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title = "Run tests and test documentation"
description = "Describes Docker's testing infrastructure"
keywords = ["make test, make docs, Go tests, gofmt, contributing,  running tests"]
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parent = "smn_develop"
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# Run tests and test documentation

Contributing includes testing your changes. If you change the Docker code, you
may need to add a new test or modify an existing one. Your contribution could
even be adding tests to Docker. For this reason, you need to know a little
about Docker's test infrastructure.

Many contributors contribute documentation only. Or, a contributor makes a code
contribution that changes how Docker behaves and that change needs
documentation. For these reasons, you also need to know how to build, view, and
test the Docker documentation.

In this section, you run tests in the `dry-run-test` branch of your Docker
fork. If you have followed along in this guide, you already have this branch.
If you don't have this branch, you can create it or simply use another of your
branches.

## Understand testing at Docker

Docker tests use the Go language's test framework. In this framework, files
whose names end in `_test.go` contain test code; you'll find test files like
this throughout the Docker repo. Use these files for inspiration when writing
your own tests. For information on Go's test framework, see <a
href="http://golang.org/pkg/testing/" target="_blank">Go's testing package
documentation</a> and the <a href="http://golang.org/cmd/go/#hdr-Test_packages"
target="_blank">go test help</a>. 

You are responsible for _unit testing_ your contribution when you add new or
change existing Docker code. A unit test is a piece of code that invokes a
single, small piece of code ( _unit of work_ ) to verify the unit works as
expected.

Depending on your contribution, you may need to add _integration tests_. These
are tests that combine two or more work units into one component. These work
units each have unit tests and then, together, integration tests that test the
interface between the components. The `integration` and `integration-cli`
directories in the Docker repository contain integration test code.

Testing is its own specialty. If you aren't familiar with testing techniques,
there is a lot of information available to you on the Web. For now, you should
understand that, the Docker maintainers may ask you to write a new test or
change an existing one.

### Run tests on your local host

Before submitting any code change, you should run the entire Docker test suite.
The `Makefile` contains a target for the entire test suite. The target's name
is simply `test`. The make file contains several targets for testing:

<style type="text/css">
.monospaced {font-family: Monaco, Consolas, "Lucida Console", monospace !important;}
</style>
<table>
  <tr>
    <th>Target</th>
    <th>What this target does</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="monospaced">test</td>
    <td>Run all the tests.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="monospaced">test-unit</td>
    <td>Run just the unit tests.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="monospaced">test-integration-cli</td>
    <td>Run the test for the integration command line interface.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="monospaced">test-docker-py</td>
    <td>Run the tests for Docker API client.</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td class="monospaced">docs-test</td>
    <td>Runs the documentation test build.</td>
  </tr>
</table>

Run the entire test suite on your current repository:

1. Open a terminal on your local host.

2. Change to the root your Docker repository.

        $ cd docker-fork

3. Make sure you are in your development branch.

        $ git checkout dry-run-test

4. Run the `make test` command.

        $ make test

    This command does several things, it creates a container temporarily for
    testing. Inside that container, the `make`:

    * creates a new binary
    * cross-compiles all the binaries for the various operating systems
    * runs all the tests in the system

    It can take several minutes to run all the tests. When they complete
    successfully, you see the output concludes with something like this:


        [PASSED]: top - sleep process should be listed in privileged mode
        [PASSED]: version - verify that it works and that the output is properly formatted
        PASS
        coverage: 70.8% of statements
        ---> Making bundle: test-docker-py (in bundles/1.5.0-dev/test-docker-py)
        +++ exec docker daemon --debug --host unix:///go/src/github.com/docker/docker/bundles/1.5.0-dev/test-docker-py/docker.sock --storage-driver vfs --exec-driver native --pidfile /go/src/github.com/docker/docker/bundles/1.5.0-dev/test-docker-py/docker.pid
        .................................................................
        ----------------------------------------------------------------------
        Ran 65 tests in 89.266s
 

### Run test targets inside the development container

If you are working inside a Docker development container, you use the
`hack/make.sh` script to run tests. The `hack/make.sh` script doesn't
have a single target that runs all the tests. Instead, you provide a single
command line with multiple targets that does the same thing.

Try this now.

1. Open a terminal and change to the `docker-fork` root.

2. Start a Docker development image.

    If you are following along with this guide, you should have a
    `dry-run-test` image.

        $ docker run --privileged --rm -ti -v `pwd`:/go/src/github.com/docker/docker dry-run-test /bin/bash

3. Run the tests using the `hack/make.sh` script.

        root@5f8630b873fe:/go/src/github.com/docker/docker# hack/make.sh dynbinary binary cross test-unit test-integration-cli test-docker-py

    The tests run just as they did within your local host.


Of course, you can also run a subset of these targets too. For example, to run
just the unit tests:

    root@5f8630b873fe:/go/src/github.com/docker/docker# hack/make.sh dynbinary binary cross test-unit

Most test targets require that you build these precursor targets first:
`dynbinary binary cross`


## Running individual or multiple named tests 

We use [gocheck](https://labix.org/gocheck) for our integration-cli tests. 
You can use the `TESTFLAGS` environment variable to run a single test. The
flag's value is passed as arguments to the `go test` command. For example, from
your local host you can run the `TestBuild` test with this command:

    $ TESTFLAGS='-check.f DockerSuite.TestBuild*' make test-integration-cli

To run the same test inside your Docker development container, you do this:

    root@5f8630b873fe:/go/src/github.com/docker/docker# TESTFLAGS='-check.f TestBuild*' hack/make.sh binary test-integration-cli

## If tests under Boot2Docker fail due to disk space errors

Running the tests requires about 2GB of memory. If you are running your
container on bare metal, that is you are not running with Boot2Docker, your
Docker development container is able to take the memory it requires directly
from your local host.

