Robot Framework demo
Introduction
This setup demonstrates Robot Framework tests run against a Redmine application running in a Docker container.
Setup
Initial requirements for this to work are Docker and Robot Framework installed on the computer. Robot Framework can be installed from the requirements.txt file with
pip install -r requirements.txt
The file docker-compose.yml contains a Dockerized container for Redmine. The dockerfile builds up a small microservice architecture consisting of two services, Redmine and a MariaDB database. Build and start the containers with
docker-compose up
Once the containers are up and running, the Redmine service can be tested with Robot Framework.
Shut down the containers with
docker-compose down
Tests
The tests are based on user stories. Each user story has been divided into steps that are required for that story to be realized.
The tests can be run all at once, or one at a time. The tests have been marked with tags for the user to be able to run them individually.
The file redmine-set.robot contains the user stories. Some of the more involved user stories contain setup and teardown sections with which preconditions are set up prior to the tests and the environment is cleaned up after the test has run.
The keywords.robot file contains keywords which make up the test steps. The keywords have been grouped according to the kinds of activities they do (e.g. click buttons, move to urls). The aggregate actions section contains slightly abstracted keywords. If a keyword contains variables that are passed on to other keywords, the variable has to be enclosed in quotations (i.e. "").
Running tests
After the application is up and running, tests can be run against it.
Run the Robot Framework tests with
robot redmine-set.robot
The tests have been marked with tags, and each individual test can be run with
robot -i [tag] redmine-set.robot
Repeat the -i [tag] for each additional test to be run in the set.
The script run.sh also contains the needed commands to run the tests. Just run it with
./run.sh
Make sure that the script is executable, i.e. chmod +x run.sh.
The test framework has been configured to run in headless mode according to these instructions.
In the file keywords.robot, these lines make Robot Framework run Chrome in headless mode:
Go to Redmine
${chrome_options} = Evaluate sys.modules['selenium.webdriver'].ChromeOptions() sys, selenium.webdriver
Call Method ${chrome_options} add_argument headless
Call Method ${chrome_options} add_argument disable-gpu
Create Webdriver Chrome chrome_options=${chrome_options}
Set Window Size 1500 1500
Go To ${REDMINE}
Similar options for running headless Chromium and Firefox also exist in commented form in the keywords.robot file.
To run the test in normal mode, replace the lines above with the following:
Go to Redmine
Open Browser ${REDMINE} ${BROWSER}
Running in headless mode from container
The tests can be run from a Docker container. Once the Redmine service is running with docker-compose up, a container containing the Robot Framework tests can be created with
docker build -f robotubuntu.dev -t robot .
This creates a container based on Ubuntu. After being built the container will immediately be shut down because there is no process running inside the container. Therefore, in order to keep the container running, the following can be executed:
docker run <container name or id> /bin/sleep 1000
This will keep the container running for 1000 seconds.
Names of the container images can be found with
docker images
Check if container is running with
docker ps
The container contains the script run.sh which can be run with the following:
docker exec -it <container name> ./run.sh
This will run the tests inside the container, without any need to install the required programs on our own machine.
The container can be logged into with
docker exec -it <container name> /bin/bash
Environment variables
It might be necessary to set the DISPLAY environment variable:
export DISPLAY=localhost:0.0
Shell
Make sure you are using the bash shell and not sh. Check the system shell with
echo $0
If the result is bash, you are ok. Otherwise please change to bash. Ubuntu usually has a bash shell, but other more minimal distributions (e.g. alpine) might be using something else.
MacOS
To run tests on a local Mac, the path to the driver binaries should be set to a local user bin path, e.g.
ln -s /path/to/geckodriver /Users/username/bin/geckodriver
In Robot Framework's keyword file, the binary location can be set as
${firefox_options.binary_location} Set Variable /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox-bin
Drivers
Chrome/Chromium drivers from here and Firefox drivers from here. The drivers have to be set in drivers folder. Ensure that the drivers correspond to the operating system used, and that they have been added to the executable path. They can be added to the system PATH with symbolic links:
ln -s /path/to/binary /usr/bin/binaryname