As techniques in testing Chef recipes are still evolving, most of use inherit large untested cookbook codebases from eons ago (translates to a few months in Chef’s community speed).   After watching Chefconf 2013 livestreams, I decided to give chefspec [3] a try.  However, most of the write-ups about chefspec cover pretty basic.  Here, I will write how I covered our legacy chef repository with fast tests.  For this example, I will be writing coverage for opscode’s nginx recipe [1] .

First we begin by covering examples for all resources that gets created by default.

describe 'nginx::default' do
  it "loads the ohai plugin"
  it "starts the service"
end

Then, we create contexts for each test case in the recipe logic.

describe 'nginx::default' do
  it "loads the ohai plugin"

  it "builds from source when specified"

  context "install method is by package" do
    context "when the platform is redhat-based" do
      it "includes the yum::epel recipe if the source is epel"
      it "includes the nginx::repo recipe if the source is not epel"
    end
    it "installs the package"
    it "enables the service"
    it "includes common configurations"
  end

  it "starts the service"
end

Now we have a general idea of what tests to write from the rspec documentation run:

 rspec spec/default_spec.rb

nginx::default
  loads the ohai plugin (PENDING: Not yet implemented)
  builds from source when specified (PENDING: Not yet implemented)
  starts the service (PENDING: Not yet implemented)
  install method is by package
    installs the package (PENDING: Not yet implemented)
    enables the service (PENDING: Not yet implemented)
    includes common configurations (PENDING: Not yet implemented)
    when the platform is redhat-based
      includes the yum::epel recipe if the source is epel (PENDING: Not yet implemented)
      includes the nginx::repo recipe if the source is not epel (PENDING: Not yet implemented)

Pending:
  nginx::default loads the ohai plugin
    # Not yet implemented
    # ./spec/default_spec.rb:4
  nginx::default builds from source when specified
    # Not yet implemented
    # ./spec/default_spec.rb:6
  nginx::default starts the service
    # Not yet implemented
    # ./spec/default_spec.rb:18
  nginx::default install method is by package installs the package
    # Not yet implemented
    # ./spec/default_spec.rb:13
  nginx::default install method is by package enables the service
    # Not yet implemented
    # ./spec/default_spec.rb:14
  nginx::default install method is by package includes common configurations
    # Not yet implemented
    # ./spec/default_spec.rb:15
  nginx::default install method is by package when the platform is redhat-based includes the yum::epel recipe if the source is epel
    # Not yet implemented
    # ./spec/default_spec.rb:10
  nginx::default install method is by package when the platform is redhat-based includes the nginx::repo recipe if the source is not epel
    # Not yet implemented
    # ./spec/default_spec.rb:11

Finished in 0.00977 seconds
8 examples, 0 failures, 8 pending

Progress can be found in [2] where i tested everything.  Next I will be writing on how I tested the nginx nginx_site definitions.

1. http://community.opscode.com/cookbooks/nginx

2. https://github.com/aespinosa/cookbook-nginx

3. https://github.com/acrmp/chefspec

4. https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog/untested-code-part-1-introduction

Disclaimer: I came from an xUnit-testing background so I maybe interchanging “test cases” with “examples” and other purist stuff.  Also I may need to proof read on how my spec examples speak.