If you are running Docker using Boot2Docker, the VM uses 2048MB by default.
This means you can exceed the memory of your VM running tests in a Boot2Docker
environment. When the test suite runs out of memory, it returns errors similar
to the following:

    server.go:1302 Error: Insertion failed because database is full: database or
    disk is full

    utils_test.go:179: Error copy: exit status 1 (cp: writing
    '/tmp/docker-testd5c9-[...]': No space left on device

To increase the memory on your VM, you need to reinitialize the Boot2Docker VM
with new memory settings.

1. Stop all running containers.

2. View the current memory setting.

        $ boot2docker info
        {
            "Name": "boot2docker-vm",
            "UUID": "491736fd-4075-4be7-a6f5-1d4cdcf2cc74",
            "Iso": "/Users/mary/.boot2docker/boot2docker.iso",
            "State": "running",
            "CPUs": 8,
            "Memory": 2048,
            "VRAM": 8,
            "CfgFile": "/Users/mary/VirtualBox VMs/boot2docker-vm/boot2docker-vm.vbox",
            "BaseFolder": "/Users/mary/VirtualBox VMs/boot2docker-vm",
            "OSType": "",
            "Flag": 0,
            "BootOrder": null,
            "DockerPort": 0,
            "SSHPort": 2022,
            "SerialFile": "/Users/mary/.boot2docker/boot2docker-vm.sock"
        }


3. Delete your existing `boot2docker` profile.

        $ boot2docker delete

4. Reinitialize `boot2docker` and specify a higher memory.

        $ boot2docker init -m 5555

5. Verify the memory was reset.

        $ boot2docker info

6. Restart your container and try your test again.


## Testing just the Windows client

This explains how to test the Windows client on a Windows server set up as a
development environment.  You'll use the **Git Bash** came with the Git for
Windows installation.  **Git Bash** just as it sounds allows you to run a Bash
terminal on Windows. 

1.  If you don't have one, start a Git Bash terminal.

	 ![Git Bash](/project/images/git_bash.png)

2. Change to the `docker` source directory.

		$ cd /c/gopath/src/github.com/docker/docker
    
3. Set `DOCKER_CLIENTONLY` as follows:

		$ export DOCKER_CLIENTONLY=1
     
	This ensures you are building only the client binary instead of both the
	binary and the daemon.
	
4. Set `DOCKER_TEST_HOST` to the `tcp://IP_ADDRESS:2376` value; substitute your
machine's actual IP address, for example:

		$ export DOCKER_TEST_HOST=tcp://263.124.23.200:2376

5. Make the binary and the test:

		$ hack/make.sh binary test-integration-cli
  	
   Many tests are skipped on Windows for various reasons. You see which tests
   were skipped by re-running the make and passing in the 
   `TESTFLAGS='-test.v'` value.
        

You can now choose to make changes to the Docker source or the tests. If you
make any changes just run these commands again.


## Build and test the documentation

The Docker documentation source files are under `docs`. The content is
written using extended Markdown. We use the static generator <a
href="http://www.mkdocs.org/" target="_blank">MkDocs</a> to build Docker's
documentation. Of course, you don't need to install this generator
to build the documentation, it is included with container.

You should always check your documentation for grammar and spelling. The best
way to do this is with <a href="http://www.hemingwayapp.com/"
target="_blank">an online grammar checker</a>.

When you change a documentation source file, you should test your change
locally to make sure your content is there and any links work correctly. You
can build the documentation from the local host. The build starts a container
and loads the documentation into a server. As long as this container runs, you
can browse the docs.

1. In a terminal, change to the root of your `docker-fork` repository.

        $ cd ~/repos/docker-fork

2. Make sure you are in your feature branch.

        $ git status
        On branch dry-run-test
        Your branch is up-to-date with 'origin/dry-run-test'.
        nothing to commit, working directory clean

3. Build the documentation.

        $ make docs

    When the build completes, you'll see a final output message similar to the
    following:

        Successfully built ee7fe7553123
        docker run --rm -it  -e AWS_S3_BUCKET -e NOCACHE -p 8000:8000 "docker-docs:dry-run-test" mkdocs serve
        Running at: http://0.0.0.0:8000/
        Live reload enabled.
        Hold ctrl+c to quit.

4. Enter the URL in your browser.

    If you are running Boot2Docker, replace the default localhost address
    (0.0.0.0) with your DOCKERHOST value. You can get this value at any time by
    entering `boot2docker ip` at the command line.

5. Once in the documentation, look for the red notice to verify you are seeing the correct build.

    ![Beta documentation](/project/images/red_notice.png)

6. Navigate to your new or changed document.

7. Review both the content and the links.

8. Return to your terminal and exit out of the running documentation container.


## Where to go next

Congratulations, you have successfully completed the basics you need to
understand the Docker test framework. In the next steps, you use what you have
learned so far to [contribute to Docker by working on an
issue](/project/make-a-contribution/).
