7.0 KiB
End-to-end Testing
What is end-to-end testing?
End-to-end testing is a strategy used to check whether your application works as expected across the entire software stack and architecture, including integration of all micro-services and components that are supposed to work together.
Branch naming
If your contribution contains only changes under the
qa/
folder, you can
speed up the CI process by following some branch naming conventions. You have
three choices:
Branch name | Valid example |
---|---|
Starting with qa/ |
qa/new-oauth-login-test |
Starting with qa- |
qa-new-oauth-login-test |
Ending in -qa |
123-new-oauth-login-test-qa |
If your branch name matches any of the above, it will run only the QA-related jobs. If it does not, the whole application test suite will run (including QA-related jobs).
How do we test GitLab?
We use Omnibus GitLab to build GitLab packages and then we test these packages using the GitLab QA orchestrator tool, which is a black-box testing framework for the API and the UI.
Testing nightly builds
We run scheduled pipeline each night to test nightly builds created by Omnibus.
You can find these nightly pipelines at gitlab-org/quality/nightly/pipelines.
Results are reported in the #qa-nightly
Slack channel.
Testing staging
We run scheduled pipeline each night to test staging.
You can find these nightly pipelines at gitlab-org/quality/staging/pipelines.
Results are reported in the #qa-staging
Slack channel.
Testing code in merge requests
Using the package-and-qa
job
It is possible to run end-to-end tests for a merge request, eventually being run in
a pipeline in the gitlab-qa
project,
by triggering the package-and-qa
manual action in the test
stage (not
available for forks).
This runs end-to-end tests against a custom Omnibus package built from your merge request's changes.
Manual action that starts end-to-end tests is also available in merge requests in Omnibus GitLab.
Below you can read more about how to use it and how does it work.
How does it work?
Currently, we are using multi-project pipeline-like approach to run QA pipelines.
Show mermaid source
graph LR A1 -.->|1. Triggers an omnibus-gitlab pipeline and wait for it to be done| A2 B2[`Trigger-qa` stage
`Trigger:qa-test` job] -.->|2. Triggers a gitlab-qa pipeline and wait for it to be done| A3subgraph gitlab-ce/ee pipeline A1[
test
stagepackage-and-qa
job] endsubgraph omnibus-gitlab pipeline A2[
Trigger-docker
stageTrigger:gitlab-docker
job] -->|once done| B2 endsubgraph gitlab-qa pipeline A3>QA jobs run] -.->|3. Reports back the pipeline result to the
package-and-qa
job
and post the result on the original commit tested| A1 end
-
Developer triggers a manual action, that can be found in CE / EE merge requests. This starts a chain of pipelines in multiple projects.
-
The script being executed triggers a pipeline in Omnibus GitLab and waits for the resulting status. We call this a status attribution.
-
GitLab packages are being built in the Omnibus GitLab pipeline. Packages are then pushed to its Container Registry.
-
When packages are ready, and available in the registry, a final step in the Omnibus GitLab pipeline, triggers a new GitLab QA pipeline. It also waits for a resulting status.
-
GitLab QA pulls images from the registry, spins-up containers and runs tests against a test environment that has been just orchestrated by the
gitlab-qa
tool. -
The result of the GitLab QA pipeline is being propagated upstream, through Omnibus, back to the CE / EE merge request.
Using the review-qa-all
jobs
On every pipeline during the test
stage, the review-qa-smoke
job is
automatically started: it runs the QA smoke suite against the
Review App.
You can also manually start the review-qa-all
: it runs the full QA suite
against the Review App.
This runs end-to-end tests against a Review App based on the official GitLab Helm chart, itself deployed with custom Cloud Native components built from your merge request's changes.
See Review Apps for more details about Review Apps.
How do I write tests?
In order to write new tests, you first need to learn more about GitLab QA architecture. See the documentation about it.
Once you decided where to put test environment orchestration scenarios and instance-level scenarios, take a look at the GitLab QA README, the GitLab QA orchestrator README, and the already existing instance-level scenarios.
Where can I ask for help?
You can ask question in the #quality
channel on Slack (GitLab internal) or
you can find an issue you would like to work on in
the gitlab-ce
issue tracker,
the gitlab-ee
issue tracker, or
the gitlab-qa
issue tracker.