that
723 are still in existence at the end of the run (for messages that were not
724 delivered) are not compared with saved versions.
729 If this command is encountered anywhere in the script, the stderr output from
730 the run is not compared with a saved version.
735 If this command is encountered anywhere in the script, the stdout output from
736 the run is not compared with a saved version.
741 This command indicates that the script is for a certain type of filter test, in
742 which there are a lot of repetitive stdout lines that get in the way, because
743 filter tests output data about the sender and recipient. Such lines are removed
744 from the stdout output before comparing, for ease of human perusal.
749 This command causes the script to sleep for n seconds. If n is greater than
750 one, "sleep <n>" is output to the screen, followed by a dot for every second
756 This command causes special sorting to occur on the mainlog file before
757 comparison. Every sequence of contiguous delivery lines (lines containing the
758 => -> or *> flags) is sorted. This is necessary in some tests that use parallel
759 deliveries because on different systems the processes may terminate in a
763 A number of standard file management commands are also recognized. These are
764 cat, chmod, chown, cp, du, ln, ls, du, mkdir, mkfifo, rm, rmdir, and touch.
765 Some are run as root using "sudo".
771 The remaining commands are followed by data lines for their standard input,
772 terminated by four asterisks. Even if no data is required for the particular
773 usage, the asterisks must be given.
776 catwrite <file name> [nxm[=start-of-line-text]]*
778 This command operates like the "write" command, which is described below,
779 except that the data it generates is copied to the end of the test-stdout file
780 as well as to the named file.
784 client [<options>] <ip address> <port> [<outgoing interface>]
786 This command runs the auxiliary "client" program that simulates an SMTP client.
787 It is controlled by a script read from its standard input, details of which are
788 given below. There are two options. One is -t, which must be followed directly
789 by a number, to specify the command timeout in seconds (e.g. -t5). The default
790 timeout is 1 second. The other option is -tls-on-connect, which causes the
791 client to try to start up a TLS session as soon as it has connected, without
792 using the STARTTLS command. The client program connects to the given IP address
793 and port, using the specified interface, if one is given.
796 client-ssl [<options>] <ip address> <port> [<outgoing interface>] \
797 [<cert file>] [<key file>]
799 When OpenSSL is available on the host, an alternative version of the client
800 program is compiled, one that supports TLS using OpenSSL. The additional
801 arguments specify a certificate and key file when required. There is one
802 additional option, -tls-on-connect, that causes the client to initiate TLS
803 negotiation immediately on connection.
806 client-gnutls [<options>] <ip address> <port> [<outgoing interface>] \
807 [<cert file>] [<key file>]
809 When GnuTLS is available on the host, an alternative version of the client
810 program is compiled, one that supports TLS using GnuTLS. The additional
811 arguments specify a certificate and key file when required. There is one
812 additional option, -tls-on-connect, that causes the client to initiate TLS
813 negotiation immediately on connection.
816 exim [<options>] [<arguments>]
818 This command runs the testing version of Exim. Any occurrence of "$msg1" in the
819 command line is replaced by the ID of the first (oldest) message in Exim's
820 (testing) spool. "$msg2" refers to the second, and so on. The name "exim" can
821 be preceded by an environment setting as in this example:
823 LDAPTLS_REQCERT=never exim -be
825 It can also be preceded by a number; this specifies a number of seconds to wait
826 before closing the stdout pipe to Exim, and is used for some timeout tests. For
831 Finally, "exim" can be preceded by "sudo", to run Exim as root. If more than
832 one of these prefixes is present, they must be in the above order.
835 exim_exim [<options>] [<arguments>]
837 This runs an alternative version of Exim that is setuid to exim rather than to
841 server [<options>] <port or socket> [<connection count>]
843 This command runs the auxiliary "server" program that simulates an SMTP (or
844 other) server. It is controlled by a script that is read from its standard
845 input, details of which are given below. A number of options are implemented:
847 -d causes the server to output debugging information
849 -t sets a timeout in seconds (default 5) for when the server is
850 awaiting an incoming connection
852 -noipv4 causes the server not to set up an IPv4 socket
854 -noipv6 causes the server not to set up an IPv6 socket
856 By default, in an IPv6 environment, both kinds of socket are set up. However,
857 the test script knows which interfaces actually exist on the host, and it adds
858 -noipv4 or -noipv6 to the server command as required. An error occurs if both
859 these options are given.
