NAME
    Test::System - Test suite oriented for testing system administration
    tasks

SYNOPSIS
        use Test::System;

        my $suite = Test::System->new(
                format => 'consoletable',
                nodes => 'example.com',
                test_groups => '~/code/my/system/tests.yaml'
                );
        $hung->runtests;

DESCRIPTION
    Loads and runs a set of tests for verifying a system administration task
    before a possible incident or after a task that has been done.

    Tests can be run as perl scripts and actually in any format
    *TAP::Harness* supports.

Attributes
    The module offers a list of attributes that some only have read only
    access and others allow write access.

    test_groups
          YAML filename of where a list of available tests are. This is not
          required but can be useful if you want to group tests (like
          *hardware.yaml*, *net.yaml*, etc). Comes also handy when user does
          not provide a list of tests to execute, so all the tests listed in
          this file are executed.

          An example of a YAML file:

              ping:
                  description: Test the ping and do foo and make bar
                  code: test/foo.pl
              cpu:
                  description: Test the CPU of nodes
                  code: test/cpu.pl

    available_tests
          Is a read only attribute that contains a list of all available
          tests found in the YAML file provided by "test_groups".

    nodes Is an attribute that can be represented as a string (like a
          hostname) or as a list (where each item will be a node/hostname).
          This attribute has write access and is where the tests are going
          to be executed to.

          Another way of setting this value is when "runtests()" is called a
          test plan (in the form of a YAML file) can be provided and it can
          contain the list of nodes to use.

    format
          A write access string that has the format of how the tests should
          be presented, please refer to the modules available under
          Test::System::Output or in your custom factory ("custom_factory"
          attribute) class if this is the case.

    available_formats
          A list of available formats, read only.

    custom_factory
          If you want to use your own Factory for creating your output you
          can set this to your class name (NOT the object).

    parameters
          An attribute with write access permission. This attribute will
          transform all the items of this hash to environment variables.

          The use of this attribute is very handy if you want to provide
          some additional data for your tests and since the tests are run in
          separate forks with Test::Harness then the only possible way to
          keep them is to make them available through the environment (%ENV
          hash).

          Please be warned that only scalars are stored in environment
          variables, those that are an array will be converted to CSV values
          while the rest of the data types will be lost.

          In your tests if you want to use any of these parameters they will
          be available through the environment variables with a prefix of:
          "TEST_SYSTEM_".

Methods
    runtests( @tests , %options )
        It will run a group of given test cases, however if no list is given
        or is empty then all the available cases will be run.

        The %options is a hash of options that will be passed to the
        *TAP::Harness* object, some useful parameters are:

        * verbosity
            By default we mute everything with -9.

        * color
            If you want the output (in console) to have color

        * formatter
            Although we use Test::System::Output::Factory to offer a set of
            formatters you can provide your own formatter object. See
            "available_formats".

        * jobs
            If you have many tests you probably want to increment this value
            (that defaults to 1) so other tests can be run at the same time.

    prepare_environment()
        Prepares the environment by settings the needed environment values
        so they can be used later by the tests

    clean_environment ()
        Cleans/deletes all the environment variables that match
        "TEST_SYSTEM_*"

    get_tests_from_test_plan($yaml_file, $do_not_fill_parameters,
    $do_not_fill_nodes)
        Reads the given tests yaml file ($yaml_file). This YAML file should
        have at least a list of tests (in the form of a hash) and optionally
        can also have parameters the tests should contain.

        Although this method is used mostly internally there's the option to
        call it as any other method *Test::System* offers.

        By default it will fill the parameters of your *Test::System*
        instance but by passing $do_not_fill_parameters (second parameter)
        as true or something that Perl understands as true then it will skip
        the part. This should be presented as a hash in YAML syntax.

        The above apply also to $do_not_fill_nodes (third parameter). This
        should be presented as an array in YAML syntax.

        Once the file is read an array with all the tests will be returned.

        An example of a YAML test plan file can be found inside the
        "examples" directory or:

            tests:
                - ping
                - cpu
                - memory
            parameters:
                foo: bar
                bar: zoo
            nodes:
                - pablo.com.mx
                - example.com

AUTHOR
    Pablo Fischer (pablo@pablo.com.mx).

COPYRIGHT
    Copyright (C) 2009 by Pablo Fischer.

    This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
    under the same terms as Perl itself.

