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 (3) The login under which you run the tests must be in the exim group so that
73 it has access to logs, spool files, etc. The login should not be one of the
74 names "userx", "usery", "userz", or a few other simple ones such as "abcd"
75 and "xyz" and single letters that are used in the tests. The test suite
76 expects the login to have a gecos name; I think it will now run if the
77 gecos field is empty but there may be anomalies.
79 (4) The directory into which you unpack the test suite must be accessible by
80 the Exim user, so that code running as exim can access the files therein. A
81 world-readable directory is fine. However, there may be problems if the
82 path name of the directory is excessively long. This is because it
83 sometimes appears in log lines or debug output, and if it is truncated, it
84 is no longer recognized.
86 (5) Exim must be built with its user and group specified at build time, and
87 with certain minimum facilities, namely:
89 Routers: accept, dnslookup, manualroute, redirect
90 Transports: appendfile, autoreply, pipe, smtp
93 Most Exim binaries will have these included.
95 (6) A C compiler is needed to build some test programs, and the test script is
96 written in Perl, so you need that.
98 (7) Some of the tests run Exim as a daemon, and others use a testing server
99 (described below). These require TCP ports. In the configurations and
100 scripts, the ports are parameterized, but at present, fixed values are
101 written into the controlling script. These are ports 1224 to 1229. If these
102 ports are not available for use, some of the tests will fail.
104 (8) There is an underlying assumption that the host on which the tests are
105 being run has an IPv4 address (which the test script seeks out). If there
106 is also an IPv6 address, additional tests are run when the Exim binary
107 contains IPv6 support. There are checks in the scripts for a running IPv4
108 interface; when one is not found, some tests are skipped (with a warning
111 (9) Exim must be built with TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST support, so that the test
112 configs can be placed into it. DISABLE_D_OPTION must not be used. If
113 ALT_CONFIG_PREFIX is used, it must contain the directory of the test-suite.
114 WHITELIST_D_MACROS should contain:
116 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
123 If the Exim binary that is being tested contains extra functionality in
124 addition to the minimum specified above, additional tests are run to exercise
125 the extra functionality, except for a few special cases such as the databases
126 (MySQL, PostgreSQL, LDAP) where special data is needed for the tests.
129 RUNNING THE TEST SUITE
130 ----------------------
132 (1) Download the tarball exim-testsuite-x.xx.tar.bz2 and unpack it, preferably
133 in a directory alongside an Exim source directory (see below).
135 (2) cd into the exim-testsuite-x.xx directory.
137 (3) Run "./configure" and then "make". This builds a few auxiliary programs
138 that are written in C.
140 (4) ls -1 $PWD/confs/* >> your_TRUSTED_CONFIG_LIST_filename
142 (5) Run "./runtest" (a Perl script) as described below.
144 (6) If you want to see what tests are available, run "./listtests".
147 BREAKING OUT OF THE TEST SCRIPT
148 -------------------------------
150 If you abandon the test run by typing ^C, the interrupt may be passed to a
151 program that the script is running, or it may be passed to the script itself.
152 In the former case, the script should detect that the program has ended
153 abnormally. In both cases, the script tries to clean up everything, including
154 killing any Exim daemons that it has started. However, there may be race
155 conditions in which the clean up does not happen. If, after breaking out of a
156 run, you see strange errors in the next run, look for any left-over Exim
157 daemons, and kill them by hand.
163 The individual test scripts are in subdirectories of the "scripts" directory.
164 If you do not supply any arguments to ./listtests, it scans all the scripts in
165 all the directories, and outputs the heading line from each script. The output
166 is piped through "less", and begins like this:
169 Basic/0001 Basic configuration setting
170 Basic/0002 Common string expansions
171 Basic/0003 Caseless address blocking
174 Lines that start === give the name of the subdirectory containing the test
175 scripts that follow. If you supply an argument to ./listtests, it is used as a
176 Perl pattern to match case-independently against the names of the
177 subdirectories. Only those that match are scanned. For example, "./listtests
180 === 1000-Basic-ipv6 ===
181 === Requires: support IPv6
182 Basic-ipv6/1000 -bh and non-canonical IPv6 addresses
183 Basic-ipv6/1001 recognizing IPv6 address in HELO/EHLO
185 === 2250-dnsdb-ipv6 ===
186 === Requires: support IPv6
188 dnsdb-ipv6/2250 dnsdb ipv6 lookup in string expansions
190 If you supply a second argument to ./listtests, it is used as a Perl pattern to
191 match case-independently against the individual script titles. For example,
192 "./listtests . mx" lists all tests whose titles contain "mx", because "."
