Writing and running tests

Running tests

The main entry point is run_tests.py in Timesketch root. Please note that for testing and linting python/frontend code in your local environment you need respectively python/ frontend dependencies installed.

For more information:

! run_tests.py --help

To run frontend tests in watch mode, cd to frontend directory and use

! yarn run test --watch

To run TSLint in watch mode, use

! yarn run lint --watch

To run a single test (there are multiple ways to do it), open a shell in the docker container:

$ docker exec -it $CONTAINER_ID /bin/bash

Switch to:

! cd /usr/local/src/timesketch

And execute the single test

! python3 -m pytest timesketch/lib/emojis_test.py -v

Or all in one:

$ sudo docker exec -it $CONTAINER_ID python3 -m pytest /usr/local/src/timesketch/timesketch/lib/emojis_test.py -v

Writing unittests

It is recommended to write unittests as much as possible.

Test files in Timesketch have the naming convention _test.py and are stored next to the files they test. E.g. a test file for /timesketch/lib/emojis.py is stored as /timesketch/lib/emojis_test.py

The unittests for the api client can use mock to emulate responses from the server. The mocked answers are written in: api_client/python/timesketch_api_client/test_lib.py.

To introduce a new API endpoint to be tested, the endpoint needs to be registered in the url_router section in /api_client/python/timesketch_api_client/test_lib.py and the response needs to be defined in the same file.

Debugging tests

To debug tests, simply add the following at the point of interest:

breakpoint()

And then within the docker container execute

! python3 -m pytest /usr/local/src/timesketch/timesketch/lib/emojis_test.py -s -pdb

end2end tests

End2end (e2e) tests are run on Github with every commit. Those tests will setup and run a full Timesketch instance, with the ability to import data and perform actions with it. To run the e2e-tests locally execute to setup the e2e docker images and run them:

$ sh end_to_end_tests/tools/run_end_to_end_tests.sh

The tests are stored in:

end_to_end_tests/*.py

And the sample data (currently a plaso file and a csv) is stored in:

end_to_end_tests/test_data/

Writing end2end tests

While writing end2end tests one approach to make it easier to develop these e2e tests is to create a simlink to the source files, in order for the changes to the files being reflected in the container. Another way is to mount the Timesketch source code from /usr/local/src/timesketch/ to /usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/

The following example is for changing / adding tests to client_test.py

$ export CONTAINER_ID="$(sudo -E docker container list -f name=e2e_timesketch -q)"
$ docker exec -it $CONTAINER_ID /bin/bash
! rm /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/end_to_end_tests/client_test.py
! ln -s /usr/local/src/timesketch/end_to_end_tests/client_test.py /usr/local/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/end_to_end_tests/client_test.py

From now on you can edit the client_test.py file outside of the docker instance and run it again with

! python3 /usr/local/src/timesketch/end_to_end_tests/tools/run_in_container.py

or run the following outside of the container:

$ sudo docker exec -it $CONTAINER_ID python3 /usr/local/src/timesketch/end_to_end_tests/tools/run_in_container.py

Linting / Code format

The project has a certain code style / code format across the project. The main settings are stored in .pylintrc. When creating a Pull Request, one of the things automation checks is correct linting. Pull Request with failed pylint checks can not be accepted.

To check linting on a single file, run the following in your docker container:

! apt-get update
! apt-get install pylint==2.6.0
! pylint /usr/local/src/timesketch/timesketch/  --rcfile .pylintrc -v