1 EXPORTABLE EXIM TEST SUITE
2 --------------------------
4 This document last updated for:
6 Test Suite Version: 4.67
13 For a long time, the Exim test suite was confined to Philip Hazel's
14 workstation, because it relied on that particular environment. The problem is
15 that an MTA such as Exim interacts a great deal with its environment, so if you
16 run it somewhere else, the output will be different, which makes automatic
17 checking difficult. Even in a single environment, things are not all that easy.
18 For instance, if Exim delivers a message, the log line (which one would want to
19 compare) contains a timestamp and an Exim message id that will be different
20 each time. This issue is dealt with by a Perl script that munges the output by
21 recognizing changing sequences and replacing them with fixed values before
22 doing a comparison. Another problem with exporting the original test suite is
23 that it assumes a version of Exim with more or less every optional feature
26 This README describes a new test suite that is intended to be exportable and to
27 run in a number of different environments. The tests themselves are in no
28 particular order; they accumulated over the years as Exim was extended and
29 modified. They vary greatly in size and complexity. Some were specifically
30 constructed to test new features; others were made to demonstrate that a bug
33 A few of the original tests have had to be omitted from this more general
34 suite because differences in operating system behaviour make it impossible to
35 generalize them. An example is a test that uses a version of Exim that is
36 setuid to the Exim user rather than root, with the deliver_drop_privilege
37 option set. In Linux, such a binary is able to deliver a message as the caller
38 of Exim, because it can revert to the caller's uid. In FreeBSD this is not the
45 In order to run this test suite, the following requirements must be met:
47 (1) You should run the tests on a matching version of Exim, because the suite
48 is continuously updated to test the latest features and bug fixes. The
49 version you test does not, however, have to be installed as the live
50 version. You can of course try the tests on any version of Exim, but some
51 may fail. In particular, the test suite will fall apart horrible with
52 versions of Exim prior to 4.54.
54 (2) You can use any non-root login to run the tests, but there must be access
55 via "sudo" to root from this login. Privilege is required to override
56 configuration change checks and for things like cleaning up spool files,
57 but on the other hand, the tests themselves need to call Exim from a
58 non-root process. The use of "sudo" is the easiest way to achieve all this.
59 The test script uses "sudo" to do a number of things as root, so it is best
60 if you set a sudo timeout so that you do not have to keep typing a
61 password. For example, if you put
63 Defaults timestamp_timeout=480
65 in /etc/sudoers, a password lasts for 8 hours (a working day). It is
66 not permitted to run the tests as the Exim user because the test suite
67 tracks the two users independently. Using the same user would result
68 in false positives on some tests.
70 Further, some tests invoke sudo in an environment where there might not be
71 a TTY, so tickets should be global, not per-TTY. Taking this all together
72 and assuming a user of "exim-build", you might have this in sudoers:
74 Defaults:exim-build timestamp_timeout=480,!tty_tickets
76 (3) The login under which you run the tests must be in the exim group so that
77 it has access to logs, spool files, etc. The login should not be one of the
78 names "userx", "usery", "userz", or a few other simple ones such as "abcd"
79 and "xyz" and single letters that are used in the tests. The test suite
80 expects the login to have a gecos name; I think it will now run if the
81 gecos field is empty but there may be anomalies.
83 (4) The directory into which you unpack the test suite must be accessible by
84 the Exim user, so that code running as exim can access the files therein.
85 This includes search-access on all path elements leading to it. A
86 world-readable directory is fine. However, there may be problems if the
87 path name of the directory is excessively long. This is because it
88 sometimes appears in log lines or debug output, and if it is truncated, it
89 is no longer recognized.
91 (5) Exim must be built with its user and group specified at build time, and
92 with certain minimum facilities, namely:
94 Routers: accept, dnslookup, manualroute, redirect
95 Transports: appendfile, autoreply, pipe, smtp
97 Authenticators: plaintext
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. A suitable file location is .../exim/test/trusted_configs
119 DISABLE_D_OPTION must not be used. If ALT_CONFIG_PREFIX is used, it
120 must contain the directory of the test-suite. 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.
126 Exim must *not* be built with HEADERS_CHARSET set to UTF-8.
133 If the Exim binary that is being tested contains extra functionality in
134 addition to the minimum specified above, additional tests are run to exercise
135 the extra functionality, except for a few special cases such as the databases
136 (MySQL, PostgreSQL, LDAP) where special data is needed for the tests.
139 RUNNING THE TEST SUITE
140 ----------------------
142 (1) Download the tarball exim-testsuite-x.xx.tar.bz2 and unpack it, preferably
143 in a directory alongside an Exim source directory (see below).
145 (2) cd into the exim-testsuite-x.xx directory.
147 (3) Run "autoconf" then "./configure" and then "make". This builds a few
148 auxiliary programs that are written in C.
150 (4) echo $PWD/test-config >> your_TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST_filename
151 Typically that is .../exim/test/trusted_configs
153 (5) Run "./runtest" (a Perl script) as described below.
