NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
WARNING
COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
CONFIGURATION FILE
ENVIRONMENT
KUDOS
AUTHOR
LICENSE
SEE ALSO

NAME

minismokebox - a small lightweight SmokeBox

SYNOPSIS

 minismokebox [options]

 Options:
   --debug           - display all the output from tests as they are run;
   --help            - Display program usage;
   --version         - Display program version;
   --perl PERL       - specify the perl executable to use for testing;
   --indices         - Reload indices before proceeding with testing;
   --recent          - Explictly smoke recent uploads, usually the default;
   --jobs FILE       - Specify a file with modules to be smoked;
   --backend BACKEND - specify a SmokeBox backend to use;
   --author PATTERN  - specify a CPAN ID to search for modules to smoke;
   --package PATTERN - specify a search pattern to match against distributions;
   --phalanx         - smoke the Phalanx 100 distributions;
   --reverse         - specify that RECENT uploads are smoked in reverse order;
   --url URI         - The URI of a CPAN mirror to use, default is CPAN Testers FTP;

DESCRIPTION

minismokebox is a lightweight version of SmokeBox that performs CPAN testing on a single perl installation.

It is usually installed into a separate perl installation than the perl which is being tested, the system perl for instance.

   /usr/bin/minismokebox --perl /home/cpan/sandbox/perl-5.10.0/bin/perl

The above command will run minismokebox which will obtain a list of recently uploaded distributions to CPAN and then proceed to smoke each of these distributions against the indicated perl.

minismokebox supports a number of different CPAN Tester frameworks ( in POE::Component::SmokeBox parlance a backend ), currently, CPANPLUS::YACSmoke, CPAN::Reporter and CPAN::YACSmoke.

   /usr/bin/minismokebox --perl /home/cpan/sandbox/perl-5.10.0/bin/perl # uses default 'CPANPLUS::YACSmoke'

   /usr/bin/minismokebox --perl /home/cpan/sandbox/perl-5.10.0/bin/perl --backend CPAN::Reporter

   /usr/bin/minismokebox --perl /home/cpan/sandbox/perl-5.10.0/bin/perl --backend CPAN::YACSmoke

minismokebox will check that the selected backend exists in the indicated perl before proceeding with the smoke phase. This is very simple check and does not test whether the smoke environment is properly configured to send test reports, etc. Consult the applicable documentation for instructions on how to configure the testing environment. ( See the links below in "SEE ALSO" ).

WARNING

There are risks associated with CPAN smoke testing. You are effectively downloading and executing arbitary code on your system.

Here are some tips to mitigate the risks:

Use a sandbox account: Don't run smoke tests as root or other priviledged user. Create a separate user account to smoke test under. For the even more paranoid you can give the HOME directory for this user account a separate filesystem.
Use a virtualised system: Virtualise your testing environment with Xen, Vmware, VirtualBox, etc. If the system does get hosed you can recover it from a snapshot backup very quickly.
Chown the perl installation to root: Making sure that the user who is running the smoke testing can't write to the perl installation is a very good plan. There have been incidents in the past where a recalcitrant module has managed to trash smoke test environments.
Monitor your TEMP file area: Keep an eye on the /tmp directory, a lot of test-suites leave droppings behind.

COMMAND LINE OPTIONS

Command line options override options given in the "CONFIGURATION FILE"

--debug: Turns on all output from the POE::Component::SmokeBox::Backend as distributions are smoked.
--help: Displays program usage and exits.
--version: Displays the program version and exits.
--perl PERL: The path to a perl executable to run the smoke testing against. If this isn't specified minismokebox will use $^X to determine the current perl and use that.
--backend BACKEND: Specify a particular POE::Component::SmokeBox::Backend to use for smoking. This can be CPANPLUS::YACSmoke, CPAN::YACSmoke or CPAN::Reporter. The default if this isn't specified is CPANPLUS::YACSmoke.
--indices: Indicates that minismokebox should reindex the particular backend before proceeding with the smoke testing.
--url URI: The URI of a CPAN Mirror that minismokebox will use to obtain the recent uploads from or perform package, author and phalanx searches against. For consistency this should really match the CPAN Mirror configured in the applicable backend you are using.

The following options control where minismokebox obtains a list of distributions to smoke. If none of these are specified the default behaviour is --recent. These options are cumulative. For example:

  minismokebox --perl /home/cpan/perl-5.10.0/bin/perl --recent --package '^POE' --author '^BI' --phalanx

This would smoke a list of recent uploads, all distributions that begin with POE, the distributions for each CPAN author whose CPAN ID begins with BI and a list of the Phalanx 100 distributions.

--recent

Explicitly tell minismokebox to smoke the recent uploads to CPAN. This is the default action if none of the following actions are given.

--reverse

If specified minismokebox will smoke recent uploads in reverse order.

--jobs FILE

Indicate a file where minismokebox should get a list of distributions to smoke from, eg.

  C/CH/CHROMATIC/Acme-Incorporated-1.00.tar.gz
  B/BI/BINGOS/POE-Component-IRC-5.12.tar.gz

--package PATTERN

Specify a string representing a package search to find distributions to smoke. The pattern is a regular expression and is applied to the package or distribution name plus version number ( the so called distvname, see CPAN::DistnameInfo ), eg.

  --package '^POE'  # find all distributions that begin with POE
  --package 'IRC'   # find all IRC related distributions
  --package '0.01'  # find all distributions that are version 0.01
  --package '_\d+$' # find all development releases

--author PATTERN

Specify a string representing an author search to find distributions to smoke. The pattern is a regular expression and is applied to the CPAN ID of CPAN authors. eg.

  --author '^BINGOS$' # find all distributions that belong to BINGOS
  --author '^BI'      # find all distributions that belong to authors beginning with BI
  --author '^B'       # find all distributions for the 'B' authors

--phalanx

Specify that you want to smoke the Phalanx '100' distributions, http://qa.perl.org/phalanx.

CONFIGURATION FILE

A number of the above options may be specified in a configuration file, minismokebox, that is stored in the .smokebox directory. See "ENVIRONMENT" for where the .smokebox directory is located and how to effect its location.

Command line options will override options from the configuration file.

The configuration file is parsed using Config::Tiny.

A subset of the command line options can be specified in the configuration file:

debug

Set to a true value to turn on all output from the POE::Component::SmokeBox::Backend as distributions are smoked.

  debug=1

indices

Set to a true value to indicate that minismokebox should reindex the particular backend before proceeding with the smoke testing.

  indices=1

recent

Set to a true value to explicitly tell minismokebox to smoke recent uploads to CPAN.

  recent=1

perl

Specify the path to the perl executable to use for smoke testing.

  perl=/home/cpan/rel/perl-5.10.0/bin/perl

backend

Specify the POE::Component::SmokeBox::Backend to use for smoke testing

  backend=CPAN::Reporter

url

The URI of a CPAN Mirror that minismokebox will use to obtain the recent uploads from or perform package, author and phalanx searches against. For consistency this should really match the CPAN Mirror configured in the applicable backend you are using.

  url=http://www.cpan.org/

ENVIRONMENT

minismokebox uses the .smokebox directory to locate the configuration file, minismokebox.

This is usually located in the current user's home directory. Setting the environment variable PERL5_SMOKEBOX_DIR will effect where the .smokebox directory is located.

KUDOS

Thanks go to Ricardo SIGNES for CPAN::Mini which inspired the design of this script/module.

AUTHOR

Chris BinGOs Williams <chris@bingosnet.co.uk>

LICENSE

This module may be used, modified, and distributed under the same terms as Perl itself. Please see the license that came with your Perl distribution for details.

CPAN RT