193 matches all the subdirectory names.
199 If you do not supply any arguments to ./runtest, it searches for an Exim
200 source tree at the same level as the test suite directory. It then looks for an
201 Exim binary in a "build" directory of that source tree. If there are several
202 Exim source trees, it chooses the latest version of Exim. Consider the
206 exim-4.60/ exim-4.62/ exim-testsuite-x.xx/
208 A simple ./runtest from within the test suite will use a 4.62 binary if it
209 finds one, otherwise a 4.60 binary. If a binary cannot be found, the script
210 prompts for one. Alternatively, you can supply the binary on the command line:
212 ./runtest /usr/exim/bin/exim
214 A matching test suite is released with each Exim release; if you use a test
215 suite that does not match the binary, some tests may fail.
217 The test suite uses some of the Exim utilities (such as exim_dbmbuild), and it
218 expects to find them in the same directory as Exim itself. If they are not
219 found, the tests that use them are omitted. A suitable comment is output.
221 On the ./runtest command line, following the name of the binary, if present,
222 there may be a number of options and then one or two numbers. The full syntax
225 ./runtest [binary name] [runtest options] [exim options] \
226 [first test] [last test]
228 There are some options for the ./runtest script itself:
230 -DEBUG This option is for debugging the test script. It causes some
231 tracing information to be output.
233 -DIFF By default, file comparisons are done using a private compare
234 command called "cf", which is built from source that is provided in
235 the src directory. This is a command I've had for nearly 20 years -
236 look at the source comments for its history - whose output I
237 prefer. However, if you want to use "diff" instead, give -DIFF as a
238 runtest option. In that case, "diff -u" is used for comparisons.
239 (If it turns out that most people prefer to use diff, I'll change
242 -KEEP Normally, after a successful run, the test output files are
243 deleted. This option prevents this. It is useful when running a
244 single test, in order to look at the actual output before it is
245 modified for comparison with saved output.
247 -NOIPV4 Pretend that an IPv4 interface was not found. This is useful for
248 testing that the test suite correctly skips tests that require
249 a running IPv4 interface.
251 -NOIPV6 Pretend that an IPv6 interface was not found. This is useful for
252 testing that the test suite correctly skips tests that require
253 a running IPv6 interface.
255 -UPDATE If this option is set, any detected changes in test output are
256 automatically accepted and used to update the stored copies of the
257 output. It is a dangerous option, but it useful for the test suite
258 maintainer after making a change to the code that affects a lot of
259 tests (for example, the wording of a message).
261 The options for ./runtest must be given first (but after the name of the
262 binary, if present). Any further options, that is, items on the command line
263 that start with a hyphen, are passed to the Exim binary when it is run as part
264 of a test. The only sensible use of this is to pass "-d" in order to run a test
265 with debugging enabled. Any other options are likely to conflict with options
266 that are set in the tests. Some tests are already set up to run with debugging.
267 In these cases, -d on the command line overrides their own debug settings.
269 The final two arguments specify the range of tests to be run. Test numbers lie
270 in the range 1 to 9999. If no numbers are given, the defaults are 1 and 8999
271 (sic). Tests with higher numbers (9000 upwards) are not run automatically
272 because they require specific data (such as a particular MySQL table) that is
273 unlikely to be generally available.
275 Tests that require certain optional features of Exim are grouped by number, so
276 in any given range, not all the tests will exist. Non-existent tests are just
277 skipped, but if there are no tests at all in the given range, a message is
280 If you give only one number, just that test is run (if it exists). Instead of a
281 second number, you can give the character "+", which is interpreted as "to the
282 end". Normally this is 8999; if the starting number is 9000 or higher, "+" is
283 interpreted as 9999. Examples:
287 ./runtest /usr/sbin/exim 5000 +
288 ./runtest -DIFF -d 81
290 When the script starts up, the first thing it does is to check that you have
291 sudo access to root. Then it outputs the version number of the Exim binary that
292 it is testing, and also information about the optional facilities that are
293 present (obtained from "exim -bV"). This is followed by some environmental
294 information, including the current login id and the hosts's IP address. The
295 script checks that the current user is in the Exim group, and that the Exim
296 user has access to the test suite directory.