155 (6) If you want to see what tests are available, run "./listtests".
158 BREAKING OUT OF THE TEST SCRIPT
159 -------------------------------
161 If you abandon the test run by typing ^C, the interrupt may be passed to a
162 program that the script is running, or it may be passed to the script itself.
163 In the former case, the script should detect that the program has ended
164 abnormally. In both cases, the script tries to clean up everything, including
165 killing any Exim daemons that it has started. However, there may be race
166 conditions in which the clean up does not happen. If, after breaking out of a
167 run, you see strange errors in the next run, look for any left-over Exim
168 daemons, and kill them by hand.
174 The individual test scripts are in subdirectories of the "scripts" directory.
175 If you do not supply any arguments to ./listtests, it scans all the scripts in
176 all the directories, and outputs the heading line from each script. The output
177 is piped through "less", and begins like this:
180 Basic/0001 Basic configuration setting
181 Basic/0002 Common string expansions
182 Basic/0003 Caseless address blocking
185 Lines that start === give the name of the subdirectory containing the test
186 scripts that follow. If you supply an argument to ./listtests, it is used as a
187 Perl pattern to match case-independently against the names of the
188 subdirectories. Only those that match are scanned. For example, "./listtests
191 === 1000-Basic-ipv6 ===
192 === Requires: support IPv6
193 Basic-ipv6/1000 -bh and non-canonical IPv6 addresses
194 Basic-ipv6/1001 recognizing IPv6 address in HELO/EHLO
196 === 2250-dnsdb-ipv6 ===
197 === Requires: support IPv6
199 dnsdb-ipv6/2250 dnsdb ipv6 lookup in string expansions
201 If you supply a second argument to ./listtests, it is used as a Perl pattern to
202 match case-independently against the individual script titles. For example,
203 "./listtests . mx" lists all tests whose titles contain "mx", because "."
204 matches all the subdirectory names.
210 If you do not supply any arguments to ./runtest, it searches for an Exim
211 source tree at the same level as the test suite directory. It then looks for an
212 Exim binary in a "build" directory of that source tree. If there are several
213 Exim source trees, it chooses the latest version of Exim. Consider the
217 exim-4.60/ exim-4.62/ exim-testsuite-x.xx/
219 A simple ./runtest from within the test suite will use a 4.62 binary if it
220 finds one, otherwise a 4.60 binary. If a binary cannot be found, the script
221 prompts for one. Alternatively, you can supply the binary on the command line:
223 ./runtest /usr/exim/bin/exim
225 A matching test suite is released with each Exim release; if you use a test
226 suite that does not match the binary, some tests may fail.
228 The test suite uses some of the Exim utilities (such as exim_dbmbuild), and it
229 expects to find them in the same directory as Exim itself. If they are not
230 found, the tests that use them are omitted. A suitable comment is output.
232 On the ./runtest command line, following the name of the binary, if present,
233 there may be a number of options and then one or two numbers. The full syntax
236 ./runtest [binary name] [runtest options] [exim options] \
237 [first test] [last test]
239 There are some options for the ./runtest script itself:
241 -CONTINUE This will allow the script to move past some failing tests. It will
242 write a simple failure line with the test number in a temporary
243 logfile test/failed-summary.log. Unexpected exit codes will still
244 stall the test execution and require interaction.
246 -DEBUG This option is for debugging the test script. It causes some
247 tracing information to be output.
249 -DIFF By default, file comparisons are done using a private compare
250 command called "cf", which is built from source that is provided in
251 the src directory. This is a command I've had for nearly 20 years -
252 look at the source comments for its history - whose output I
253 prefer. However, if you want to use "diff" instead, give -DIFF as a
254 runtest option. In that case, "diff -u" is used for comparisons.
255 (If it turns out that most people prefer to use diff, I'll change
258 -KEEP Normally, after a successful run, the test output files are
259 deleted. This option prevents this. It is useful when running a
260 single test, in order to look at the actual output before it is
261 modified for comparison with saved output.
263 -NOIPV4 Pretend that an IPv4 interface was not found. This is useful for
264 testing that the test suite correctly skips tests that require
265 a running IPv4 interface.
267 -NOIPV6 Pretend that an IPv6 interface was not found. This is useful for
268 testing that the test suite correctly skips tests that require
269 a running IPv6 interface.
271 -UPDATE If this option is set, any detected changes in test output are
272 automatically accepted and used to update the stored copies of the
273 output. It is a dangerous option, but it useful for the test suite
274 maintainer after making a change to the code that affects a lot of
275 tests (for example, the wording of a message).
277 The options for ./runtest must be given first (but after the name of the
278 binary, if present). Any further options, that is, items on the command line
279 that start with a hyphen, are passed to the Exim binary when it is run as part
280 of a test. The only sensible use of this is to pass "-d" in order to run a test
281 with debugging enabled. Any other options are likely to conflict with options
282 that are set in the tests. Some tests are already set up to run with debugging.
