QA/Desktop Firefox/Automation

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

This is being refactored from the old documentation here

If you are looking for the Automation Services team, please go to their team page.

Overview

Mozilla QA uses Mozmill, a tool developed for test automation of applications based on the Gecko Platform (XUL Runner).

We use this tool to automate our manual tests in Litmus. The primary goal is to lessen the time we spend actively testing Smoketest, Basic Functional, and Full Functional level regression tests; enabling us to focus our time more on deep testing of bleeding-edge features and bugs.

An added benefit of using automation is that we can run tests across multiple platforms and locales in parallel, thereby increasing the coverage of regression tests in a smaller amount of time. To put that all into perspective, a single person running the BFTs on one platform and one locale takes about 8 hours. Mozmill can run the same tests across all platforms and all locales in a couple of hours.

The Mozmill tool and APIs are maintained and developed by the Automation Services team. The relatively small Desktop Automation team is responsible for developing the tests. This is where we need you, the community.

The Team

Person	Photo	Location	Role
Anthony Hughes IRC: ashughes		Vancouver, Canada	Team Lead
Vlad Maniac IRC: vladmaniac		Cluj, Romania	Contractor Lead
Alex Lakatos IRC: AlexLakatos		Cluj, Romania	Developer
Remus Pop IRC: remuspop		Cluj, Romania	Developer

You can get in contact with us in a few different ways:

• Take part in a discussion on the mozmill-dev mailing list
• Join the #mozmill IRC channel to ask about Mozmill
• Join the #automation IRC channel to ask about test automation

Meetings

Every two weeks we meet to discuss the progress we have made, where we want to go, and how we are going to get there. You can learn a lot about what we do just by listening in to one of our meetings. These meetings are open to everyone.

Meeting Information:

   When: Mondays, 8am PT / 4pm GMT
Dial-in: +1 (800) 707-2533 Password 369 Conference 654

Areas of Work

Projects

Project	Summary	Bugs	Availability
Good First Bug	Hand-picked bugs ideal for a launching point into test development	good first bug	3 Bugs Available
Failures	Repair broken tests	[mozmill-test-failure]	worksheet
Endurance	Tests measuring resource usage in various scenarios	[mozmill-endurance]	worksheet
Smoketests	Tests covering the most basic functionality	[mozmill-smoketest]	worksheet
Restart	Tests requiring Firefox to restart	[mozmill-restart]	worksheet
Functional	Tests covering more advanced functionality	[mozmill-functional]	worksheet
l10n	Tests for the numerous localizations/languages	[mozmill-l10n]	worksheet
Add-ons	Tests for Firefox add-ons		worksheet
Local Data	Creating local data for all of our remote test cases
Test Refactoring	Refactoring existing tests to use new APIs	mozmill-test-refactor	5 Bugs Available

Prioritized by increasing complexity and decreasing need

Test Failures

The Test Failures project focuses on repairing tests which have started failing. Most of the time this results in a test having to be refactored due to a change in Firefox. Once in a while this ends up being a Firefox regression. It is of utmost importance that we tackles these issues as swiftly as possible.

How to Help

• Familiarize yourself with some of our existing functional tests
• Familiarize yourself with the Mozmill Tests documentation and try running some tests
• Review our worksheet and find an UNASSIGNED test you would like to try fixing
• If you can't find something, try checking our dashboard and see if a new failure has happened which you would like to solve
• Once you've found a test you want to fix, see if you can reproduce it locally (on your machine)
• File a bug and sign onto the #automation channel on IRC to get help

Endurance Tests

The Endurance Tests project focuses on development of automated tests which try to expose performance regressions in Firefox. Currently, they only measure memory usage but there are future plans to expand this out to CPU and I/O usage.

