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+<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xml:id="sec-writing-nixos-tests">
+  <title>Writing Tests</title>
+  <para>
+    A NixOS test is a Nix expression that has the following structure:
+  </para>
+  <programlisting language="bash">
+import ./make-test-python.nix {
+
+  # Either the configuration of a single machine:
+  machine =
+    { config, pkgs, ... }:
+    { configuration…
+    };
+
+  # Or a set of machines:
+  nodes =
+    { machine1 =
+        { config, pkgs, ... }: { … };
+      machine2 =
+        { config, pkgs, ... }: { … };
+      …
+    };
+
+  testScript =
+    ''
+      Python code…
+    '';
+}
+</programlisting>
+  <para>
+    The attribute <literal>testScript</literal> is a bit of Python code
+    that executes the test (described below). During the test, it will
+    start one or more virtual machines, the configuration of which is
+    described by the attribute <literal>machine</literal> (if you need
+    only one machine in your test) or by the attribute
+    <literal>nodes</literal> (if you need multiple machines). For
+    instance,
+    <link xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/tests/login.nix"><literal>login.nix</literal></link>
+    only needs a single machine to test whether users can log in on the
+    virtual console, whether device ownership is correctly maintained
+    when switching between consoles, and so on. On the other hand,
+    <link xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/tests/nfs/simple.nix"><literal>nfs/simple.nix</literal></link>,
+    which tests NFS client and server functionality in the Linux kernel
+    (including whether locks are maintained across server crashes),
+    requires three machines: a server and two clients.
+  </para>
+  <para>
+    There are a few special NixOS configuration options for test VMs:
+  </para>
+  <variablelist>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>virtualisation.memorySize</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          The memory of the VM in megabytes.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>virtualisation.vlans</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          The virtual networks to which the VM is connected. See
+          <link xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/tests/nat.nix"><literal>nat.nix</literal></link>
+          for an example.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>virtualisation.writableStore</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          By default, the Nix store in the VM is not writable. If you
+          enable this option, a writable union file system is mounted on
+          top of the Nix store to make it appear writable. This is
+          necessary for tests that run Nix operations that modify the
+          store.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+  </variablelist>
+  <para>
+    For more options, see the module
+    <link xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/modules/virtualisation/qemu-vm.nix"><literal>qemu-vm.nix</literal></link>.
+  </para>
+  <para>
+    The test script is a sequence of Python statements that perform
+    various actions, such as starting VMs, executing commands in the
+    VMs, and so on. Each virtual machine is represented as an object
+    stored in the variable <literal>name</literal> if this is also the
+    identifier of the machine in the declarative config. If you didn't
+    specify multiple machines using the <literal>nodes</literal>
+    attribute, it is just <literal>machine</literal>. The following
+    example starts the machine, waits until it has finished booting,
+    then executes a command and checks that the output is more-or-less
+    correct:
+  </para>
+  <programlisting language="python">
+machine.start()
+machine.wait_for_unit(&quot;default.target&quot;)
+if not &quot;Linux&quot; in machine.succeed(&quot;uname&quot;):
+  raise Exception(&quot;Wrong OS&quot;)
+</programlisting>
+  <para>
+    The first line is actually unnecessary; machines are implicitly
+    started when you first execute an action on them (such as
+    <literal>wait_for_unit</literal> or <literal>succeed</literal>). If
+    you have multiple machines, you can speed up the test by starting
+    them in parallel:
+  </para>
+  <programlisting language="python">
+start_all()
+</programlisting>
+  <para>
+    The following methods are available on machine objects:
+  </para>
+  <variablelist>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>start</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Start the virtual machine. This method is asynchronous — it
+          does not wait for the machine to finish booting.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>shutdown</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Shut down the machine, waiting for the VM to exit.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>crash</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Simulate a sudden power failure, by telling the VM to exit
+          immediately.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>block</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Simulate unplugging the Ethernet cable that connects the
+          machine to the other machines.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>unblock</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Undo the effect of <literal>block</literal>.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>screenshot</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Take a picture of the display of the virtual machine, in PNG
+          format. The screenshot is linked from the HTML log.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>get_screen_text_variants</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Return a list of different interpretations of what is
+          currently visible on the machine's screen using optical
+          character recognition. The number and order of the
+          interpretations is not specified and is subject to change, but
+          if no exception is raised at least one will be returned.
+        </para>
+        <note>
+          <para>
+            This requires passing <literal>enableOCR</literal> to the
+            test attribute set.
+          </para>
+        </note>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>get_screen_text</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Return a textual representation of what is currently visible
+          on the machine's screen using optical character recognition.
+        </para>
+        <note>
+          <para>
+            This requires passing <literal>enableOCR</literal> to the
+            test attribute set.