283 In these cases, -d on the command line overrides their own debug settings.
285 The final two arguments specify the range of tests to be run. Test numbers lie
286 in the range 1 to 9999. If no numbers are given, the defaults are 1 and 8999
287 (sic). Tests with higher numbers (9000 upwards) are not run automatically
288 because they require specific data (such as a particular MySQL table) that is
289 unlikely to be generally available.
291 Tests that require certain optional features of Exim are grouped by number, so
292 in any given range, not all the tests will exist. Non-existent tests are just
293 skipped, but if there are no tests at all in the given range, a message is
296 If you give only one number, just that test is run (if it exists). Instead of a
297 second number, you can give the character "+", which is interpreted as "to the
298 end". Normally this is 8999; if the starting number is 9000 or higher, "+" is
299 interpreted as 9999. Examples:
303 ./runtest /usr/sbin/exim 5000 +
304 ./runtest -DIFF -d 81
306 When the script starts up, the first thing it does is to check that you have
307 sudo access to root. Then it outputs the version number of the Exim binary that
308 it is testing, and also information about the optional facilities that are
309 present (obtained from "exim -bV"). This is followed by some environmental
310 information, including the current login id and the hosts's IP address. The
311 script checks that the current user is in the Exim group, and that the Exim
312 user has access to the test suite directory.
314 The script outputs the list of tests requested, and a list of tests that will
315 be omitted because the relevant optional facilities are not in the binary. You
316 are then invited to press Return to start the tests running.
322 When all goes well, the only permanent output is the identity of the tests as
323 they are run, and "Script completed" for each test script, for example:
325 Basic/0001 Basic configuration setting
327 Basic/0002 Basic string expansions
329 Basic/0003 Caseless address blocking
331 Basic/0004 Caseful address blocking
333 Basic/0005 -bs to simple local delivery
336 While a script is running, it shows "Test n" on the screen, for each of the
337 Exim tests within the script. There may also be comments from some tests when a
338 delay is expected, for example, if there is a "sleep" while testing a timeout.
340 Before each set of optional tests, an extra identifying line is output. For
343 >>> The following tests require: authenticator cram_md5
344 CRAM-MD5/2500 CRAM-MD5 server tests
346 CRAM-MD5/2501 CRAM-MD5 client tests
349 If a test fails, you are shown the output of the text comparison that failed,
350 and prompted as to what to do next. The output is shown using the "less"
351 command, or "more" if "less" is not available. The options for "less" are set
352 to that it automatically exits if there is less that a screenful of output. By
353 default, the output is from the "cf" program, and might look like this:
355 DBM/1300 DBM files and exim_dbmbuild
357 Lines 7-9 of "test-stdout-munged" do not match lines 7-11 of "stdout/1300".
359 exim_dbmbuild exit code = 1
360 Continued set of lines is too long: max permitted length is 99999
361 exim_dbmbuild exit code = 1
364 exim_dbmbuild exit code = 2
365 Continued set of lines is too long: max permitted length is 99999
367 exim_dbmbuild exit code = 2
370 "test-stdout-munged" contains 16 lines; "stdout/1300" contains 18 lines.
372 Continue, Retry, Update & retry, Quit? [Q]
374 This example was generated by running the test with a version of Exim
375 that had a bug in the exim_dbmbuild utility (the bug was fixed at release
376 4.53). See "How the tests work" below for a description of the files that are
377 used. In this case, the standard output differed from what was expected.
379 The reply to the prompt must either be empty, in which case it takes the
380 default that is given in brackets (in this case Q), or a single letter, in
381 upper or lower case (in this case, one of C, R, U, or Q). If you type anything
382 else, the prompt is repeated.
384 "Continue" carries on as if the files had matched; that is, it ignores the
385 mismatch. Any other output files for the same test will be compared before
386 moving on to the next test.
388 "Update & retry" copies the new file to the saved file, and reruns the test
389 after doing any further comparisons that may be necessary.
391 "Retry" does the same apart from the file copy.
393 Other circumstances give rise to other prompts. If a test generates output for
394 which there is no saved data, the prompt (after a message stating which file is
395 unexpectely not empty) is:
397 Continue, Show, or Quit? [Q]
399 "Show" displays the data on the screen, and then you get the "Continue..."
400 prompt. If a test ends with an unexpected return code, the prompt is:
402 show stdErr, show stdOut, Continue (without file comparison), or Quit? [Q]
404 Typically in these cases there will be something interesting in the stderr
405 or stdout output. There is a similar prompt after the "server" auxiliary
409 OPENSSL AND GNUTLS ERROR MESSAGES
410 ---------------------------------
412 Some of the TLS tests deliberately cause errors to check how Exim handles them.
413 It has been observed that different releases of the OpenSSL and GnuTLS
414 libraries generate different error messages. This may cause the comparison with
415 the saved output to fail. Such errors can be ignored.
