Hi all,
here is my first draft for a Mission statement for the test suite
subproject, Alex suggested. Any comments/corrections -- please note that
English is not my first language (and not my second, which is LDIF) --
are welcome!
Greetings from sunny Hamburg,
Stefan
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Protocol Testsuite: Mission Statement (Draft)
The success of Apache Directory Server (as of any LDAP server) depends
heavily on interoperability. May it be used as a user repository of an
arbitrary J2EE application server (or web server, or mail server, or ...
You name it)? Can you plug it into your favorite mail tool as an address
book?
Thus the primary aim of this subproject is to provide a test suite which
is used to ensure that Apache Directory Server behaves like a 08/15
(i.e. an ordinary, bulk commodity) LDAP client would expect. Therefore
it concentrates on the functionality which is undisputable among
different LDAP vendors/providers. We run the test suite against major
directory solutions (commercial and Open Source), just to be sure that
we check common sense.
For a start JUnit and JNDI are used, there is no dependency on code
which is provided by the Apache Directory Project (we do black box
tests). While JUnit is beyond dispute, JNDI is not. The JNDI framework
is an abstraction for naming and directory services, and some LDAP
operations are not straight forward to perform with JNDI (e.g. compare,
abandon). But the option to create a test suite which does not depend on
an "explicit" LDAP library (like Netscape SDK) and the fact that a lot
of the Apache Directory Server users will choose JNDI for integration
lead us to the decision to start with it.
Later on this subproject may support the main development of the Apache
Directory Project with tests for topics which are not rock-solid
standardized (e.g. access control lists). Or performance tests. Or ... .
But as long as any client may complain about the behavior, we will
concentrate on basic operations. Client experience is key.
External links, if placed on the site:
Black box testing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_box_testing
JUnit: http://junit.org/
JNDI: http://java.sun.com/products/jndi/
Netscape SDK: http://www.mozilla.org/directory/javasdk.html
