TestLink 1.9.17 (Prague Bugfix 17) Alan Turing - Read me

Introduction
Release notes / Critical Configuration Notes
System Requirements
Installation & SECURITY
Upgrade and Migration
TestLink Team
Bug Reports and Feedback
Supporting our work
Regarding forum usage www.testlink.org
Changes regarding 1.9.6,...,1.9.12,1.9.13,1.9.14,1.9.15,1.9.16
Testlink & FreeTest
Security
JIRA DB interface changes
People/Companies supporting TestLink
Use forum.testlink.org
User cries: I WANT HELP !!!
Use Mantis documentation
Link to GITORIOUS COMMITS

1. Introduction

TestLink is a web based test management and test execution system. It enables quality assurance teams to create and manage their test cases as well as to organize them into test plans. These test plans allow team members to execute test cases and track test results dynamically.

TestLink is a GPL licensed open source project. All of the source code behind TestLink is freely available for download via SourceForge or GitHub. If you are interested in contributing to the TestLink effort feel free to contact us. There is no hidden fee - 100% free for using!

In an ideal world, testing would be a pretty straightforward process. A test team takes the product requirements, writes a test specification document, reviews the tests, and then runs them all for each version of the product. The team is composed of full-time staff, and everyone knows exactly what is expected of them.

In practice, few organisations have that luxury. There is not time to run all the tests on every product version - especially on fix-releases that need to be rolled out quickly. Requirements are constantly changing, and the tests have to be changed in step. Test staff come and go. There are misunderstandings over who was supposed to run which tests, so some get missed. Management suddenly wants a status update at seven in the evening.

In these situations you need the support of a test management tool, such as TestLink. The purpose of TestLink is to answer questions such as:

For which requirements do we still need to write or update test cases?
Which tests do you want me to run for this version?
How much progress have we made on testing this release?
Which test cases are currently failing, and what are the errors?
On which version was this group of test cases last run, and is it time we ran them again?
And ultimately: is this version of the product fit for release?

TestLink helps you to keep the test process under control. It forms a repository for requirements and test cases, and relates these to builds, platforms and staff. You allocate tests to staff who carry them out and record the results. A wide variety of reports provide information on what has been done and what still needs to be done.

2. Release notes / CRITICAL Configuration Notes

This release contains bugfixes for 1.9.16 See CHANGELOG file for detailed list of issues fixed.

CRITICAL PHP.INI Settings

max_input_vars

Available since PHP 5.3.9. Default value: 1000

If you are going to have test plans with more than 100 test cases, it will be CRITICAL to increase this value in order to avoid issues such as CRASH or MALFUNCTION when adding test cases to test plan.

See this forum post on max_input_vars or this mantis issue for details.

memory_limit

Default value: 128MB

If you are going to re-import an XML file to update its test case data, the system might run out of memory. The original issue was resolved with a memory_limit value of 256MB.

Changes on LDAP CONFIGURATION

Since 1.9.16 authentication against Multiple LDAP Servers is supported. To implement this feature configuration parameters have been changed, as explained here:

TestLink Version < 1.9.16

$tlCfg->authentication['method'] = 'LDAP';

$tlCfg->authentication['ldap_server'] = 'ldap.xyz.com';
$tlCfg->authentication['ldap_port'] = '389';
$tlCfg->authentication['ldap_version'] = '3';
$tlCfg->authentication['ldap_root_dn'] = 'dc=xyz,dc=com';
$tlCfg->authentication['ldap_bind_dn'] = 'uid=tl,ou=staff,dc=xyz,dc=com';
$tlCfg->authentication['ldap_bind_passwd'] = 'XYZw';
$tlCfg->authentication['ldap_tls'] = false; // true -> use tls

TestLink Version >= 1.9.16

$tlCfg->authentication['method'] = 'LDAP';

$tlCfg->authentication['ldap'][1]['ldap_server'] = 'ldap.xyz.com';
$tlCfg->authentication['ldap'][1]['ldap_port'] = '389';
$tlCfg->authentication['ldap'][1]['ldap_version'] = '3';
$tlCfg->authentication['ldap'][1]['ldap_root_dn'] = 'dc=xyz,dc=com';
$tlCfg->authentication['ldap'][1]['ldap_bind_dn'] = 'uid=tl,ou=staff,dc=xyz,dc=com';
$tlCfg->authentication['ldap'][1]['ldap_bind_passwd'] = 'XYZw';
$tlCfg->authentication['ldap'][1]['ldap_tls'] = false;

3. System Requirements - server

Server environment should consist of:

web-server: Apache 2.x
PHP > 5.4
DBMS: MySQL 5.6.x / MariaDB 10.1.x, Postgres 9.x, MS-SQL 2008/2012

Supported client web-browsers:

Firefox
Internet Explorer 9.x or greater
Chrome

ATTENTION: we have not enough resources to test on all kind of browsers. Right now development is done using Chrome & Firefox.

4. Installation & SECURITY

The following details the basic steps for installation on any system. Instructions may seem unix-centric but should work on Windows systems.

Barring complications, it should take you about 10-20 minutes to install, configure, and start using TestLink.

Short summary:

Transfer files
Uncompress files
Launch web based installer
First, transfer the file to your web-server using whatever method you like best (ftp, scp, etc).

You will need to telnet/ssh into the server machine for the next steps.

Next, untar/gunzip it to the directory that you want.

The usual command is (1 step):

tar zxvf <filename.tar.gz>

OR (2 steps):

gunzip <filename.tar.gz>
tar xvf <filename.tar>

Total Commander, Winzip, and other programs should also be able to handle decompression of the archive.

At this point you may want to rename the directory to something different to 'testlink'.

SECURITY

You need to configure:

log directory ($tlCfg->log_path)
upload directory ($g_repositoryPath)

According to your installation, default values provided. However, these are examples THAT DO NOT WORK OUT OF THE BOX.

Take a look at bug 5147, bug 5148, bug 4977 and bug 4906.

You should also need to configure write access for logging, upload and template directories.

** FCKEDITOR UPLOAD **

ATTENTION: We now use CKEDITOR (see forum post)

Launch web based installer We will create the necessary database tables and a basic configuration file. From your web server, access http://yoursite/testlink/ or similar URL and follow instructions.

Check Installation manual and TestLink forum if you meet a problem.

5. Upgrade and Migration

When accessing Installer page you will find only the new installation option. The migration has to be done manually for these special cases:

Upgrade from 1.9.3 to 1.9.4/5/6/7/8/9/10/11/12/13/14/15/16/17
Upgrade from 1.9.4/5 to 1.9.7
Upgrade from 1.9.7 to 1.9.8
Migration from other releases than 1.9.3

General Steps

Make a backup of your current database.
Using a new directory (DO NOT OVERWRITE your old installation), do only following steps from Install procedure: - Transfer files - Uncompress files

Copy your old config_db.inc.php and custom_config.inc.php over to the new directory.
Launch TestLink
TestLink will check the database version. If some upgrade/migration is needed, it will launch automatically the installer.

If you are updating a same major version (for example 1.7.0 to 1.7.1) you need to use Upgrade Database.

Please look at MANTIS 6594: Migration scripts don't cover test case steps and expected results, also test case ID's are empty in GUI

If you are using a different major version detailed in options, you need to use the specific Migrations.

If in some steps TestLink asks you for two databases, never use the same name for both.

If you find nothing useful, post in the forum.

Always before login, after an upgrade/migration, clear browser cookies.