298 The script outputs the list of tests requested, and a list of tests that will
299 be omitted because the relevant optional facilities are not in the binary. You
300 are then invited to press Return to start the tests running.
306 When all goes well, the only permanent output is the identity of the tests as
307 they are run, and "Script completed" for each test script, for example:
309 Basic/0001 Basic configuration setting
311 Basic/0002 Basic string expansions
313 Basic/0003 Caseless address blocking
315 Basic/0004 Caseful address blocking
317 Basic/0005 -bs to simple local delivery
320 While a script is running, it shows "Test n" on the screen, for each of the
321 Exim tests within the script. There may also be comments from some tests when a
322 delay is expected, for example, if there is a "sleep" while testing a timeout.
324 Before each set of optional tests, an extra identifying line is output. For
327 >>> The following tests require: authenticator cram_md5
328 CRAM-MD5/2500 CRAM-MD5 server tests
330 CRAM-MD5/2501 CRAM-MD5 client tests
333 If a test fails, you are shown the output of the text comparison that failed,
334 and prompted as to what to do next. The output is shown using the "less"
335 command, or "more" if "less" is not available. The options for "less" are set
336 to that it automatically exits if there is less that a screenful of output. By
337 default, the output is from the "cf" program, and might look like this:
339 DBM/1300 DBM files and exim_dbmbuild
341 Lines 7-9 of "test-stdout-munged" do not match lines 7-11 of "stdout/1300".
343 exim_dbmbuild exit code = 1
344 Continued set of lines is too long: max permitted length is 99999
345 exim_dbmbuild exit code = 1
348 exim_dbmbuild exit code = 2
349 Continued set of lines is too long: max permitted length is 99999
351 exim_dbmbuild exit code = 2
354 "test-stdout-munged" contains 16 lines; "stdout/1300" contains 18 lines.
356 Continue, Update & retry, Quit? [Q]
358 This example was generated by running the test with a version of Exim
359 that had a bug in the exim_dbmbuild utility (the bug was fixed at release
360 4.53). See "How the tests work" below for a description of the files that are
361 used. In this case, the standard output differed from what was expected.
363 The reply to the prompt must either be empty, in which case it takes the
364 default that is given in brackets (in this case Q), or a single letter, in
365 upper or lower case (in this case, one of C, U, or Q). If you type anything
366 else, the prompt is repeated.
368 "Continue" carries on as if the files had matched; that is, it ignores the
369 mismatch. Any other output files for the same test will be compared before
370 moving on to the next test.
372 "Update & retry" copies the new file to the saved file, and reruns the test
373 after doing any further comparisons that may be necessary.
375 Other circumstances give rise to other prompts. If a test generates output for
376 which there is no saved data, the prompt (after a message stating which file is
377 unexpectely not empty) is:
379 Continue, Show, or Quit? [Q]
381 "Show" displays the data on the screen, and then you get the "Continue..."
382 prompt. If a test ends with an unexpected return code, the prompt is:
384 show stdErr, show stdOut, Continue (without file comparison), or Quit? [Q]
386 Typically in these cases there will be something interesting in the stderr
387 or stdout output. There is a similar prompt after the "server" auxiliary
391 OPENSSL AND GNUTLS ERROR MESSAGES
392 ---------------------------------
394 Some of the TLS tests deliberately cause errors to check how Exim handles them.
395 It has been observed that different releases of the OpenSSL and GnuTLS
396 libraries generate different error messages. This may cause the comparison with
397 the saved output to fail. Such errors can be ignored.
403 . Some of the tests are time-sensitive (e.g. when testing timeouts, as in test
404 461). These may fail if run on a host that is also running a lot of other
407 . Some versions of "ls" use a different format for times and dates. This can
408 cause test 345 to fail.
410 . Test 0142 tests open file descriptors; on some hosts the output may vary.
413 OTHER SCRIPTS AND PROGRAMS
414 --------------------------
416 There is a freestanding Perl script called "listtests" that scans the test
417 scripts and outputs a list of all the tests, with a short descriptive comment
418 for each one. Special requirements for groups of tests are also noted.
420 The main runtest script makes use of a second Perl script and some compiled C
423 patchexim A Perl script that makes a patched version of Exim (see the
424 next section for details).
426 bin/cf A text comparison program (see above).
428 bin/checkaccess A program that is run as root; it changes uid/gid to the
429 Exim user and group, and then checks that it can access
430 files in the test suite's directory.