421 . Some of the tests are time-sensitive (e.g. when testing timeouts, as in test
422 461). These may fail if run on a host that is also running a lot of other
425 . Some versions of "ls" use a different format for times and dates. This can
426 cause test 345 to fail.
428 . Test 0142 tests open file descriptors; on some hosts the output may vary.
430 . Some tests may fail, for example 0022, because it says it uses cached data
431 when the expected output thinks it should not be in cache. Item #5 in the
432 Requirements section has:
433 "Exim must be built with its user and group specified at build time"
434 This means that you cannot use the "ref:username" in your Local/Makefile
435 when building the exim binary, in any of the following fields:
436 EXIM_USER EXIM_GROUP CONFIGURE_OWNER CONFIGURE_GROUP
438 . If the runtest script warns that the hostname is not a Fully Qualified
439 Domain Name (FQDN), expect that some tests will fail, for example 0036,
440 with an extra log line saying the hostname doesn't resolve. You must use a
441 FQDN for the hostname for proper test functionality.
443 . If you change your hostname to a FQDN, you must delete the test/dnszones
444 subdirectory. When you next run the runtest script, it will rebuild the
445 content to use the new hostname.
447 . If your hostname has an uppercase characters in it, expect that some tests
448 will fail, for example, 0036, because some log lines will have the hostname
449 in all lowercase. The regex which extracts the hostname from the log lines
450 will not match the lowercased version.
452 . Some tests may fail, for example 0015, with a cryptic error message:
453 Server return code 99
454 Due to security concerns, some specific files MUST have the group write bit
455 off. For the purposes of the test suite, some test/aux-fixed/* files MUST
456 have the group write bit off, so it's easier to just remove the group write
457 bit for all of them. If your umask is set to 002, the group write bit will
458 be on by default and you'll see this problem, so make sure your umask is
459 022 and re-checkout the test/ subdirectory.
461 . Some tests will fail if the username and group name are different. It does
462 not have to be the primary group, a secondary group is sufficient.
465 OTHER SCRIPTS AND PROGRAMS
466 --------------------------
468 There is a freestanding Perl script called "listtests" that scans the test
469 scripts and outputs a list of all the tests, with a short descriptive comment
470 for each one. Special requirements for groups of tests are also noted.
472 The main runtest script makes use of a second Perl script and some compiled C
475 patchexim A Perl script that makes a patched version of Exim (see the
476 next section for details).
478 bin/cf A text comparison program (see above).
480 bin/checkaccess A program that is run as root; it changes uid/gid to the
481 Exim user and group, and then checks that it can access
482 files in the test suite's directory.
484 bin/client A script-driven SMTP client simulation.
486 bin/client-gnutls A script-driven SMTP client simulation with GnuTLS support.
487 This is built only if GnuTLS support is detected on the host.
489 bin/client-ssl A script-driven SMTP client simulation with OpenSSL support.
490 This is built only if OpenSSL support is detected on the
493 bin/fakens A fake "nameserver" for DNS tests (see below for details).
495 bin/fd A program that outputs details of open file descriptors.
497 bin/iefbr14 A program that does nothing, and returns 0. It's just like
498 the "true" command, but it is in a known place.
500 bin/loaded Some dynamically loaded functions for testing dlfunc support.
502 bin/mtpscript A script-driven SMTP/LMTP server simulation, on std{in,out}.
504 bin/server A script-driven SMTP server simulation, over a socket.
506 bin/showids Output the current uid, gid, euid, egid.
508 The runtest script also makes use of a number of ordinary commands such as
509 "cp", "kill", "more", and "rm", via the system() call. In some cases these are
510 run as root by means of sudo.
513 STANDARD SUBSTITUTIONS
514 ----------------------
516 In the following sections, there are several references to the "standard
517 substitutions". These make changes to some of the stored files when they are
518 used in a test. To save repetition, the substitutions themselves are documented
521 CALLER is replaced by the login name of the user running the tests
522 CALLERGROUP is replaced by the caller's group id
523 CALLER_GID is replaced by the caller's group id
524 CALLER_UID is replaced by the caller's user id
525 DIR is replaced by the name of the test-suite directory
526 EXIMGROUP is replaced by the name of the Exim group
527 EXIMUSER is replaced by the name of the Exim user
528 HOSTIPV4 is replaced by the local host's IPv4 address
529 HOSTIPV6 is replaced by the local host's IPv6 address
530 HOSTNAME is replaced by the local host's name
531 PORT_D is replaced by a port number for normal daemon use
532 PORT_N is replaced by a port number that should never respond
533 PORT_S is replaced by a port number for normal bin/server use
534 TESTNUM is replaced by the current test number
535 V4NET is replaced by an IPv4 network number for testing
536 V6NET is replaced by an IPv6 network number for testing
538 PORT_D is currently hard-wired to 1225, PORT_N to 1223, and PORT_S to 1224.
539 V4NET is hardwired to 224 and V6NET to ff00. These networks are used for DNS
540 testing purposes, and for testing Exim with -bh. The only requirement is that
541 they are networks that can never be used for an IP address of a real host. I've
542 chosen two multicast networks for the moment.
