Smoke Testing

As you do automated deployments, you should check if the website is up and running before switching it to the live site. This is called a Smoke Test. We will give an example for using the built-in HTTP smoke test.

First, you need to create a virtual host with document root in “<deploymentDirectory>/releases/next/Web”. While a deployment is running, the new website will be available under this URL and can be used for testing.

Then, add a test as follows to the deployment configuration:

<?php

$workflow = new \TYPO3\Surf\Domain\Model\SimpleWorkflow();

$smokeTestOptions = [
        'url' => 'http://your-website.com',
        'remote' => true,
        'expectedStatus' => 200,
        'expectedRegexp' => '/somethingYouExpectOnThePage/'
];
$workflow->defineTask('MyCompany\\MyPackage\\SmokeTest', \TYPO3\Surf\Task\Test\HttpTestTask::class, $smokeTestOptions);

$workflow->addTask('MyCompany\\MyPackage\\SmokeTest', 'test', $application);

The HTTP test has the following options:

Most important options:

• url (required): URL which should be loaded
• remote: if TRUE, the smoke test is triggered through the SSH channel on the remote host via command-line CURL. If false, it is triggered from the deploying host.
• expectedStatus: expected HTTP status code
• expectedHeaders: HTTP Header Strings which are expected (can be a multiline string, each header being on a separate line)
• expectedRegexp: Regular Expression to test the contents of the HTTP response against

Further options:

• timeout (only if remote=FALSE): HTTP timeout to use
• port (only if remote=FALSE): HTTP Port to use
• method (only if remote=FALSE): HTTP method to use (default GET)
• username (only if remote=FALSE): HTTP Authentication username
• password (only if remote=FALSE): HTTP Authentication Password
• data (only if remote=FALSE): HTTP payload
• proxy (only if remote=FALSE): HTTP Proxy to use
• proxyPort (only if remote=FALSE): HTTP Proxy port to use
• additionalCurlParameters (only if remote=TRUE): list of parameters which is directly passed to CURL. Especially useful to e.g. disable SSL certificate check (with –insecure)

Tests in test stage and caches

In the test stage, the caches of the application is not flushed in order not to affect the live page. A possible solution is to disable caches when running smoke tests in the test stage on “next” release.

TYPO3

AdditionalConfiguration.php:

if ($context->isTesting()){
        foreach ($GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['SYS']['caching']['cacheConfigurations'] as $cacheName => $cacheConfiguration) {
                $GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['SYS']['caching']['cacheConfigurations'][$cacheName]['backend'] = \TYPO3\CMS\Core\Cache\Backend\NullBackend::class;
        }
}

.htaccess:

# Add Rewrite rule near https://github.com/TYPO3/TYPO3.CMS/blob/master/typo3/sysext/install/Resources/Private/FolderStructureTemplateFiles/root-htaccess#L270
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^next\.example\.com$
RewriteRule .? - [E=TYPO3_CONTEXT:Testing]

If you are not able to set environment variables via .htaccess, you can use composer autoloading and a PHP file. Thanks to the team of jweiland.net for this solution.

Root composer.json:

{
        "autoload": {
                "files": ["scripts/typo3context.php"]
        }
}

typo3context.php:

<?php
// Set the application context in this file because it is not possible to set environment variables
// via .htaccess e.g. on domainFACTORY/jweiland.net servers
$context = 'Production';

// detect application context by domain
if (array_key_exists('HTTP_HOST', $_SERVER)) {
        if (0 === strpos($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'], 'next.')) {
                $context = 'Testing';
        }
}
putenv('TYPO3_CONTEXT=' . $context);