432 bin/client A script-driven SMTP client simulation.
434 bin/client-gnutls A script-driven SMTP client simulation with GnuTLS support.
435 This is built only if GnuTLS support is detected on the host.
437 bin/client-ssl A script-driven SMTP client simulation with OpenSSL support.
438 This is built only if OpenSSL support is detected on the
441 bin/fakens A fake "nameserver" for DNS tests (see below for details).
443 bin/fd A program that outputs details of open file descriptors.
445 bin/iefbr14 A program that does nothing, and returns 0. It's just like
446 the "true" command, but it is in a known place.
448 bin/loaded Some dynamically loaded functions for testing dlfunc support.
450 bin/mtpscript A script-driven SMTP/LMTP server simulation, on std{in,out}.
452 bin/server A script-driven SMTP server simulation, over a socket.
454 bin/showids Output the current uid, gid, euid, egid.
456 The runtest script also makes use of a number of ordinary commands such as
457 "cp", "kill", "more", and "rm", via the system() call. In some cases these are
458 run as root by means of sudo.
461 STANDARD SUBSTITUTIONS
462 ----------------------
464 In the following sections, there are several references to the "standard
465 substitutions". These make changes to some of the stored files when they are
466 used in a test. To save repetition, the substitutions themselves are documented
469 CALLER is replaced by the login name of the user running the tests
470 CALLERGROUP is replaced by the caller's group id
471 CALLER_GID is replaced by the caller's group id
472 CALLER_UID is replaced by the caller's user id
473 DIR is replaced by the name of the test-suite directory
474 EXIMGROUP is replaced by the name of the Exim group
475 EXIMUSER is replaced by the name of the Exim user
476 HOSTIPV4 is replaced by the local host's IPv4 address
477 HOSTIPV6 is replaced by the local host's IPv6 address
478 HOSTNAME is replaced by the local host's name
479 PORT_D is replaced by a port number for normal daemon use
480 PORT_N is replaced by a port number that should never respond
481 PORT_S is replaced by a port number for normal bin/server use
482 TESTNUM is replaced by the current test number
483 V4NET is replaced by an IPv4 network number for testing
484 V6NET is replaced by an IPv6 network number for testing
486 PORT_D is currently hard-wired to 1225, PORT_N to 1223, and PORT_S to 1224.
487 V4NET is hardwired to 224 and V6NET to ff00. These networks are used for DNS
488 testing purposes, and for testing Exim with -bh. The only requirement is that
489 they are networks that can never be used for an IP address of a real host. I've
490 chosen two multicast networks for the moment.
492 If the host has no IPv6 address, "<no IPv6 address found>" is substituted but
493 that does not matter because no IPv6 tests will be run. A similar substitution
494 is made if there is no IPv4 address, and again, tests that actually require a
495 running IPv4 interface should be skipped.
497 If the host has more than one IPv4 or IPv6 address, the first one that
498 "ifconfig" lists is used. If the only available address is 127.0.0.1 (or ::1
499 for IPv6) it is used, but another value is preferred if available.
501 In situations where a specific test is not being run (for example, when setting
502 up dynamic data files), TESTNUM is replaced by an empty string, but should not
503 in fact occur in such files.
509 Each numbered script runs Exim (sometimes several times) with its own Exim
510 configuration file. The configurations are stored in the "confs" directory,
511 and before running each test, a copy of the appropriate configuration, with the
512 standard substitutions, is made in the file test-config. The -C command line
513 option is used to tell Exim to use this configuration.
515 The -D option is used to pass the path of the Exim binary to the configuration.
516 This is not standardly substituted, because there are two possible binaries
517 that might be used in the same test (one setuid to root, the other to the exim
518 user). Some tests also make use of -D to vary the configuration for different
519 calls to the Exim binary.
521 Normally, of course, Exim gives up root privilege when -C and -D are used by
522 unprivileged users. We do not want this to happen when running the tests,
523 because we want to be able to test all aspects of Exim, including receiving
524 mail from unprivileged users. The way this is handled is as follows:
526 At the start of the runtest script, the patchexim script is run as root. This
527 script makes a copy of the Exim binary that is to be tested, patching it as it
528 does so. (This is a binary patch, not a source patch.) The patch causes the
529 binary, when run, to "know" that it is running in the test harness. It does not
530 give up root privilege when -C and -D are used, and in a few places it takes
531 other special actions, such as delaying when starting a subprocess to allow
532 debug output from the parent to be written first. If you want to know more,
533 grep the Exim source files for "running_in_test_harness".