544 If the host has no IPv6 address, "<no IPv6 address found>" is substituted but
545 that does not matter because no IPv6 tests will be run. A similar substitution
546 is made if there is no IPv4 address, and again, tests that actually require a
547 running IPv4 interface should be skipped.
549 If the host has more than one IPv4 or IPv6 address, the first one that
550 "ifconfig" lists is used. If the only available address is 127.0.0.1 (or ::1
551 for IPv6) it is used, but another value is preferred if available.
553 In situations where a specific test is not being run (for example, when setting
554 up dynamic data files), TESTNUM is replaced by an empty string, but should not
555 in fact occur in such files.
561 Each numbered script runs Exim (sometimes several times) with its own Exim
562 configuration file. The configurations are stored in the "confs" directory,
563 and before running each test, a copy of the appropriate configuration, with the
564 standard substitutions, is made in the file test-config. The -C command line
565 option is used to tell Exim to use this configuration.
567 The -D option is used to pass the path of the Exim binary to the configuration.
568 This is not standardly substituted, because there are two possible binaries
569 that might be used in the same test (one setuid to root, the other to the exim
570 user). Some tests also make use of -D to vary the configuration for different
571 calls to the Exim binary.
573 Normally, of course, Exim gives up root privilege when -C and -D are used by
574 unprivileged users. We do not want this to happen when running the tests,
575 because we want to be able to test all aspects of Exim, including receiving
576 mail from unprivileged users. The way this is handled is as follows:
578 At the start of the runtest script, the patchexim script is run as root. This
579 script makes a copy of the Exim binary that is to be tested, patching it as it
580 does so. (This is a binary patch, not a source patch.) The patch causes the
581 binary, when run, to "know" that it is running in the test harness. It does not
582 give up root privilege when -C and -D are used, and in a few places it takes
583 other special actions, such as delaying when starting a subprocess to allow
584 debug output from the parent to be written first. If you want to know more,
585 grep the Exim source files for "running_in_test_harness".
587 The patched binary is placed in the directory eximdir/exim and given the normal
588 setuid root privilege. This is, of course, a dangerous binary to have lying
589 around, especially if there are unprivileged users on the system. To protect
590 it, the eximdir directory is created with the current user as owner, exim as
591 the group owner, and with access drwx--x---. Thus, only the user who is running
592 the tests (who is known to have access to root) and the exim user have access
593 to the modified Exim binary. When runtest terminates, the patched binary is
596 Each set of tests proceeds by interpreting its controlling script. The scripts
597 are in subdirectories of the "scripts" directory. They are split up according
598 to the requirements of the tests they contain, with the 0000-Basic directory
599 containing tests that can always be run. Run the "listtests" script to obtain a
606 Output from script runs is written to the files test-stdout and test-stderr.
607 When an Exim server is involved, test-stdout-server and test-stderr-server are
608 used for its output. Before being compared with the saved output, the
609 non-server and server files are concatenated, so a single saved file contains
612 A directory called spool is used for Exim's spool files, and for Exim logs.
613 These locations are specified in every test's configuration file.
615 When messages are delivered to files, the files are put in the test-mail
616 directory. Output from comparisons is written to test-cf.
618 Before comparisons are done, output texts are modified ("munged") to change or
619 remove parts that are expected to vary from run to run. The modified files all
620 end with the suffix "-munged". Thus, you will see test-stdout-munged,
621 test-mainlog-munged, test-mail-munged, and so on. Other files whose names start
622 with "test-" are created and used by some of the tests.
624 At the end of a successful test run, the spool directory and all the files
625 whose names begin with "test-" are removed. If the run ends unsuccessfully
626 (typically after a "Q" response to a prompt), the spool and test files are left
627 in existence so that the problem can be investigated.
633 Each test script consists of a list of commands, each optionally preceded by
634 comments (lines starting with #) and (also optionally) a line containing an
635 expected return code. Some of the commands are followed by data lines
636 terminated by a line of four asterisks.
638 The first line of each script must be a comment that briefly describes the
641 # -bS Use of HELO/RSET
643 A line consisting just of digits is interpreted as the expected return code
644 for the command that follows. The default expectation when no such line exists
645 is a zero return code. For example, here is a complete test script, containing
648 # -bS Unexpected EOF in headers
651 mail from:<someone@some.where>
652 rcpt to:<blackhole@HOSTNAME>
657 The expected return code in this case is 1, and the data lines are passed to
658 Exim on its standard input. Both the command line and the data lines have the
659 standard substitions applied to them. Thus, HOSTNAME in the example above will
660 be replaced by the local host's name. Long commands can be continued over
661 several lines by using \ as a continuation character. This does *not* apply to
664 Here follows a list of supported commands. They can be divided into two groups:
667 Commands with no input
668 ----------------------
670 These commands are not followed by any input data, or by a line of asterisks.
673 dbmbuild <file1> <file1>
675 This command runs the exim_dbmbuild utility to build a DBM file. It is used
676 only when DBM support is available in Exim, and typically follows the use of a
677 "write" command (see below) that creates the input file.
