Requirements
To run these tests, first get the vagrant setup for the systemvm working, see ../../tools/vagrant/systemvm.
Then, install dependencies
pip install nose paramiko python-vagrant envassert cuisine fabric
Running tests
Then run the tests using your favorite python unittest runner
nosetests-2.7
If you have already started the systemvm with 'vagrant up', that VM will get used for all the tests.
If you have not started the systemvm yet, it will be started and stopped for every test case. That's nice for test isolation, but it's very slow, so it is not recommended.
You can also run these tests out of the box with PyDev or PyCharm or whatever.
Adding tests
Simply create new test_xxx.py files with test cases that extend from SystemVMTestCase.
Use envassert checks to define your test assertions.
Use cuisine, fab, or paramiko to otherwise interact with the systemvm. When you do, please consider creating your own little wrappers around fab run. I.e. the pattern is
from __future__ import with_statement
from fabric.api import run, hide
def something_to_do(argument):
    with hide("everything"):
        result = run("do something %s" % argument).wrangle()
        return "expected" in result
for a new kind of check and then in your test
class HelloSystemVMTestCase(SystemVMTestCase):
    @attr(tags=["systemvm"], required_hardware="true")
    def test_something(self):
        assert something_to_do('foo')
Edit, test, edit, test
The SystemVM Vagrantfile sets up rsync from systemvm/patches. These rsyncs run once, when you type 'vagrant up'. To do these rsyncs every time you change a patch file, run 'vagrant rsync-auto'. With that, your development process can be,
- once, start up vagrant with 'vagrant up'
- once, start up the rsync watcher with 'vagrant rsync-auto'
- iterate:
- write a test, save the file
- run 'nostests' to check that the test fails
- change a systemvm script to help the test pass, save the file
- vagrant rsyncs the changed file
- run 'nosetests' to check that the test now passes
 
If you use PyDev or PyCharm you can set it up to watch your test files for changes and auto-run any changed tests.