Richard North discusses the challenges of testing software, particularly integration tests, and presents Testcontainers as a solution to manage Dockerized dependencies efficiently. The document outlines various use cases for Testcontainers, including database testing and Selenium WebDriver integration, highlighting its features like version control, isolated instances, and ease of debugging. The conclusion emphasizes the tool's utility and encourages users to try it for improved testing workflows.

2. Who am I?
Richard North
• Lifelong geek
• Java/iOS/web/'devops' - 'full stack'
• Ex-consultant, now at Skyscanner
• UK and Japan
• Proud father of two!
@whichrich

3. Testing
Quick poll

4. Who writes tests?

5. Who writes unit tests?

6. Who writes integrated tests?
Code under test
Test suite
'External'/out-of-process dependencies

7. Who loves creating/maintaining
integrated tests?

8. Integrated tests
!

9. "You need to manually install Oracle XE on
your dev machine to run the tests..."
Weakly defined dependencies

10. "Oops Firefox upgraded itself - nobody can
run Selenium tests today"
Bit rot - variance with time

11. "Test B always fails if Test A ran before it"
Shared state - tests interfere with each other

12. "But it worked when we tested against the
mock!"
Mocks provide varying assurance of compatibility

13. "I can only run that test on CI. I can't connect
a debugger."
Testing capabilities vary through the pipeline

14. There has to be a better way

15. Testing Pyramid

17. Just don't have any integrated
tests?

18. "2 Unit Tests, 0 Integration Tests"

19. Be pragmatic

20. Have as few integrated tests as we
can get away with
...

21. Have as few integrated tests as we
can get away with
and make them easier to work with

23. Deployment and Infrastructure

24. Once upon a time...

25. "It'll take you three days to build an
environment"
— My first tech lead

26. - Slow, manual setup
- No dev/prod parity
- Expensive to do the right thing

27. Deployment and Infrastructure
!

28. Fast forward to the future

32. "we can build an environment in seconds"
- quickly, cheaply
- always the same
- definition is version controlled
- Docker Hub - plentiful base images

33. Deployment
❤
Docker

34. What if..?
Docker for Testing?

35. Testcontainers
• Manage Dockerized external dependencies via a Java object facade
• JUnit integration - Starts/stops containers for each class/method
• Reliability:
• start from clean state
• isolated instances
• port randomisation
• tag-based versioning
• Java JUnit support; also Spock, Scala and Python wrappers/forks

36. Testcontainers project
• Initial versions mid 2015
• 36 contributors over time; Sergei Egorov (@bsideup) is the main co-maintainer
• Some users:
• ZeroTurnaround
• Spring Data
• Apache
• Zalando
• Alfalab
• Zipkin
• Others...!

37. Where can Testcontainers help me?

38. Supported test dependencies
Type Specialisations
GenericContainer Any image on Docker Hub (or private repo!)
Databases MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle XE,
DynamoDB
Selenium Chrome, Firefox
Docker Compose Anything in a Docker Compose file
Dockerfile / Dockerfile DSL Anything expressable in a Dockerfile

39. A simple example
Integrated tests involving a cache

40. public interface Cache {
void put(String key, String value);
String get(String key);
}
public class RedisBackedCache implements Cache {
// Uses Redis...
}

41. public class RedisBackedCacheTest {
private Cache cache;
@Before
public void setup() {
cache = new RedisBackedCache("localhost", 6379);
}
@Test
public void testGetAndSetAValue() {
cache.put("foo", "bar");
final String retrievedValue = cache.get("foo");
assertEquals("The retrieved value is the same as the inserted value", "bar", retrievedValue);
}
}

42. public class RedisBackedCacheTest {
@Rule
public static GenericContainer redis = new GenericContainer("redis:3.2.8");
private Cache cache;
@Before
public void setup() {
cache = new RedisBackedCache(???, ???);
}
@Test
public void testGetAndSetAValue() {
cache.put("foo", "bar");
final String retrievedValue = cache.get("foo");
assertEquals("The retrieved value is the same as the inserted value", "bar", retrievedValue);
}
}