682 This command runs the exim_dumpdb utility on the testing spool directory, using
683 the database name given, for example: "dumpdb retry".
688 The text is written to the screen; this is used to output comments from
692 exim_lock [options] <file name>
694 This command runs the exim_lock utility with the given options and file name.
695 The file remains locked with the following command (normally exim) is obeyed.
700 This command runs the exinext utility with the given argument data.
705 This command runs the exigrep utility with the given data (the search pattern)
706 on the current mainlog file.
711 This command is present at the start of all but one of the tests that use
712 GnuTLS. It copies a pre-existing parameter file into the spool directory, so
713 that Exim does not have to re-create the file each time. The first GnuTLS test
714 does not do this, in order to test that Exim can create the file.
719 This command must be given in any script that starts an Exim daemon, normally
720 at the end. It searches for the PID file in the spool directory, and sends a
721 SIGINT signal to the Exim daemon process whose PID it finds. See below for
722 comments about starting Exim daemons.
727 This command causes the script to sleep for m milliseconds. Nothing is output
733 This command requests custom munging of the test outputs. The munge names
734 used are coded in the runtest script.
739 This command must be at the head of a script. If no IPv4 interface has been
740 found, the entire script is skipped, and a comment is output.
745 This command must be at the head of a script. If no IPv6 interface has been
746 found, the entire script is skipped, and a comment is output.
751 This command must be at the head of a script. If the Exim binary does not
752 suppport large files (off_t is <= 4), the entire script is skipped, and a
756 need_move_frozen_messages
758 This command must be at the head of a script. If the Exim binary does not have
759 support for moving frozen messages (which is an optional feature), the entire
760 script is skipped, and a comment is output.
765 If this command is encountered anywhere in the script, messages that are
766 delivered when the script runs are not compared with saved versions.
771 If this command is encountered anywhere in the script, message log files that
772 are still in existence at the end of the run (for messages that were not
773 delivered) are not compared with saved versions.
778 If this command is encountered anywhere in the script, the stderr output from
779 the run is not compared with a saved version.
784 If this command is encountered anywhere in the script, the stdout output from
785 the run is not compared with a saved version.
790 This command indicates that the script is for a certain type of filter test, in
791 which there are a lot of repetitive stdout lines that get in the way, because
792 filter tests output data about the sender and recipient. Such lines are removed
793 from the stdout output before comparing, for ease of human perusal.
798 This command causes the script to sleep for n seconds. If n is greater than
799 one, "sleep <n>" is output to the screen, followed by a dot for every second
805 This command causes special sorting to occur on the mainlog file before
806 comparison. Every sequence of contiguous delivery lines (lines containing the
807 => -> or *> flags) is sorted. This is necessary in some tests that use parallel
808 deliveries because on different systems the processes may terminate in a
812 A number of standard file management commands are also recognized. These are
813 cat, chmod, chown, cp, du, ln, ls, du, mkdir, mkfifo, rm, rmdir, and touch.
814 Some are run as root using "sudo".
820 The remaining commands are followed by data lines for their standard input,
821 terminated by four asterisks. Even if no data is required for the particular
822 usage, the asterisks must be given.
825 catwrite <file name> [nxm[=start-of-line-text]]*
827 This command operates like the "write" command, which is described below,
828 except that the data it generates is copied to the end of the test-stdout file
829 as well as to the named file.
833 client [<options>] <ip address> <port> [<outgoing interface>]
835 This command runs the auxiliary "client" program that simulates an SMTP client.
836 It is controlled by a script read from its standard input, details of which are
837 given below. There are two options. One is -t, which must be followed directly
838 by a number, to specify the command timeout in seconds (e.g. -t5). The default
839 timeout is 1 second. The other option is -tls-on-connect, which causes the
840 client to try to start up a TLS session as soon as it has connected, without
841 using the STARTTLS command. The client program connects to the given IP address
842 and port, using the specified interface, if one is given.
845 client-ssl [<options>] <ip address> <port> [<outgoing interface>] \
846 [<cert file>] [<key file>]
848 When OpenSSL is available on the host, an alternative version of the client
849 program is compiled, one that supports TLS using OpenSSL. The additional
850 arguments specify a certificate and key file when required for the connection.
851 There are two additional options: -tls-on-connect, that causes the client to
852 initiate TLS negociation immediately on connection; -ocsp that causes the TLS
853 negotiation to include a certificate-status request. The latter takes a
854 filename argument, the CA info for verifying the stapled response.
857 client-gnutls [<options>] <ip address> <port> [<outgoing interface>] \
858 [<cert file>] [<key file>]
860 When GnuTLS is available on the host, an alternative version of the client
861 program is compiled, one that supports TLS using GnuTLS. The additional
862 arguments specify a certificate and key file when required. There is one
863 additional option, -tls-on-connect, that causes the client to initiate TLS
864 negotiation immediately on connection.