861 The only required argument is either a port number or the path name of a Unix
862 domain socket. The port is normally PORT_S, which is changed to an actual
863 number by the standard substitutions. The optional final argument specifies the
864 number of different connections to expect (default 1). These must happen
865 serially (one at a time). There is no support for multiple simultaneous
866 connections. Here are some example commands:
869 server -t 10 PORT_S 3
870 server /tmp/somesocket
872 The following lines, up to a line of four asterisks, are the server's
873 controlling standard input (described below). These lines are read and
874 remembered; during the following commands, until an "exim" command is reached,
875 the server is run in parallel.
878 write <file name> [nxm[=start-of-line-text]]*
880 The "write" command is a way of creating files of specific sizes for buffering
881 tests, or containing specific data lines. Being able to do this from within the
882 script saves holding lots of little test files. The optional argument specifies
883 n lines of length m. The lines consist of the letter "a". If start of line text
884 is supplied, it replaces "a"s at the start of each line. Underscores in the
885 start of line text are turned into spaces. The optional argument may be
886 repeated. The data lines that follow a "write" command are split into two by a
887 line of four plus signs. Any above the split are written before the
888 fixed-length lines, and any below the split are written after. For example:
890 write test-data 3x30=AB_ 1x50
898 This command generates a file containing:
902 AB aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
903 AB aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
904 AB aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
905 aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
909 If there are no fixed-length line specifiers, there is no need to split the
910 data, and a line of plusses is not needed.
915 This command runs Perl, with the data as its standard input, to allow arbitrary
916 one-off things to be done.
922 Lines in client scripts are of two kinds:
924 (1) If a line begins with three question marks and a space, the rest of the
925 line defines the start of expected output from the server. If what is
926 received does not match, the client bombs out with an error message.
928 (2) If a line starts with three plus signs followed by a space, the rest of the
929 line specifies a number of seconds to sleep for before proceeding.
931 (3) Otherwise, the line is an input line line that is sent to the server. Any
932 occurrences of \r and \n in the line are turned into carriage return and
933 linefeed, respectively. This is used for testing PIPELINING.
935 Here is a simple example:
937 client 127.0.0.1 PORT_D
942 AUTH PLAIN AbdXi0AdnD2CVy
948 In the case of client-gnutls and client-ssl, if a command is "starttls", this
949 is remembered, and after a subsequent OK response, an attempt to move into TLS
950 mode occurs. If a command is "starttls_wait", the client sends "starttls" but
951 does not start up TLS; this is for testing timeouts. If a command is "stoptls",
952 an existing TLS connection is shut down, but nothing is sent.
958 The server program sleeps till a connection occurs or its timeout is reached,
959 in which case it bombs out. The next set of command lines are interpreted. They
960 are of the following kinds:
962 (1) A line that starts with '>' or with a digit is an output line that is sent
963 to the client. In the case of '>':
965 (a) If the line starts with ">>", no terminating CRLF is sent.
966 (b) If the line starts with ">CR>", just CR is sent at the end.
967 (c) If the line starts with ">LF>", just LF is sent at the end.
968 (d) If the line starts with ">*eof", nothing is sent and the connection
971 The data that is sent starts after the initial '>' sequence.
973 (2) A line that starts with "*sleep" specifies a number of seconds to wait
976 (3) A line containing "*eof" specifies that the client is expected to close
977 the connection at this point.
979 (4) A line containing just '.' specifies that the client is expected to send
980 many lines, terminated by one that contains just a dot.
982 (5) Otherwise, the line defines the start of an input line that the client
983 is expected to send. To allow for lines that start with digits, the line
984 may start with '<', which is not taken as part of the input data. If the
985 input does not match, the server bombs out with an error message.
987 Here is a simple example of server use in a test script:
1005 After a "server" command in a test script, the server runs in parallel until an
1006 "exim" command is reached. The "exim" command attempts to deliver one or more
1007 messages to port PORT_S on the local host. When it has finished, the test
1008 script waits for the "server" process to finish.
