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Accessing Chef Attributes in Serverspec Tests

I presume that you are familiar with:

  • Chef
  • test-kitchen
  • serverspec

When you write serverspec integration tests, it would be great to have access to chef attributes of cookbook that you’re testing. There’s a fast and simple way to do this.

Introduction

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cat attributes/default.rb
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override['backup']['dependencies'] = [['fog'],['aws-s3']]

Let’s say we want this attribute in your serverspec tests.

How can we do that?

  • Dump chef attributes to JSON file with helper cookbook
  • Load this file from serverspec tests

Dump chef attributes

Create fixture cookbook

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emacs test/fixtures/cookbooks/test-helper/metadata.rb
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name             'test-helper'
maintainer       'John Smith'
maintainer_email 'john@example.com'
license          'Apache 2.0'
description      'Dumps chef node data to json file'
long_description IO.read(File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), 'README.md'))
version          '0.0.1'

recipe 'default', 'Dumps chef node data to json file'

%w{ ubuntu debian }.each do |os|
  supports os
end
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emacs emacs test/fixtures/cookbooks/test-helper/recipes/default.rb
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require 'pathname'

directory '/tmp/serverspec' do
  recursive true
end

file '/tmp/serverspec/node.json' do
  owner "root"
  mode "0400"
end

log "Dumping attributes to '/tmp/serverspec/node.json."

ruby_block "dump_node_attributes" do
  block do
    require 'json'

    attrs = JSON.parse("{}")

    attrs = attrs.merge(node.default_attrs) unless node.default_attrs.empty?
    attrs = attrs.merge(node.normal_attrs) unless node.normal_attrs.empty?
    attrs = attrs.merge(node.override_attrs) unless node.override_attrs.empty?

    recipe_json = "{ \"run_list\": \[ "
    recipe_json << node.run_list.expand(node.chef_environment).recipes.map! { |k| "\"#{k}\"" }.join(",")
    recipe_json << " \] }"
    attrs = attrs.merge(JSON.parse(recipe_json))

    File.open('/tmp/serverspec/node.json', 'w') { |file| file.write(JSON.pretty_generate(attrs)) }
  end
end

Add it to .kitchen.yml

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emacs .kitchen.yml
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---
driver:
  name: digitalocean
  region: amsterdam 2
  flavor: 512MB

provisioner:
  name: chef_solo

platforms:
  - name: ubuntu-12.04

suites:
  - name: default
    run_list:
      - recipe[my_cookbook::default]
      - recipe[test-helper::default]
    attributes:

Add cookbook helper to Berksfile

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emacs Berksfile
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source "http://api.berkshelf.com"

metadata

group :integration do
  cookbook 'test-helper', path: 'test/fixtures/cookbooks/test-helper'
end
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berks update

Load chef attributes

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emacs test/integration/default/serverspec/spec_helper.rb
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require 'serverspec'
require 'pathname'
require 'net/http'
require 'net/smtp'
require 'json'

include Serverspec::Helper::Exec
include Serverspec::Helper::DetectOS

RSpec.configure do |c|
  c.before :all do
    c.os = backend(Serverspec::Commands::Base).check_os
  end
end

$node = ::JSON.parse(File.read('/tmp/serverspec/node.json'))

Use chef attributes in tests

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require 'spec_helper'

describe 'my_cookbook' do

  context 'dependencies recipe. It' do
    $node['backup']['dependencies'].each do |bgem|
      it "installs backup gem dependency: #{bgem[0]}" do
        expect(package bgem[0]).to be_installed.by('gem')
      end
    end
  end

end

Conclusion

if you execute:

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kitchen verify

you should see:

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my_cookbook
  dependencies recipe. It       
    installs backup gem dependency: fog       
    installs backup gem dependency: aws-s3

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