867 exim [<options>] [<arguments>]
869 This command runs the testing version of Exim. Any occurrence of "$msg1" in the
870 command line is replaced by the ID of the first (oldest) message in Exim's
871 (testing) spool. "$msg2" refers to the second, and so on. The name "exim" can
872 be preceded by an environment setting as in this example:
874 LDAPTLS_REQCERT=never exim -be
876 It can also be preceded by a number; this specifies a number of seconds to wait
877 before closing the stdout pipe to Exim, and is used for some timeout tests. For
882 Finally, "exim" can be preceded by "sudo", to run Exim as root. If more than
883 one of these prefixes is present, they must be in the above order.
886 exim_exim [<options>] [<arguments>]
888 This runs an alternative version of Exim that is setuid to exim rather than to
892 server [<options>] <port or socket> [<connection count>]
894 This command runs the auxiliary "server" program that simulates an SMTP (or
895 other) server. It is controlled by a script that is read from its standard
896 input, details of which are given below. A number of options are implemented:
898 -d causes the server to output debugging information
900 -t sets a timeout in seconds (default 5) for when the server is
901 awaiting an incoming connection
903 -noipv4 causes the server not to set up an IPv4 socket
905 -noipv6 causes the server not to set up an IPv6 socket
907 By default, in an IPv6 environment, both kinds of socket are set up. However,
908 the test script knows which interfaces actually exist on the host, and it adds
909 -noipv4 or -noipv6 to the server command as required. An error occurs if both
910 these options are given.
912 The only required argument is either a port number or the path name of a Unix
913 domain socket. The port is normally PORT_S, which is changed to an actual
914 number by the standard substitutions. The optional final argument specifies the
915 number of different connections to expect (default 1). These must happen
916 serially (one at a time). There is no support for multiple simultaneous
917 connections. Here are some example commands:
920 server -t 10 PORT_S 3
921 server /tmp/somesocket
923 The following lines, up to a line of four asterisks, are the server's
924 controlling standard input (described below). These lines are read and
925 remembered; during the following commands, until an "exim" command is reached,
926 the server is run in parallel.
929 write <file name> [nxm[=start-of-line-text]]*
931 The "write" command is a way of creating files of specific sizes for buffering
932 tests, or containing specific data lines. Being able to do this from within the
933 script saves holding lots of little test files. The optional argument specifies
934 n lines of length m. The lines consist of the letter "a". If start of line text
935 is supplied, it replaces "a"s at the start of each line. Underscores in the
936 start of line text are turned into spaces. The optional argument may be
937 repeated. The data lines that follow a "write" command are split into two by a
938 line of four plus signs. Any above the split are written before the
939 fixed-length lines, and any below the split are written after. For example:
941 write test-data 3x30=AB_ 1x50
949 This command generates a file containing:
953 AB aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
954 AB aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
955 AB aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
956 aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
960 If there are no fixed-length line specifiers, there is no need to split the
961 data, and a line of plusses is not needed.
966 This command runs Perl, with the data as its standard input, to allow arbitrary
967 one-off things to be done.
973 Lines in client scripts are of two kinds:
975 (1) If a line begins with three question marks and a space, the rest of the
976 line defines the start of expected output from the server. If what is
977 received does not match, the client bombs out with an error message.
979 (2) If a line starts with three plus signs followed by a space, the rest of the
980 line specifies a number of seconds to sleep for before proceeding.
982 (3) Otherwise, the line is an input line line that is sent to the server. Any
983 occurrences of \r and \n in the line are turned into carriage return and
984 linefeed, respectively. This is used for testing PIPELINING.
986 Here is a simple example:
988 client 127.0.0.1 PORT_D
993 AUTH PLAIN AbdXi0AdnD2CVy
999 In the case of client-gnutls and client-ssl, if a command is "starttls", this
1000 is remembered, and after a subsequent OK response, an attempt to move into TLS
1001 mode occurs. If a command is "starttls_wait", the client sends "starttls" but
1002 does not start up TLS; this is for testing timeouts. If a command is "stoptls",
1003 an existing TLS connection is shut down, but nothing is sent.
1009 The server program sleeps till a connection occurs or its timeout is reached,
1010 in which case it bombs out. The next set of command lines are interpreted. They
1011 are of the following kinds:
1013 (1) A line that starts with '>' or with a digit is an output line that is sent
1014 to the client. In the case of '>':
1016 (a) If the line starts with ">>", no terminating CRLF is sent.
1017 (b) If the line starts with ">CR>", just CR is sent at the end.
1018 (c) If the line starts with ">LF>", just LF is sent at the end.
1019 (d) If the line starts with ">*eof", nothing is sent and the connection
1022 The data that is sent starts after the initial '>' sequence.
1024 (2) A line that starts with "*sleep" specifies a number of seconds to wait
1027 (3) A line containing "*eof" specifies that the client is expected to close
1028 the connection at this point.
