The document discusses the importance of testing in infrastructure management, emphasizing the control it offers against code changes and deployment risks. It outlines four types of infrastructure tests: eyeballing, linting, unit testing, and integration testing, while introducing tools like Goss, Terratest, and Inspec for implementation. The presenter encourages a culture of writing tests for every configuration change and collaborating with teams to enhance testing practices.

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End to End Immutable
Infrastructure Testing
January 2020
© 2019 Nebulaworks, Inc.

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So there I was...

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HI, MY NAME IS DREW

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OVERVIEW
Tell & Show:
- why: testing
- what: is/are we testing
- how: demo
- questions
ASSUMPTIONS
Good at:
- config mgmt
- deployment via code
- Packer
- git
Know some about:
- Continuous Integration
- Terraform
- Vagrant
- Azure
- Immutable Infrastructure

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WHY TESTING? (engineer version)
Code change
Developers change
Dependencies change
Testing is about taking back control

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WHY TESTING? ( manager version)
deployment confidence -> reduced stress
short-lived development environments
documents your infrastructure
ease of refactoring
Testing is about reducing risk

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ALTERNATE PRESENTATION NAMES
Technically coping with change: a memoir
How I sleep at night (as a infra. eng.)
Cowboy deploy to tried and tested

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4 KINDS OF TESTS
●
●
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PARTICIPATION AWARD
YOU
CONGRATULATIONS <YOUR NAME>!

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4 KINDS OF INFRASTRUCTURE TESTS
1. Eyeballing it
2. Linting
3. Unit Testing
4. Integration Testing
you, a scientist,
eyeballing it
BEFORE your code merges
BEFORE your code runs
AFTER your code runs
1. Eyeballing it

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OVERVIEW
feedback
loop
Local CI
Post
Deployment

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TOOLS
Goss (no cool logo) Terratest (no cool logo)
RSpec
(not a cool logo)
Inspec
“The Specs”
IN
SPEC
FACTS
Ruby Gem Developed by
Chef
Native integrations with:
- Packer
- Ansible Molecule
- Chef Suite
Cloud Resource Testing!

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PROFILE a distinct module of inspec code
CONTROL a single or grouping of distinct tests
RESOURCE the inspec resource with properties to verify
MATCHER used to compare resource values to expectations
TARGETS native connection / auth methods to launch tests
INSPEC PRIMER
control ‘tmp’ do
title ’Verify /tmp exists’
desc 'A detailed description'
describe file('/tmp') do
it { should be_directory }
end
end
control ‘home’ do
title ’Verify /home exists’
...
Profile
inspec exec my-azure-profile -t azure://<subscription_id>
inspec exec my-vm-ssh-profile -t ssh://user@ip:port

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DEMO TIME!
SHUT UP!

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RETROSPECTIVE

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WHAT NEXT?
1. Use your eyeballing tests
2. Write a test for every configuration change you make. Every one
3. Think and talk about it with your team and write more tests
4. Write tests for things that you miss
5. Seek guidance from compliance and security teams, partner with them (do at your own peril)
6. Rely upon external profiles and open-source yours
https://github.com/dev-sec/linux-baseline/releases
Start writing tests!
Important: Don’t merge code without tests

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THANK YOU!
QUESTIONS?
email: drew@nebulaworks.com
code & slides: https://github.com/drewmullen/infra-testing-demo