43. public class RedisBackedCacheTest {
@Rule
public static GenericContainer redis = new GenericContainer("redis:3.2.8")
.withExposedPorts(6379);
private Cache cache;
@Before
public void setup() {
cache = new RedisBackedCache(redis.getContainerIpAddress(), redis.getMappedPort(6379));
}
@Test
public void testGetAndSetAValue() {
cache.put("foo", "bar");
final String retrievedValue = cache.get("foo");
assertEquals("The retrieved value is the same as the inserted value", "bar", retrievedValue);
}
}

44. What will Testcontainers do here?

45. • Automatic discovery of local docker environment
• Pull images or build from Dockerfile
• Start/stop container
• Wait for it to be ready (log string / listening port / protocol-
specific)
• Port mapping
• Clean up

46. What have we avoided?
• No need to install the dependency
• No need to keep it running, or make sure it's running
• No concern over version or configuration differences
• No differences between what runs on CI and locally
• No port clashes, no shared state unless we want it

47. What have we gained?
• Repeatability - locked version redis:3.2.8
• Debuggable locally - runnable in IDE
• Parallelizable
• Runs anywhere that Docker runs

48. 'Anywhere Docker runs'
Automatic discovery:
• Docker for Mac and Docker for Windows
• Docker Machine
• Uses a running machine instance, or default
• Automatically starts up Docker Machine if needed
• Docker on Linux
• Cloud CI
• Travis CI
• Circle CI
• Docker in Docker
• ... or wherever DOCKER_HOST is set

49. Example 2
Database testing

50. A simple DAO API
public interface UsefulDao {
void putAThing(String name, SomeObject value);
SomeObject getAThingByJsonId(Integer id);
}

51. A corresponding test
public class UsefulDaoTest {
private UsefulDao dao;
@Before
public void setUp() throws Exception {
// Instantiate the DAO
// Connect
// Create schema and data
}
@Test
public void testPutAndGetByJsonIndex() throws Exception {
// INSERT and SELECT something
}
}

52. How can we test this with no
database?
Embedded database!

53. Our (fictitious) schema
CREATE TABLE THINGS ( name VARCHAR(255), data JSONB );

54. JSONB is a PostgreSQL data type - how can we test this?
• Embedded database?
• Run PostgreSQL through our build script?
• Hope that the developer/CI environment has the right version of
PostgreSQL?
• Give up, and don't use database features we can't easily test? !
• Don't test interactions with the DB, and hope that it works in prod? !!
• Can we use Testcontainers..?

55. Yes we can!
@Rule
public PostgreSQLContainer postgres = new PostgreSQLContainer("postgres:9.6.2");
Access at test-time
postgres.getJdbcUrl(); // Unique URL for a container instance
postgres.getUsername();
postgres.getPassword();

56. Example 3
Selenium Webdriver testing

57. public class SeleniumTest {
private WebDriver driver;
@Before
public void setUp() throws Exception {
// Connect to remote selenium grid
// or start a local browser process (Headless? Real browser?)
}
@Test
public void testSimple() throws IOException {
...
}
}

58. public class SeleniumTest {
@Rule
public BrowserWebDriverContainer chrome =
new BrowserWebDriverContainer()
.withDesiredCapabilities(DesiredCapabilities.chrome());
private WebDriver driver;
@Before
public void setUp() throws Exception {
driver = chrome.getWebDriver();
}
@Test
public void testSimple() throws IOException {
...
}
}

59. driver.get("https://2017.geekout.ee/");
driver.findElement(
By.linkText("SCHEDULE"))
.click();
driver.findElement(
By.partialLinkText("TestContainers"))
.click();
driver.findElement(
By.linkText("Richard North"))
.click();
final String siteUrl = driver.findElement(
By.partialLinkText("testcontainers"))
.getText();
assertEquals("The right link is found",
"https://www.testcontainers.org/",
siteUrl);

