irctest

This project aims at testing interoperability of software using the IRC protocol, by running them against common test suites.

It is also used while editing the "Modern" specification to check behavior of a large selection of servers at once.

The big picture

This project contains:

• IRC protocol test cases, primarily checking conformance to the "Modern" specification and IRCv3 extensions, but also RFC 1459 and RFC 2812. Most of them are for servers but also some for clients. Only the client-server protocol is tested; server-server protocols are out of scope.
• Small wrappers around existing software to run tests on them. So far this is restricted to headless software (servers, service packages, and clients bots).

Wrappers run software in temporary directories, so running irctest should have no side effect.

Test results for the latest version of each supported software, and respective logs, are published daily.

Prerequisites

Install irctest and dependencies:

sudo apt install faketime  # Optional, but greatly speeds up irctest/server_tests/list.py
cd ~
git clone https://github.com/progval/irctest.git
cd irctest
pip3 install --user -r requirements.txt

Add ~/.local/bin/ (and/or ~/go/bin/ for Ergo) to your PATH if it is not.

export PATH=$HOME/.local/bin/:$HOME/go/bin/:$PATH

Using pytest

irctest is invoked using the pytest test runner / CLI.

You can usually invoke it with python3 -m pytest command; which can often be called by the pytest or pytest-3 commands (if not, alias them if you are planning to use them often).

After installing pytest-xdist, you can also pass pytest the -n 10 option to run 10 tests in parallel.

The rest of this README assumes pytest works.

Test selection

A major feature of pytest that irctest heavily relies on is test selection. Using the -k option, you can select and deselect tests based on their names For example, you can run LUSERS-related tests with -k lusers.

Using the -m option, you can select and deselect and them based on their markers (listed in pytest.ini). For example, you can run only tests based on RFC1459 with -m rfc1459.

By default, all tests run; even niche ones. So you probably always want to use these options: -m 'not Ergo and not deprecated and not strict. This excludes:

• Ergo-specific tests (included as Ergo uses irctest as its official integration test suite)
• tests for deprecated specifications, such as the IRCv3 METADATA specification
• tests that check for a strict interpretation of a specification, when the specification is ambiguous.

Running tests

This list is non-exhaustive, see workflows.yml for software not listed here. If software you want to test is not listed their either, please open an issue or pull request to add support for it.

Servers

Ergo:

cd /tmp/
git clone https://github.com/ergochat/ergo.git
cd ergo/
make install
cd ~/irctest
pytest --controller irctest.controllers.ergo -k 'not deprecated'

Solanum:

cd /tmp/
git clone https://github.com/solanum-ircd/solanum.git
cd solanum
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=$HOME/.local/
make -j 4
make install
pytest --controller irctest.controllers.solanum -k 'not Ergo and not deprecated and not strict'

InspIRCd:

cd /tmp/
git clone https://github.com/inspircd/inspircd.git
cd inspircd

# Optional, makes tests run considerably faster. Pick one depending on the InspIRCd version:
# on Insp3 <= 3.16.0 and Insp4 <= 4.0.0a21:
patch src/inspircd.cpp < ~/irctest/patches/inspircd_mainloop.patch
# on Insp3 >= 3.17.0 and Insp4 >= 4.0.0a22:
export CXXFLAGS=-DINSPIRCD_UNLIMITED_MAINLOOP

./configure --prefix=$HOME/.local/ --development
make -j 4
make install
cd ~/irctest
pytest --controller irctest.controllers.inspircd -k 'not Ergo and not deprecated and not strict'

UnrealIRCd:

cd /tmp/
git clone https://github.com/unrealircd/unrealircd.git
cd unrealircd
./Config  # This will ask a few questions, answer them.
make -j 4
make install
cd ~/irctest
pytest --controller irctest.controllers.unreal -k 'not Ergo and not deprecated and not strict'

Servers with services

Besides Ergo (that has built-in services) and Sable (that ships its own services), most server controllers can optionally run service packages.

Atheme:

You can install it with

sudo apt install atheme-services

and add this to the pytest call:

--services-controller irctest.controllers.atheme_services

Anope:

Build with:

cd /tmp/
git clone https://github.com/anope/anope.git
cd anope
./Config  # This will ask a few questions, answer them.
make -C build -j 4
make -C build install

and add this to the pytest call:

--services-controller irctest.controllers.anope_services

Clients

Limnoria:

pip3 install --user limnoria pyxmpp2-scram
cd ~/irctest
pytest --controller  irctest.controllers.limnoria

Sopel:

pip3 install --user sopel
mkdir ~/.sopel/
cd ~/irctest
pytest --controller irctest.controllers.sopel

What irctest is not

A formal proof that a given software follows any of the IRC specification, or anything near that.

At best, irctest can help you find issues in your software, but it may still have false positives (because it does not implement itself a full-featured client/server, so it supports only “usual” behavior). Bug reports for false positives are welcome.