If you're a developer, one of the most valuable things you can do is to look at GitHub issues and help fix bugs, since bug-fixing is almost always prioritized over feature development. Even for non-developers, helping to test pull requests for bug fixes and features is still immensely valuable.
Ansible users who understand how to write playbooks and roles should be able to test their work. GitHub pull requests will automatically run a variety of tests (e.g., Shippable) that show bugs in action. However, contributors must also test their work outside of the automated GitHub checks and show evidence of these tests in the PR to ensure that their work will be more likely to be reviewed and merged.
Read on to learn how Ansible is tested, how to test your contributions locally, and how to extend testing capabilities.
When Pull Requests (PRs) are created they are tested using Shippable, a Continuous Integration (CI) tool. Results are shown at the end of every PR.
When Shippable detects an error and it can be linked back to a file that has been modified in the PR then the relevant lines will be added as a GitHub comment. For example::
The test `ansible-test sanity --test pep8` failed with the following errors:
lib/ansible/modules/network/foo/bar.py:509:17: E265 block comment should start with '# '
From the above example we can see that ``--test pep8`` and ``--test validate-modules`` have identified an issue. The commands given allow you to run the same tests locally to ensure you've fixed all issues without having to push your changes to GitHub and wait for Shippable, for example:
If you haven't already got Ansible available, use the local checkout by running::
source hacking/env-setup
Then run the tests detailed in the GitHub comment::
ansible-test sanity --test pep8
ansible-test sanity --test validate-modules
If there isn't a GitHub comment stating what's failed you can inspect the results by clicking on the "Details" button under the "checks have failed" message at the end of the PR.
Rerunning a failing CI job
--------------------------
Occasionally you may find your PR fails due to a reason unrelated to your change. This could happen for several reasons, including:
* a temporary issue accessing an external resource, such as a yum or git repo
* a timeout creating a virtual machine to run the tests on
If either of these issues appear to be the case, you can rerun the Shippable test by:
* making another change to the PR and pushing to GitHub
If the issue persists, please contact us in ``#ansible-devel`` on Freenode IRC.
How to test a PR
================
Ideally, code should add tests that prove that the code works. That's not always possible and tests are not always comprehensive, especially when a user doesn't have access to a wide variety of platforms, or is using an API or web service. In these cases, live testing against real equipment can be more valuable than automation that runs against simulated interfaces. In any case, things should always be tested manually the first time as well.
Thankfully, helping to test Ansible is pretty straightforward, assuming you are familiar with how Ansible works.
It is important that the PR request target be ``ansible:devel``, as we do not accept pull requests into any other branch. Dot releases are cherry-picked manually by Ansible staff.
The first command fetches the proposed changes from the pull request and creates a new branch named ``testing_PRXXXX``, where the XXXX is the actual number associated with the pull request (for example, 65381). The second command checks out the newly created branch.
If the GitHub user interface shows that the pull request will not merge cleanly, we do not recommend proceeding if you are not somewhat familiar with git and coding, as you will have to resolve a merge conflict. This is the responsibility of the original pull request contributor.
..note::
Some users do not create feature branches, which can cause problems when they have multiple, unrelated commits in their version of ``devel``. If the source looks like ``someuser:devel``, make sure there is only one commit listed on the pull request.
The Ansible source includes a script that allows you to use Ansible directly from source without requiring a
full installation that is frequently used by developers on Ansible.
Simply source it (to use the Linux/Unix terminology) to begin using it immediately::
source ./hacking/env-setup
This script modifies the ``PYTHONPATH`` environment variables (along with a few other things), which will be temporarily
set as long as your shell session is open.
Testing the Pull Request
------------------------
At this point, you should be ready to begin testing!
Some ideas of what to test are:
* Create a test Playbook with the examples in and check if they function correctly
* Test to see if any Python backtraces returned (that's a bug)
* Test on different operating systems, or against different library versions
Any potential issues should be added as comments on the pull request (and it's acceptable to comment if the feature works as well), remembering to include the output of ``ansible --version``
Example::
Works for me! Tested on `Ansible 2.3.0`. I verified this on CentOS 6.5 and also Ubuntu 14.04.
If the PR does not resolve the issue, or if you see any failures from the unit/integration tests, just include that output instead:
