NAME
    Test::System - Test suite oriented for testing system administration
    tasks

SYNOPSIS
        use Test::System;

        my $suite = Test::System->new(
                format => 'consoletable',
                nodes => 'example.com',
                test_groups => '~/code/my/system/tests.yaml'
                );
        $suite->runtests;

DESCRIPTION
    Loads and runs a set of tests for verifying a system administration task
    before a possible incident happens or after a task is executed.

    Tests can be run as perl scripts and actually in any format TAP::Harness
    supports.

    Some examples of how Test::System can help you:

    *   Before a deployment probably you want to make sure your systems and
        configuration files are ready to go. Also you probably want to make
        sure that if you needed to apply patches to your configuration
        files, they really got applied (even in a development server or
        verify directly on production servers). So here Test::System can
        help you verifying this in the form of a test case. Of course, you
        write the test case :-)

    *   What about if you have many servers and although you have nagios to
        verify the speed of the CPU sometimes you need to verify it
        "on-demand" (perhaps when you get new servers in your datacenter).
        Here Test::System can help you to verify that these servers are
        ready to go before even they get connected to nagios or your
        favorite monitoring tool.

    One of the things you need to keep in mind is that Test::System is NOT a
    monitoring system. It will let you verify things on demand, things that
    are repetitive and perhaps you want them to be automated.

Attributes
    The module offers a list of attributes, some of them are read-only.

    test_groups
          YAML filename that has a list of available tests. This is not
          required but can be useful if you want to group tests (like
          *hardware.yaml*, *net.yaml*, etc). Comes also handy when user does
          not provide a list of tests to execute, so all the tests listed in
          this file are executed.

          An example of a YAML file:

              ping:
                  description: Test the ping and do foo and make bar
                  code: test/foo.pl
              cpu:
                  description: Test the CPU of nodes
                  code: test/cpu.pl

    available_tests
          Is a read only attribute that contains a list of all available
          tests found in the YAML file provided by "test_groups".

    nodes Is an attribute that can be represented as a string (like a
          hostname) or as a list (where each item will be a node/hostname).
          This attribute has write access and is where the tests are going
          to be executed to.

          Another way of setting this value is when "runtests()" is called,
          a test plan (in the form of a YAML file) can be provided and it
          can contain the list of nodes to use.

    format
          A write access string that has the format of how the tests should
          be presented, please refer to the modules available under
          Test::System::Output or in your custom factory
          ("format_factory_class" attribute) class if this is the case.

    available_formats
          A list of available formats, read only.

    format_factory_class
          If you want to use your own Factory for creating your output you
          can set this to your class name (NOT the object).

          Please note that Test::System will continue to use
          Test::System::Output::Factory, the reason of this is that any
          factory subclasses should add/register their classes via their
          parent class. So in this case all your new format classes should
          be added to Test::System::Output::Factory. For more information
          please take a look to Class::Factory.

    harness
          Is (or will be) the harness instance once "runtests" is executed.

    parameters
          An attribute with write access permission. This attribute will
          transform all the items of this hash to environment variables.

          The use of this attribute is very handy if you want to provide
          some additional data for your tests and since the tests are run in
          separate forks with Test::Harness then the only possible way to
          keep them is to make them available through the environment (%ENV
          hash).

          Please be warned that only scalars are stored in environment
          variables, those that are an array will be converted to CSV values
          while the rest of the data types will be lost.

          In your tests if you want to use any of these parameters they will
          be available through the environment variables with a prefix of:
          "TEST_SYSTEM_" or you can use Test::System::Helper to get their
          values.

    results
          A hash reference that contains the results of the tests. This
          information is generated by the TAP::Parser::Aggregator.

          * passed: Total of passed tests
          * total: Total number of tests (passed or not)
          * skipped: Total of skipped tests
          * failed: Total of failed tests.

    status
          A string (read-only) that contains a word that describes the
          status of all the tests. This value is also generated by
          TAP::Parser::Aggregator.

    show_warnings
          By default we show warnings of all things that can make your tests
          to run in a different way than expected.