535 The patched binary is placed in the directory eximdir/exim and given the normal
536 setuid root privilege. This is, of course, a dangerous binary to have lying
537 around, especially if there are unprivileged users on the system. To protect
538 it, the eximdir directory is created with the current user as owner, exim as
539 the group owner, and with access drwx--x---. Thus, only the user who is running
540 the tests (who is known to have access to root) and the exim user have access
541 to the modified Exim binary. When runtest terminates, the patched binary is
544 Each set of tests proceeds by interpreting its controlling script. The scripts
545 are in subdirectories of the "scripts" directory. They are split up according
546 to the requirements of the tests they contain, with the 0000-Basic directory
547 containing tests that can always be run. Run the "listtests" script to obtain a
554 Output from script runs is written to the files test-stdout and test-stderr.
555 When an Exim server is involved, test-stdout-server and test-stderr-server are
556 used for its output. Before being compared with the saved output, the
557 non-server and server files are concatenated, so a single saved file contains
560 A directory called spool is used for Exim's spool files, and for Exim logs.
561 These locations are specified in every test's configuration file.
563 When messages are delivered to files, the files are put in the test-mail
564 directory. Output from comparisons is written to test-cf.
566 Before comparisons are done, output texts are modified ("munged") to change or
567 remove parts that are expected to vary from run to run. The modified files all
568 end with the suffix "-munged". Thus, you will see test-stdout-munged,
569 test-mainlog-munged, test-mail-munged, and so on. Other files whose names start
570 with "test-" are created and used by some of the tests.
572 At the end of a successful test run, the spool directory and all the files
573 whose names begin with "test-" are removed. If the run ends unsuccessfully
574 (typically after a "Q" response to a prompt), the spool and test files are left
575 in existence so that the problem can be investigated.
581 Each test script consists of a list of commands, each optionally preceded by
582 comments (lines starting with #) and (also optionally) a line containing an
583 expected return code. Some of the commands are followed by data lines
584 terminated by a line of four asterisks.
586 The first line of each script must be a comment that briefly describes the
589 # -bS Use of HELO/RSET
591 A line consisting just of digits is interpreted as the expected return code
592 for the command that follows. The default expectation when no such line exists
593 is a zero return code. For example, here is a complete test script, containing
596 # -bS Unexpected EOF in headers
599 mail from:<someone@some.where>
600 rcpt to:<blackhole@HOSTNAME>
605 The expected return code in this case is 1, and the data lines are passed to
606 Exim on its standard input. Both the command line and the data lines have the
607 standard substitions applied to them. Thus, HOSTNAME in the example above will
608 be replaced by the local host's name. Long commands can be continued over
609 several lines by using \ as a continuation character. This does *not* apply to
612 Here follows a list of supported commands. They can be divided into two groups:
615 Commands with no input
616 ----------------------
618 These commands are not followed by any input data, or by a line of asterisks.
621 dbmbuild <file1> <file1>
623 This command runs the exim_dbmbuild utility to build a DBM file. It is used
624 only when DBM support is available in Exim, and typically follows the use of a
625 "write" command (see below) that creates the input file.
630 This command runs the exim_dumpdb utility on the testing spool directory, using
631 the database name given, for example: "dumpdb retry".
636 The text is written to the screen; this is used to output comments from
640 exim_lock [options] <file name>
642 This command runs the exim_lock utility with the given options and file name.
643 The file remains locked with the following command (normally exim) is obeyed.
648 This command runs the exinext utility with the given argument data.
653 This command runs the exigrep utility with the given data (the search pattern)
654 on the current mainlog file.
659 This command is present at the start of all but one of the tests that use
660 GnuTLS. It copies a pre-existing parameter file into the spool directory, so
661 that Exim does not have to re-create the file each time. The first GnuTLS test
662 does not do this, in order to test that Exim can create the file.
667 This command must be given in any script that starts an Exim daemon, normally
668 at the end. It searches for the PID file in the spool directory, and sends a
669 SIGINT signal to the Exim daemon process whose PID it finds. See below for
670 comments about starting Exim daemons.
675 This command causes the script to sleep for m milliseconds. Nothing is output
681 This command must be at the head of a script. If no IPv4 interface has been
682 found, the entire script is skipped, and a comment is output.
687 This command must be at the head of a script. If no IPv6 interface has been
688 found, the entire script is skipped, and a comment is output.