How to Help

• Familiarize yourself with the existing endurance tests
• Familiarize yourself with the detailed project documentation and try running some of the tests
• Check out our Endurance Dashboard to see some recent results
• Review our worksheet and find an UNASSIGNED test you would like to try automating
• File a bug and sign onto the #automation channel on IRC to get help

Smoketests

The Smokestests project focuses on development of automated tests for the manual smoketests run with every release. The aim here is to lessen the time spent running manual smoketests, devoting it to more important areas of release testing.

How to Help

• Familiarize yourself with some of our existing functional tests
• Familiarize yourself with the Mozmill Tests documentation and try running some of the tests
• Check out our Functional Dashboard to see some recent results
• Review our worksheet and find an UNASSIGNED test you would like to try automating
• File a bug and sign onto the #automation channel on IRC to get help

Restart Tests

The Restart Tests project focuses on development of automated tests requiring a restart of the browser (Add-on installation for example). They are very similar to Smoketests except that each test is broken into a separate file (book-ended by restarts). One of the unique benefits of Mozmill is that it can persist across the restart of a browser and therefor test in ways other frameworks cannot.

How to Help

• Familiarize yourself with some of our existing functional tests
• Familiarize yourself with the Mozmill Tests documentation and try running some of the tests
• Check out our Functional and Remote Dashboards to see some recent results
• Review our worksheet and find an UNASSIGNED test you would like to try automating
• File a bug and sign onto the #automation channel on IRC to get help

Functional Tests

more to come soon...

l10n Tests

The l10n Tests project focuses on development of automated tests for the numerous language translations (locales). The majority of these tests are UI focused, checking to make sure the localized strings do not break the look and feel of Firefox.

How to Help

• Familiarize yourself with some of our existing l10n tests and Litmus tests
• Familiarize yourself with the Mozmill Tests documentation and try running some of the tests
• Check out our L10n Dashboard to see some recent results
• Review our worksheet and find an UNASSIGNED test you would like to try automating
• File a bug and sign onto the #automation channel on IRC to get help

Add-ons Tests

More to come soon...

dashboard

Good First Bug

The good-first-bug project is all about getting your feet wet with Mozmill Tests development. These bugs are hand-picked from all other projects. They are ideal candidates for your first attempt at writing a patch and fixing a bug for Mozilla.

• Be sure to familiarize yourself with our documentation about writing Mozmill tests
• Pick one of these bugs to work on and assign it to yourself
• Comment in the bug introducing yourself and ask for help getting started
• Feel free to email me directly if you have any questions

Test Refactoring

The Test Refactoring project is about refactoring (changing) the code in existing tests to use current APIs. The Mozmill APIs undergo changes frequently to make tests easier to write, implement new features, or to stabilize the test suite. Some of the tests are well over a year old and need to be updated to these new improvements. This is a great way to learn the structure of tests, the APIs and how they are used.

• Make sure you have read and understand contributing
• Pick one of the test refactoring bugs and assign it to yourself
• Introduce yourself to the team and ask for help getting started by commenting in the bug
• If you have any questions email me directly

Contributing

Before you Begin

• Learn about installing Mozmill
• Learn about the test repository
• Learn about running tests
• Learn about writing tests

Getting Started

• Set up your Mozmill development environment (if you have not done so already)
• Pick an project which fits best with your area of interest
• Familiarize yourself with some existing code
• Pick a project which interests you
• Assign a bug to yourself or file a new one
• Start coding
• Submit your first patch into the review process
• Remember to ask for help via email or on irc.mozilla.org #automation

What to do when RESOLVED FIXED?

• Wait until the next day's testrun to appear on the dashboard, and verify that your test passes
• Assuming it passes, update the worksheet
• Add the following boilerplate to the Litmus test

<hr />
Covered by Mozmill test:<br>
<a href="http://hg.mozilla.org/qa/mozmill-tests/file/default/tests/testFolder/testModule.js">
  testFolder/testModule.js
</a>

• Add the Litmus test to Aurora Mozmill Tests subgroup
• should you be unable to perform any of the above duties, please comment in your bug

Where to get Help

• Joining the #automation channel on IRC and ask for help
• Sending an email directly to Anthony Hughes