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Cypress Visual Testing with BDD framework

These are visual tests for kiali that are meant to be run against a live environment.

Prerequisites

Installed all dev dependencies from frontend folder. Ensure the baseUrl field in the cypress.json file at the kiali-ui root is pointing to the server you are trying to test, alternatively you can use CYPRESS_BASE_URL environment variable or pass via cmd line yarn cypress --config baseUrl=http://kiali-server:20001. By default this is localhost:3000 so if you are running kiali locally you should just need to do yarn start before running cypress.

Running tests

Before you start using Cypress suite, you might need export some environment variables - depending on environment where tests are executed. If your authentication method defaults to anonymous (i.e. dev env), no actions are needed.

export CYPRESS_BASE_URL=<value>               # defaults to http://localhost:3000
export CYPRESS_USERNAME=<value>               # defaults to jenkins, opt. kubeadmin
export CYPRESS_PASSWD=<value>                 # no defaults
export CYPRESS_AUTH_PROVIDER=<value>          # defaults to my_htpasswd_provider

Tests can be run with the cypress browser:

yarn cypress

or in headless mode:

yarn cypress:run

Structure

cypress.json              <- Cypress config file
cypress/    
├─ integration/           <- all tests are here
│  ├─ common/             <- step definition
│  ├─ featureFiles/       <- BDD.feature files 
├─ perf/                  <- all perf tests are here
├─ support/
│  ├─ commands.ts         <- custom cy.commands()
├─ screenshots/           <- pictures from test run
├─ videos/                <- recordings from test run

Workflow

  1. Create a .feature file (i.e. testcase.feature) in cypress/integration/featureFiles folder (you don’t need to create one if it is already part of the ticket/user story - this is deliverable for each feature/user story)
    • One feature file should contain only one specific feature or concrete example of tested feature / story
    • Try to reuse already existing steps, like: Given user is at administrator perspective or And I see {string} in the title from other .feature files. The BDD framework doesn't mind interchanging keywords, like Then I see {string} in the title
    • If you are covering more complex flow (smoke, happy path, critical path) composed of multiple feature files, you need to decorate them with the @ symbol (@smoke, @happypath, @etc)
  2. Execute cypress - with feature file you just created
    • If you have undefined execution steps in the feature file, cypress will let you know.
    • You only need to implement step definitions you are missing (see 1a) in cypress/integration/common folder
  3. Write new step definitions.
    • The rule of the thumb is you create .ts file with same name as a .feature file like:
    • cypress/integration/featureFiles/testcase.feature -> cypress/integration/common/testcase.ts
    • Generic step definitions that can be used in multiple feature files should be grouped by functionality e.g. generic "table" definitions should go in the table.ts file but definitions specific to a single page should go in the page file.
  4. Failed tests could mean that:
    • Reuse of step definitions is not suitable or gets broken by different testcase or your modifications
    • We want to refactor broken code and if its heavily used, move it into a custom command file (cypress/support/commands.ts) - i.e. cy.login(), cy.kiali_apply_config() lives there
  5. Test case execution should be all green, you are ready to commit your test case. You might want verify whole regression run locally - so you did not introduce any breaking changes in your PR

Performance Tests

These tests coarsely measure metrics such as page load time. They are meant to give a general baseline of performance but are not useful for benchmarking. This is roughly how to use the tests:

  1. Environment is setup either manually or with the perf cluster hack script.
  2. Tests are run multiple times with one of the make commands.
  3. Results for each run are copied manually from the output folder to a text document or spreadsheet.
  4. Results are analyzed.

Setup

These tests are environment agnostic however they do assume that you have:

  1. Deployed istio and kiali
  2. Run the install testing demos script

If you'd like to test on ibmclould, there's a hack script that will setup a testing environment for you. See the "Running on IBM Cloud" section for more details.

Run performance tests

From the kiali root:

cli

make -e CYPRESS_BASE_URL=http://mybaseurl perf-tests-run

Note: The performance tests are typically long running tests that perform many actions. The Cypress GUI generally does not handle this well so it's recommended to use the CLI instead.

gui

make perf-tests-gui

yarn from current dir

yarn cypress --config-file cypress-perf.json

Parameterizing tests

You can adjust some inputs of the performance tests by changing the fixture files.

Limiting the suite to a single test

You can easily limit your test run to a single test but unfortunately it requires a minor code change. Adding a .only to a describe or it statement will limit testing to that particular block. For example:

it.only('loads the overview page', () => {
 ...
})

it('Measures Graph load time', () => {
 ...
})

With the addition of the .only, only the "loads the overview page" test will be run.

Results

Results are logged here: logs/performance.txt.

Cleanup

If the test runner fails for any reason, this can leave some resources lingering around after the tests have run. You can clean these up by running:

kubectl delete --ignore-not-found=true -l kiali.io=perf-testing ns

Running on IBM Cloud:

You can use the perf hack script to spin up an openshift cluster on IBMCloud with Kiali + Istio + Kiali demos installed. To run the perf tests against the cluster, you must generate an IBM Cloud API Key and pass that in as the CYPRESS_PASSWD.

make -e CYPRESS_BASE_URL="https://<kiali-openshift-route>" -e CYPRESS_PASSWD="<IBMCloud API Key>" -e CYPRESS_USERNAME="IAM#<SSO-EMAIL>" -e CYPRESS_AUTH_PROVIDER="ibmcloud" perf-tests-gui

Logging into your cluster on IBM Cloud:

For kubectl or oc access to your cluster, use:

ibmcloud oc cluster config --cluster <cluster-name> --admin

Teardown cluster

The cluster can be cleaned up with the ibmcloud-openshift.sh script. You must provide the cluster name without the trailing -cluster e.g. if your cluster is named my-perf-cluster you should pass my-perf as the name prefix (np).

./hack/ibmcloud-openshift.sh -np <cluster-name-without-trailing-cluster> delete

Testing Strategies

Graph

The kiali graph is primarily a canvas element which makes it more difficult to test through query selectors with cypress. To get around this limitation, a simple way of testing visual elements is to do snapshot testing aka visual testing. This boils down to comparing an existing image of the page to a new image. If any differences exist, the test will fail. There are other ways of testing canvas elements in Cypress but they seem to involve interacting with cypress through a custom api rather than visually which is not ideal.

Troubleshooting

Tests are slow and crashing frequently

Try setting the numTestsKeptInMemory setting to a lower value.

make -e CYPRESS_NUM_TESTS_KEPT_IN_MEMORY=0 cypress-run

For debugging locally, try setting the video setting to true to watch the recordings from test run.

make -e CYPRESS_VIDEO=true cypress-run

Tests are flaking

Try waiting for kiali to finish loading all the in-flight data before proceeding on to the next action or command. Waiting for the loading spinner to disappear is a good enough measure for this.