693 This command must be at the head of a script. If the Exim binary does not
694 suppport large files (off_t is <= 4), the entire script is skipped, and a
698 need_move_frozen_messages
700 This command must be at the head of a script. If the Exim binary does not have
701 support for moving frozen messages (which is an optional feature), the entire
702 script is skipped, and a comment is output.
707 If this command is encountered anywhere in the script, messages that are
708 delivered when the script runs are not compared with saved versions.
713 If this command is encountered anywhere in the script, message log files that
714 are still in existence at the end of the run (for messages that were not
715 delivered) are not compared with saved versions.
720 If this command is encountered anywhere in the script, the stderr output from
721 the run is not compared with a saved version.
726 If this command is encountered anywhere in the script, the stdout output from
727 the run is not compared with a saved version.
732 This command indicates that the script is for a certain type of filter test, in
733 which there are a lot of repetitive stdout lines that get in the way, because
734 filter tests output data about the sender and recipient. Such lines are removed
735 from the stdout output before comparing, for ease of human perusal.
740 This command causes the script to sleep for n seconds. If n is greater than
741 one, "sleep <n>" is output to the screen, followed by a dot for every second
747 This command causes special sorting to occur on the mainlog file before
748 comparison. Every sequence of contiguous delivery lines (lines containing the
749 => -> or *> flags) is sorted. This is necessary in some tests that use parallel
750 deliveries because on different systems the processes may terminate in a
754 A number of standard file management commands are also recognized. These are
755 cat, chmod, chown, cp, du, ln, ls, du, mkdir, mkfifo, rm, rmdir, and touch.
756 Some are run as root using "sudo".
762 The remaining commands are followed by data lines for their standard input,
763 terminated by four asterisks. Even if no data is required for the particular
764 usage, the asterisks must be given.
767 catwrite <file name> [nxm[=start-of-line-text]]*
769 This command operates like the "write" command, which is described below,
770 except that the data it generates is copied to the end of the test-stdout file
771 as well as to the named file.
775 client [<options>] <ip address> <port> [<outgoing interface>]
777 This command runs the auxiliary "client" program that simulates an SMTP client.
778 It is controlled by a script read from its standard input, details of which are
779 given below. There are two options. One is -t, which must be followed directly
780 by a number, to specify the command timeout in seconds (e.g. -t5). The default
781 timeout is 1 second. The other option is -tls-on-connect, which causes the
782 client to try to start up a TLS session as soon as it has connected, without
783 using the STARTTLS command. The client program connects to the given IP address
784 and port, using the specified interface, if one is given.
787 client-ssl [<options>] <ip address> <port> [<outgoing interface>] \
788 [<cert file>] [<key file>]
790 When OpenSSL is available on the host, an alternative version of the client
791 program is compiled, one that supports TLS using OpenSSL. The additional
792 arguments specify a certificate and key file when required. There is one
793 additional option, -tls-on-connect, that causes the client to initiate TLS
794 negotiation immediately on connection.
797 client-gnutls [<options>] <ip address> <port> [<outgoing interface>] \
798 [<cert file>] [<key file>]
800 When GnuTLS is available on the host, an alternative version of the client
801 program is compiled, one that supports TLS using GnuTLS. The additional
802 arguments specify a certificate and key file when required. There is one
803 additional option, -tls-on-connect, that causes the client to initiate TLS
804 negotiation immediately on connection.
807 exim [<options>] [<arguments>]
809 This command runs the testing version of Exim. Any occurrence of "$msg1" in the
810 command line is replaced by the ID of the first (oldest) message in Exim's
811 (testing) spool. "$msg2" refers to the second, and so on. The name "exim" can
812 be preceded by an environment setting as in this example:
814 LDAPTLS_REQCERT=never exim -be
816 It can also be preceded by a number; this specifies a number of seconds to wait
817 before closing the stdout pipe to Exim, and is used for some timeout tests. For
822 Finally, "exim" can be preceded by "sudo", to run Exim as root. If more than
823 one of these prefixes is present, they must be in the above order.