Methods
  runtests(@tests,%options)
    It will run the given test cases (@tests). The @tests can be:

    * An array of test files to execute.
    * Or, a string pointing to a test plan file (YAML).

    If no @tests are given but we have a "test_groups" then ALL the tests
    listed inside this file will be executed.

    The %options is a hash of options that will be passed to the
    TAP::Harness object, some useful parameters are:

    * verbosity
        By default we mute everything with -9.

    * color
        If you want the output (in console) to have color

    * formatter
        Although we use Test::System::Output::Factory to offer a set of
        formatters you can provide your own formatter object. See
        "available_formats".

    * jobs
        If you have many tests you probably want to increment this value
        (that defaults to 1) so other tests can be run at the same time.

  run_test_plan($test_plan, %options)
    It loads the given test plan file (should be written in YAML) in order
    to get a list of tests to execute. Once it has a list of tests then it
    calls "runtests" with this list and with the %options.

  setup_parser($parser)
    This method should never be called directly since this is triggered by
    TAP::Harness when every TAP::Parser object gets created.

    This method is useful for setting the callbacks we want the parser to
    trigger.

    $parser should be a TAP::Parser object.

  pretests_verification(@tests, %options)
    Does some verification before the tests are executed. This method gets
    called by "runtests".

    The parameters it accepts are the same parameters passed to "runtests"
    with the main difference the tests are already filtered (eg, if a test
    plan in YAML was provided we will use it or we will use all the tests
    listed inside the "test_groups".

  what_happened($parser, $result_test)
    Similar to *setup_parser*, this should never be called since it will be
    triggered by TAP::Parser after each (sub)tests gets executed.

    By default we check the reason of why the test failed so later we
    provide a simple hash to parse with all the tests and the reasons of why
    they failed (if this could be the case). And because we need to know
    what TAP::Parser instance we are processing we need to ask for it as a
    first parameter.

    Parameters:

    * $parser should be a TAP::Parser
    * $result_test should be a TAP::Parser::Result::Test.

  set_results($aggregator)
    This is a callback and is only called/triggered by TAP::Harness when all
    the tests are done. It will fill the "results" attribute with
    information of everything.

    Refer to the documentation of *results* for more information.

    The paramenter $aggregator is a TAP::Parser::Aggregator.

  prepare_environment()
    Prepares the environment by settings the needed environment values so
    they can be used later by the tests

  clean_environment()
    Cleans/deletes all the environment variables that match "TEST_SYSTEM_*"

  get_tests_from_test_plan($yaml_file,
        $do_not_fill_parameters, 
        $do_not_fill_nodes)
    Reads the given tests yaml file ($yaml_file). This YAML file should have
    at least a list of tests and optionally can also have parameters the
    tests should contain.

    Although this method is used mostly internally there's the option to
    call it as any other method *Test::System* offers.

    By default it will fill the parameters of your *Test::System* instance
    but by passing $do_not_fill_parameters (second parameter) as true or
    something that Perl understands as true then it will skip the part. This
    should be presented as a hash in YAML syntax.

    The above apply also to $do_not_fill_nodes (third parameter). This
    should be presented as an array in YAML syntax.

    Once the file is read an array with all the tests will be returned.

    All the tests should be contained inside a hash named 'tests'. All the
    tests should be represented in the form of a list, each item of the list
    is the test you want to execute. At least it should have a 'code' item,
    this is the filepath of the test (or the ID from a "test_groups").
    Optionally you can also provide the description of the test (cause
    otherwise the filename will be used and it can make ugly your summary
    report).

    An example of a YAML test plan file can be found inside the "examples"
    directory or:

        tests:
            - 
                code: ping
                description: Checking the ping
            - 
                code: example/tests/cpu.pl
                description: foobar
            -
                code: memory
                description: Ehmm.. my name?
        parameters:
            ping_count: 10
        nodes:
            - pablo.com.mx
            - example.com

SEE ALSO
    Take a look to an awesome and pretty similar CPAN module: Test::Server.

AUTHOR
    Pablo Fischer (pablo@pablo.com.mx).

COPYRIGHT
    Copyright (C) 2009 by Pablo Fischer.

    This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
    under the same terms as Perl itself.