RSpec tests for your Puppet manifests

Installation

gem install rspec-puppet

Naming conventions

For clarity and consistency, I recommend that you use the following directory structure and naming convention.

module
  |
  +-- manifests
  |
  +-- lib
  |
  +-- spec
       |
       +-- spec_helper.rb
       |
       +-- classes
       |     |
       |     +-- <class_name>_spec.rb
       |
       +-- defines
             |
             +-- <define_name>_spec.rb

Example groups

If you use the above directory structure, your examples will automatically be placed in the correct groups and have access to the custom matchers. If you choose not to, you can force the examples into the required groups as follows.

describe 'myclass', :type => :class do
  ...
end

describe 'mydefine', :type => :define do
  ...
end

Matchers

Checking if a class has been included

You can test if a class has been included in the catalogue with the include_class matcher. It takes the class name as a string as its only argument

it { should include_class('foo') }

Checking if a resources exists

You can test if a resource exists in the catalogue with the generic creates_<resource type> matcher. If your resource type includes :: (e.g. foo::bar simply replace the :: with -

it { should create_augeas('bleh') }
it { should create_foo-bar('baz') }

You can further test the parameters that have been passed to the resources with the generic with_<parameter> chains.

it { should create_package('mysql-server').with_ensure('present') }

Writing tests

Basic test structure

To test that

sysctl { 'baz'
  value => 'foo',
}

Will cause the following resource to be in included in catalogue for a host

exec { 'sysctl/reload':
  command => '/sbin/sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.conf',
}

We can write the following testcase

describe 'sysctl' do
  let(:title) { 'baz' }
  let(:params) { { :value => 'foo' } }

  it { should create_exec('sysctl/reload').with_command("/sbin/sysctl -p /etc/sysctl.conf") }
end

Specifying the title of a resource

let(:title) { 'foo' }

Specifying the parameters to pass to a resources or parametised class

let(:params) { {:ensure => 'present', ...} }

Specifying the FQDN of the test node

If the manifest you're testing expects to run on host with a particular name, you can specify this as follows

let(:node) { 'testhost.example.com' }

Specifying the facts that should be available to your manifest

By default, the test environment contains no facts for your manifest to use. You can set them with a hash

let(:facts) { {:operatingsystem => 'Debian', :kernel => 'Linux', ...} }

Specifying the path to find your modules

I recommend setting a default module path by adding the following code to your spec_helper.rb

RSpec.configure do |c|
  c.module_path = '/path/to/your/module/dir'
end

However, if you want to specify it in each example, you can do so

let(:module_path) { '/path/to/your/module/dir' }