InSpec Spec

This repository explores adding testing to the InSpec controls that you define within your InSpe Resource Pack.

A Resource Pack is an InSpec profile that defines its own resource without any controls that exercise it.

InSpec resource tests are written in RSpec with additional helper content found in the spec/spec_helper.rb file to make the tests easier to compose. The tests are run through the RSpec binary rspec.

Installation

To run the tests you will have to have the RSpec test runner available to you. RSpec is installed alongside InSpec. You can run it from where it embedded within your InSpec installation.

$ /opt/inspec/embedded/bin/rspec

Alternatively, if you have a ruby development environment you can install the gem version of InSpec using bundler.

Note: This will install several gems into your ruby environment which can conflict with a standlone install of InSpec if you don't use something like chruby or rvm to mange your GEM_PATHs

$ bundle install
$ bundle exec rspec

Setup

To setup the testing within your profile you will need to create a spec directory and add the spec/spec_helper.rb file found in this repository.

Within your spec/spec_helper.rb or in the individual spec test files you will need to require all the InSpec resources defined in the profile's libraries directory.

require 'inspec'
require 'rspec/its'

# To test each of your resources, they will need to be required
# to have the InSpec registry know about it.
# You can choose to add them here for all of the spec test files or
# individually in each of the spec test files.
# require 'libraries/ohai.rb'

# ... rest of the spec_helper.rb ...

Now you will define test file for each of your resources. The file should exist within the spec directory and end with _spec.rb.

For example, to create a test file for an ohai resource, found in libraries/ohai.rb, I would create a file named spec/ohai_spec.rb.

At the start of this test file you will want to require the contents of the spec_helper file to ensure it loads all the necessary dependencies, resources defined in your libraries directory, and the helpers defined in that file.

Second, you want to define a describe_inspec_resource example group that sets the stage for the resource testing. Within that group you can arrange your tests with describe and context to create the scenarios and conditions you want to test.

Within any context you can define an environment block which defines the various operations and responses that the InSpec/Train backend may receive. These environments build on one another within the nested contexts. This helps you define layers of conditions that build on one another.

Examples can be written out in either its or it. When defining the its, the symbol specified within the its is the message to send to the resource in the context. Within the it block you can express expectations against the InSpec resource under test, through the resource helper.

require 'spec_helper'
# To test each of your resources, they will need to be required
# to have the InSpec registry know about it, if not required in the spec_helper
# require 'libraries/ohai.rb'

describe_inspec_resource 'ohai' do
  context 'relying on the automatic path' do
    environment do
      command('which ohai').returns(stdout: '/path/to/ohai')
      command('/path/to/ohai --version').returns(stdout: "Ohai: 14.8.10\n")
    end

    its(:version) { should eq '14.8.10' }

    it 'has a version' do
      expect(resource.version).to eq('14.8.10')
    end

    context 'with no parameters' do
      context 'top-level attributes' do
        environment do
          command('/path/to/ohai').returns(result: {
            stdout: '{ "os": "darwin" }', exit_status: 0
          })
        end

        it 'are accessible via dot-notation' do
          expect(resource.os).to eq('darwin')
        end
      end
    end
  end
end