1010 The "mtpscript" program is like "server", except that it uses stdin/stdout for
1011 its input and output instead of a script. However, it is not called from test
1012 scripts; instead it is used as the command for pipe transports in some
1013 configurations, to simulate non-socket LMTP servers.
1016 AUXILIARY DATA FILES
1017 --------------------
1019 Many of the tests make use of auxiliary data files. There are two types; those
1020 whose content is fixed, and those whose content needs to be varied according to
1021 the current environment. The former are kept in the directory aux-fixed. The
1022 latter are distributed in the directory aux-var-src, and copied with the
1023 standard substitutions into the directory aux-var at the start of each test
1026 Most of the auxiliary files have names that start with a test number,
1027 indicating that they are specific to that one test. A few fixed files (for
1028 example, some TLS certificates) are used by more than one test, and so their
1029 names are not of this form.
1031 There are also some auxilary DNS zone files, which are described in the next
1035 DNS LOOKUPS AND GETHOSTBYNAME
1036 -----------------------------
1038 The original test suite required special testing zones to be loaded into a
1039 local nameserver. This is no longer a requirement for the new suite. Instead, a
1040 program called fakens is used to simulate a nameserver. When Exim is running in
1041 the test harness, instead of calling res_search() - the normal call to the DNS
1042 resolver - it calls a testing function. This handles a few special names itself
1043 (for compatibility with the old test suite), but otherwise passes the query to
1046 The fakens program consults "zone files" in the directory called dnszones, and
1047 returns data in the standard resource record format for Exim to process as if
1048 it came from the DNS. However, if the requested domain is not in any of the
1049 zones that fakens knows about, it returns a special code that causes Exim to
1050 pass the query on to res_search(). The zone files are:
1052 db.test.ex A zone for the domain test.ex.
1053 db.ip4.10 A zone for one special case in 10.250.0.0/16 (see below)
1054 db.ip4.V4NET A zone for the domain V4NET.in-addr.arpa.
1055 db.ip4.127 A zone for the domain 127.in-addr.arpa.
1056 db.ip6.V6NET A zone for the domain inverted(V6NET).ip6.arpa.
1057 db.ip6.0 A zone for the domain 0.ip6.arpa.
1059 V4NET and V6NET are substituted with the current testing networks (see above).
1060 In the case of V6NET, the network is four hex digits, and it is split and
1061 inverted appropriately when setting up the zone.
1063 These fake zone files are built dynamically from sources in the dnszones-src
1064 directory by applying the standard substitutions. The test suite also builds
1065 dynamic zone files for the name of the current host and its IP address(es). The
1066 idea is that there should not be any need to rely on an external DNS.
1068 The domain names that are handled directly by Exim, without being passed to
1071 test.again.dns This always provokes a TRY_AGAIN response, for testing the
1072 handling of temporary DNS error. If the full domain name
1073 starts with digits, a delay of that many seconds occurs.
1075 test.fail.dns This always provokes a NO_RECOVERY response, for testing
1076 DNS server failures.
1078 This special handling could now be done in the fakens program, but while the
1079 old test suite is still being used it has to be done in Exim itself, so for the
1080 moment it remains there.
1082 The use of gethostbyname() and its IPv6 friends is also subverted when Exim is
1083 running in the test harness. The test code handles a few special names
1084 directly; for all the others it uses DNS lookups, which are then handled as
1085 just described. Thus, the use of /etc/hosts is completely bypassed. The names
1086 that are specially handled are:
1088 manyhome.test.ex This name is used for testing hosts with ridiculously large
1089 numbers of IP addresses; 2048 IP addresses are generated
1090 and returned. Doing it this way saves having to make the
1091 interface to fakens handle more records that can fit in the
1092 data block. The addresses that are generated are in the
1093 10.250.0.0/16 network.
1095 localhost Always returns 127.0.0.1 or ::1, for IPv4 and IPv6 lookups,
1098 <an IP address> If the IP address is of the correct form for the lookup
1099 type (IPv4 or IPv6), it is returned. Otherwise a panic-die
1102 The reverse zone db.ip4.10 is provided just for the manyhome.test.ex case. It
1103 contains a single wildcard resource record. It also contains the line
1107 Whenever fakens finds this line in a zone file, it returns PASS_ON instead of
1108 HOST_NOT_FOUND. This causes Exim to pass the query to res_search().