+          </para>
+        </note>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>send_monitor_command</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Send a command to the QEMU monitor. This is rarely used, but
+          allows doing stuff such as attaching virtual USB disks to a
+          running machine.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>send_key</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Simulate pressing keys on the virtual keyboard, e.g.,
+          <literal>send_key(&quot;ctrl-alt-delete&quot;)</literal>.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>send_chars</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Simulate typing a sequence of characters on the virtual
+          keyboard, e.g.,
+          <literal>send_chars(&quot;foobar\n&quot;)</literal> will type
+          the string <literal>foobar</literal> followed by the Enter
+          key.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>execute</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Execute a shell command, returning a list
+          <literal>(status, stdout)</literal>.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>succeed</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Execute a shell command, raising an exception if the exit
+          status is not zero, otherwise returning the standard output.
+          Commands are run with <literal>set -euo pipefail</literal>
+          set:
+        </para>
+        <itemizedlist>
+          <listitem>
+            <para>
+              If several commands are separated by <literal>;</literal>
+              and one fails, the command as a whole will fail.
+            </para>
+          </listitem>
+          <listitem>
+            <para>
+              For pipelines, the last non-zero exit status will be
+              returned (if there is one, zero will be returned
+              otherwise).
+            </para>
+          </listitem>
+          <listitem>
+            <para>
+              Dereferencing unset variables fail the command.
+            </para>
+          </listitem>
+        </itemizedlist>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>fail</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Like <literal>succeed</literal>, but raising an exception if
+          the command returns a zero status.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>wait_until_succeeds</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Repeat a shell command with 1-second intervals until it
+          succeeds.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>wait_until_fails</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Repeat a shell command with 1-second intervals until it fails.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>wait_for_unit</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Wait until the specified systemd unit has reached the
+          <quote>active</quote> state.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>wait_for_file</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Wait until the specified file exists.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>wait_for_open_port</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Wait until a process is listening on the given TCP port (on
+          <literal>localhost</literal>, at least).
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>wait_for_closed_port</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Wait until nobody is listening on the given TCP port.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>wait_for_x</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Wait until the X11 server is accepting connections.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>wait_for_text</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Wait until the supplied regular expressions matches the
+          textual contents of the screen by using optical character
+          recognition (see <literal>get_screen_text</literal> and
+          <literal>get_screen_text_variants</literal>).
+        </para>
+        <note>
+          <para>
+            This requires passing <literal>enableOCR</literal> to the
+            test attribute set.
+          </para>
+        </note>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>wait_for_console_text</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Wait until the supplied regular expressions match a line of
+          the serial console output. This method is useful when OCR is
+          not possibile or accurate enough.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>wait_for_window</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Wait until an X11 window has appeared whose name matches the
+          given regular expression, e.g.,
+          <literal>wait_for_window(&quot;Terminal&quot;)</literal>.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>copy_from_host</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Copies a file from host to machine, e.g.,
+          <literal>copy_from_host(&quot;myfile&quot;, &quot;/etc/my/important/file&quot;)</literal>.
+        </para>
+        <para>
+          The first argument is the file on the host. The file needs to
+          be accessible while building the nix derivation. The second
+          argument is the location of the file on the machine.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>systemctl</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Runs <literal>systemctl</literal> commands with optional
+          support for <literal>systemctl --user</literal>
+        </para>
+        <programlisting language="python">
+machine.systemctl(&quot;list-jobs --no-pager&quot;) # runs `systemctl list-jobs --no-pager`
+machine.systemctl(&quot;list-jobs --no-pager&quot;, &quot;any-user&quot;) # spawns a shell for `any-user` and runs `systemctl --user list-jobs --no-pager`
+</programlisting>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+    <varlistentry>
+      <term>
+        <literal>shell_interact</literal>
+      </term>
+      <listitem>
+        <para>
+          Allows you to directly interact with the guest shell. This
+          should only be used during test development, not in production
+          tests. Killing the interactive session with
+          <literal>Ctrl-d</literal> or <literal>Ctrl-c</literal> also
+          ends the guest session.
+        </para>
+      </listitem>
+    </varlistentry>
+  </variablelist>
+  <para>
+    To test user units declared by
+    <literal>systemd.user.services</literal> the optional
+    <literal>user</literal> argument can be used:
+  </para>
+  <programlisting language="python">
+machine.start()
+machine.wait_for_x()
+machine.wait_for_unit(&quot;xautolock.service&quot;, &quot;x-session-user&quot;)
+</programlisting>
+  <para>
+    This applies to <literal>systemctl</literal>,
+    <literal>get_unit_info</literal>, <literal>wait_for_unit</literal>,
+    <literal>start_job</literal> and <literal>stop_job</literal>.
+  </para>
+  <para>
+    For faster dev cycles it's also possible to disable the code-linters
+    (this shouldn't be commited though):
+  </para>
+  <programlisting language="bash">
+import ./make-test-python.nix {
+  skipLint = true;
+  machine =
+    { config, pkgs, ... }:
+    { configuration…
+    };
+
+  testScript =
+    ''
+      Python code…
+    '';
+}
+</programlisting>
+  <para>
+    This will produce a Nix warning at evaluation time. To fully disable
+    the linter, wrap the test script in comment directives to disable
+    the Black linter directly (again, don't commit this within the
+    Nixpkgs repository):
+  </para>
+  <programlisting language="bash">
+  testScript =
+    ''
+      # fmt: off
+      Python code…
+      # fmt: on
+    '';
+</programlisting>
+</section>