826 exim_exim [<options>] [<arguments>]
828 This runs an alternative version of Exim that is setuid to exim rather than to
832 server [<options>] <port or socket> [<connection count>]
834 This command runs the auxiliary "server" program that simulates an SMTP (or
835 other) server. It is controlled by a script that is read from its standard
836 input, details of which are given below. A number of options are implemented:
838 -d causes the server to output debugging information
840 -t sets a timeout in seconds (default 5) for when the server is
841 awaiting an incoming connection
843 -noipv4 causes the server not to set up an IPv4 socket
845 -noipv6 causes the server not to set up an IPv6 socket
847 By default, in an IPv6 environment, both kinds of socket are set up. However,
848 the test script knows which interfaces actually exist on the host, and it adds
849 -noipv4 or -noipv6 to the server command as required. An error occurs if both
850 these options are given.
852 The only required argument is either a port number or the path name of a Unix
853 domain socket. The port is normally PORT_S, which is changed to an actual
854 number by the standard substitutions. The optional final argument specifies the
855 number of different connections to expect (default 1). These must happen
856 serially (one at a time). There is no support for multiple simultaneous
857 connections. Here are some example commands:
860 server -t 10 PORT_S 3
861 server /tmp/somesocket
863 The following lines, up to a line of four asterisks, are the server's
864 controlling standard input (described below). These lines are read and
865 remembered; during the following commands, until an "exim" command is reached,
866 the server is run in parallel.
869 write <file name> [nxm[=start-of-line-text]]*
871 The "write" command is a way of creating files of specific sizes for buffering
872 tests, or containing specific data lines. Being able to do this from within the
873 script saves holding lots of little test files. The optional argument specifies
874 n lines of length m. The lines consist of the letter "a". If start of line text
875 is supplied, it replaces "a"s at the start of each line. Underscores in the
876 start of line text are turned into spaces. The optional argument may be
877 repeated. The data lines that follow a "write" command are split into two by a
878 line of four plus signs. Any above the split are written before the
879 fixed-length lines, and any below the split are written after. For example:
881 write test-data 3x30=AB_ 1x50
889 This command generates a file containing:
893 AB aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
894 AB aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
895 AB aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
896 aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
900 If there are no fixed-length line specifiers, there is no need to split the
901 data, and a line of plusses is not needed.
906 This command runs Perl, with the data as its standard input, to allow arbitrary
907 one-off things to be done.
913 Lines in client scripts are of two kinds:
915 (1) If a line begins with three question marks and a space, the rest of the
916 line defines the start of expected output from the server. If what is
917 received does not match, the client bombs out with an error message.
919 (2) If a line starts with three plus signs followed by a space, the rest of the
920 line specifies a number of seconds to sleep for before proceeding.
922 (3) Otherwise, the line is an input line line that is sent to the server. Any
923 occurrences of \r and \n in the line are turned into carriage return and
924 linefeed, respectively. This is used for testing PIPELINING.
926 Here is a simple example:
928 client 127.0.0.1 PORT_D
933 AUTH PLAIN AbdXi0AdnD2CVy
939 In the case of client-gnutls and client-ssl, if a command is "starttls", this
940 is remembered, and after a subsequent OK response, an attempt to move into TLS
941 mode occurs. If a command is "starttls_wait", the client sends "starttls" but
942 does not start up TLS; this is for testing timeouts. If a command is "stoptls",
943 an existing TLS connection is shut down, but nothing is sent.
949 The server program sleeps till a connection occurs or its timeout is reached,
950 in which case it bombs out. The next set of command lines are interpreted. They
951 are of the following kinds:
953 (1) A line that starts with '>' or with a digit is an output line that is sent
954 to the client. In the case of '>':
956 (a) If the line starts with ">>", no terminating CRLF is sent.
957 (b) If the line starts with ">CR>", just CR is sent at the end.
958 (c) If the line starts with ">LF>", just LF is sent at the end.
959 (d) If the line starts with ">*eof", nothing is sent and the connection
962 The data that is sent starts after the initial '>' sequence.
964 (2) A line that starts with "*sleep" specifies a number of seconds to wait
967 (3) A line containing "*eof" specifies that the client is expected to close
968 the connection at this point.
970 (4) A line containing just '.' specifies that the client is expected to send
971 many lines, terminated by one that contains just a dot.
973 (5) Otherwise, the line defines the start of an input line that the client
974 is expected to send. To allow for lines that start with digits, the line
975 may start with '<', which is not taken as part of the input data. If the
976 input does not match, the server bombs out with an error message.
978 Here is a simple example of server use in a test script:
996 After a "server" command in a test script, the server runs in parallel until an
997 "exim" command is reached. The "exim" command attempts to deliver one or more
998 messages to port PORT_S on the local host. When it has finished, the test
999 script waits for the "server" process to finish.