60. Recording videos
@Rule
public BrowserWebDriverContainer chrome =
new BrowserWebDriverContainer()
.withDesiredCapabilities(DesiredCapabilities.chrome())
.withRecordingMode(RECORD_FAILING, new File("./target"));

61. Debug via VNC!
Set a breakpoint:
Get a VNC URL
chrome.getVncAddress() // e.g. "vnc://vnc:secret@localhost:32786"
Connect
$ open vnc://vnc:secret@localhost:32786

62. Recap so far
• Using an image from Docker Hub as a dependency
• Specialised database support
• Selenium testing

63. Example 4
Dockerfile build

64. Build a container image at test time
Allows:
• Running code in real, prod-like Docker image
• Create an image that's not available from a registry
• Parameterized builds - using a DSL
Doesn't require a separate phase for build/test pipeline

65. Build a container image at test time -
Dockerfile
FROM tomcat:8.5.15
COPY service.war /usr/local/tomcat/webapps/my-service.war

66. Build a container image at test time -
Dockerfile
@Rule
public GenericContainer server = new GenericContainer(
new ImageFromDockerfile()
.withFileFromFile("Dockerfile", new File("./Dockerfile"))
.withFileFromFile("service.war", new File("target/my-service.war")))
.withExposedPorts(8080);
@Test
public void simpleTest() {
// do something with the server - port is server.getMappedPort(8080));
}

67. Build a container image at test time - DSL
@Rule
public GenericContainer server = new GenericContainer(
new ImageFromDockerfile()
.withFileFromFile("service.war", new File("target/my-service.war"))
.withDockerfileFromBuilder(builder -> {
builder
.from("tomcat:8.5.15")
.copy("service.war", "/usr/local/tomcat/webapps/my-service.war")
.build();
}))
.withExposedPorts(8080);
@Test
public void simpleTest() {
// do something with the server - port is server.getMappedPort(8080));
}

68. Example 5
Docker Compose

69. docker-compose.backend.yml:
version: '2'
services:
db:
image: mongo:3.0.15
cache:
image: redis:3.2.8
search:
image: elasticsearch:5.4.0

70. Multiple containers as JUnit rules
One way?
public class SimpleSystemTest {
@ClassRule
public GenericContainer db = new GenericContainer("mongo:3.0.15");
@ClassRule
public GenericContainer cache = new GenericContainer("redis:3.2.8");
@ClassRule
public GenericContainer search = new GenericContainer("elasticsearch:5.4.0");
// ... tests ...
}

71. Using Docker Compose during a test
@Rule
public DockerComposeContainer backend = new DockerComposeContainer(new File("./docker-compose.backend.yml"))
.withExposedService("db", 27017)
.withExposedService("cache", 6379)
.withExposedService("search", 9200);
@Test
public void simpleTest() {
// obtain host/ports for each container as follows:
// backend.getServiceHost("db", 27017);
// backend.getServicePort("db", 27017);
// ...
}

72. Docker Compose in Testcontainers
• Unique, random, name prefix and isolated network - allows concurrent usage
One usage mode:
• Use docker-compose up -f ... during local dev (overrides file to expose
ports)
• Run tests concurrently via Testcontainers without stopping local
environment
• Seamless transition to CI - use Testcontainers

73. Summary
• Generic image container
• Specialised Database container
• Selenium containers with video recording and VNC debugging
• Building a Dockerfile
• Docker Compose

74. What's next?

75. Speed enhancements
• Startup containers in in advance
• Checkpoint-Restore In Userspace

76. 'Version 2'
• API tidyup
• decouple from JUnit 4 and support other frameworks directly

77. Core elements as a library
• high-level Docker object API as a library, for more than just
testing usage
• planning collaboration with Arquillian Cube project team !

78. More things!
• Pumba (Chaos testing) - landing soon!
• ...

79. Conclusion
• Hopefully another useful tool for your testing toolbox
• Easy to use, powerful features for many scenarios
• Please try it out yourselves!

80. Thanks to
• Everyone who has contributed to the project
• ZeroTurnaround
• You!

81. testcontainers.org
github.com/testcontainers
@testcontainers

82. Thank you!