1030 (4) A line containing just '.' specifies that the client is expected to send
1031 many lines, terminated by one that contains just a dot.
1033 (5) Otherwise, the line defines the start of an input line that the client
1034 is expected to send. To allow for lines that start with digits, the line
1035 may start with '<', which is not taken as part of the input data. If the
1036 input does not match, the server bombs out with an error message.
1038 Here is a simple example of server use in a test script:
1056 After a "server" command in a test script, the server runs in parallel until an
1057 "exim" command is reached. The "exim" command attempts to deliver one or more
1058 messages to port PORT_S on the local host. When it has finished, the test
1059 script waits for the "server" process to finish.
1061 The "mtpscript" program is like "server", except that it uses stdin/stdout for
1062 its input and output instead of a script. However, it is not called from test
1063 scripts; instead it is used as the command for pipe transports in some
1064 configurations, to simulate non-socket LMTP servers.
1067 AUXILIARY DATA FILES
1068 --------------------
1070 Many of the tests make use of auxiliary data files. There are two types; those
1071 whose content is fixed, and those whose content needs to be varied according to
1072 the current environment. The former are kept in the directory aux-fixed. The
1073 latter are distributed in the directory aux-var-src, and copied with the
1074 standard substitutions into the directory aux-var at the start of each test
1077 Most of the auxiliary files have names that start with a test number,
1078 indicating that they are specific to that one test. A few fixed files (for
1079 example, some TLS certificates) are used by more than one test, and so their
1080 names are not of this form.
1082 There are also some auxilary DNS zone files, which are described in the next
1086 DNS LOOKUPS AND GETHOSTBYNAME
1087 -----------------------------
1089 The original test suite required special testing zones to be loaded into a
1090 local nameserver. This is no longer a requirement for the new suite. Instead, a
1091 program called fakens is used to simulate a nameserver. When Exim is running in
1092 the test harness, instead of calling res_search() - the normal call to the DNS
1093 resolver - it calls a testing function. This handles a few special names itself
1094 (for compatibility with the old test suite), but otherwise passes the query to
1097 The fakens program consults "zone files" in the directory called dnszones, and
1098 returns data in the standard resource record format for Exim to process as if
1099 it came from the DNS. However, if the requested domain is not in any of the
1100 zones that fakens knows about, it returns a special code that causes Exim to
1101 pass the query on to res_search(). The zone files are:
1103 db.test.ex A zone for the domain test.ex.
1104 db.ip4.10 A zone for one special case in 10.250.0.0/16 (see below)
1105 db.ip4.V4NET A zone for the domain V4NET.in-addr.arpa.
1106 db.ip4.127 A zone for the domain 127.in-addr.arpa.
1107 db.ip6.V6NET A zone for the domain inverted(V6NET).ip6.arpa.
1108 db.ip6.0 A zone for the domain 0.ip6.arpa.
1110 V4NET and V6NET are substituted with the current testing networks (see above).
1111 In the case of V6NET, the network is four hex digits, and it is split and
1112 inverted appropriately when setting up the zone.
1114 These fake zone files are built dynamically from sources in the dnszones-src
1115 directory by applying the standard substitutions. The test suite also builds
1116 dynamic zone files for the name of the current host and its IP address(es). The
1117 idea is that there should not be any need to rely on an external DNS.
1119 The domain names that are handled directly by Exim, without being passed to
1122 test.again.dns This always provokes a TRY_AGAIN response, for testing the
1123 handling of temporary DNS error. If the full domain name
1124 starts with digits, a delay of that many seconds occurs.
1126 test.fail.dns This always provokes a NO_RECOVERY response, for testing
1127 DNS server failures.
1129 This special handling could now be done in the fakens program, but while the
1130 old test suite is still being used it has to be done in Exim itself, so for the
1131 moment it remains there.
1133 The use of gethostbyname() and its IPv6 friends is also subverted when Exim is
1134 running in the test harness. The test code handles a few special names
1135 directly; for all the others it uses DNS lookups, which are then handled as
1136 just described. Thus, the use of /etc/hosts is completely bypassed. The names
1137 that are specially handled are:
1139 manyhome.test.ex This name is used for testing hosts with ridiculously large
1140 numbers of IP addresses; 2048 IP addresses are generated
1141 and returned. Doing it this way saves having to make the
1142 interface to fakens handle more records that can fit in the
1143 data block. The addresses that are generated are in the
1144 10.250.0.0/16 network.
1146 localhost Always returns 127.0.0.1 or ::1, for IPv4 and IPv6 lookups,
1149 <an IP address> If the IP address is of the correct form for the lookup
1150 type (IPv4 or IPv6), it is returned. Otherwise a panic-die
1153 The reverse zone db.ip4.10 is provided just for the manyhome.test.ex case. It
1154 contains a single wildcard resource record. It also contains the line
1158 Whenever fakens finds this line in a zone file, it returns PASS_ON instead of
1159 HOST_NOT_FOUND. This causes Exim to pass the query to res_search().