1001 The "mtpscript" program is like "server", except that it uses stdin/stdout for
1002 its input and output instead of a script. However, it is not called from test
1003 scripts; instead it is used as the command for pipe transports in some
1004 configurations, to simulate non-socket LMTP servers.
1007 AUXILIARY DATA FILES
1008 --------------------
1010 Many of the tests make use of auxiliary data files. There are two types; those
1011 whose content is fixed, and those whose content needs to be varied according to
1012 the current environment. The former are kept in the directory aux-fixed. The
1013 latter are distributed in the directory aux-var-src, and copied with the
1014 standard substitutions into the directory aux-var at the start of each test
1017 Most of the auxiliary files have names that start with a test number,
1018 indicating that they are specific to that one test. A few fixed files (for
1019 example, some TLS certificates) are used by more than one test, and so their
1020 names are not of this form.
1022 There are also some auxilary DNS zone files, which are described in the next
1026 DNS LOOKUPS AND GETHOSTBYNAME
1027 -----------------------------
1029 The original test suite required special testing zones to be loaded into a
1030 local nameserver. This is no longer a requirement for the new suite. Instead, a
1031 program called fakens is used to simulate a nameserver. When Exim is running in
1032 the test harness, instead of calling res_search() - the normal call to the DNS
1033 resolver - it calls a testing function. This handles a few special names itself
1034 (for compatibility with the old test suite), but otherwise passes the query to
1037 The fakens program consults "zone files" in the directory called dnszones, and
1038 returns data in the standard resource record format for Exim to process as if
1039 it came from the DNS. However, if the requested domain is not in any of the
1040 zones that fakens knows about, it returns a special code that causes Exim to
1041 pass the query on to res_search(). The zone files are:
1043 db.test.ex A zone for the domain test.ex.
1044 db.ip4.10 A zone for one special case in 10.250.0.0/16 (see below)
1045 db.ip4.V4NET A zone for the domain V4NET.in-addr.arpa.
1046 db.ip4.127 A zone for the domain 127.in-addr.arpa.
1047 db.ip6.V6NET A zone for the domain inverted(V6NET).ip6.arpa.
1048 db.ip6.0 A zone for the domain 0.ip6.arpa.
1050 V4NET and V6NET are substituted with the current testing networks (see above).
1051 In the case of V6NET, the network is four hex digits, and it is split and
1052 inverted appropriately when setting up the zone.
1054 These fake zone files are built dynamically from sources in the dnszones-src
1055 directory by applying the standard substitutions. The test suite also builds
1056 dynamic zone files for the name of the current host and its IP address(es). The
1057 idea is that there should not be any need to rely on an external DNS.
1059 The domain names that are handled directly by Exim, without being passed to
1062 test.again.dns This always provokes a TRY_AGAIN response, for testing the
1063 handling of temporary DNS error. If the full domain name
1064 starts with digits, a delay of that many seconds occurs.
1066 test.fail.dns This always provokes a NO_RECOVERY response, for testing
1067 DNS server failures.
1069 This special handling could now be done in the fakens program, but while the
1070 old test suite is still being used it has to be done in Exim itself, so for the
1071 moment it remains there.
1073 The use of gethostbyname() and its IPv6 friends is also subverted when Exim is
1074 running in the test harness. The test code handles a few special names
1075 directly; for all the others it uses DNS lookups, which are then handled as
1076 just described. Thus, the use of /etc/hosts is completely bypassed. The names
1077 that are specially handled are:
1079 manyhome.test.ex This name is used for testing hosts with ridiculously large
1080 numbers of IP addresses; 2048 IP addresses are generated
1081 and returned. Doing it this way saves having to make the
1082 interface to fakens handle more records that can fit in the
1083 data block. The addresses that are generated are in the
1084 10.250.0.0/16 network.
1086 localhost Always returns 127.0.0.1 or ::1, for IPv4 and IPv6 lookups,
1089 <an IP address> If the IP address is of the correct form for the lookup
1090 type (IPv4 or IPv6), it is returned. Otherwise a panic-die
1093 The reverse zone db.ip4.10 is provided just for the manyhome.test.ex case. It
1094 contains a single wildcard resource record. It also contains the line
1098 Whenever fakens finds this line in a zone file, it returns PASS_ON instead of
1099 HOST_NOT_FOUND. This causes Exim to pass the query to res_search().