Provided by: varnish_5.2.1-1ubuntu0.1_amd64 
NAME
VTC - Varnish Test Case Syntax
OVERVIEW
This document describes the syntax used by Varnish Test Cases files (.vtc). A vtc file describe a
scenario with different scripted HTTP-talking entities, and generally one or more Varnish instances to
test.
PARSING
A vtc file will be read word after word, with very little tokenization, meaning a syntax error won't be
detected until the test actually reach the relevant action in the test.
A parsing error will most of the time result in an assert being triggered. If this happens, please refer
yourself to the related source file and line number. However, this guide should help you avoid the most
common mistakes.
Words and strings
The parser splits words by detecting whitespace characters and a string is a word, or a series of words
on the same line enclosed by double-quotes ("..."), or, for multi-line strings, enclosed in curly
brackets ({...}).
Comments
The leading whitespaces of lines are ignored. Empty lines (or ones consisting only of whitespaces) are
ignored too, as are the lines starting with "#" that are comments.
Lines and commands
Test files take at most one command per line, with the first word of the line being the command and the
following ones being its arguments. To continue over to a new line without breaking the argument string,
you can escape the newline character (\n) with a backslash (\).
SYNTAX
barrier
NOTE: this can be used from the top-level as well as from client and server specifications.
Barriers allows you to synchronize different threads to make sure events occur in the right order. It's
even possible to use them in VCL.
First, it's necessary to declare the barrier:
barrier bNAME TYPE NUMBER [-cyclic]
With the arguments being:
bNAME this is the name of the barrier, used to identify it when you'll create sync points. It must start
with 'b'.
TYPE it can be "cond" (mutex) or "sock" (socket) and sets internal behavior. If you don't need VCL
synchronization, use cond.
NUMBER number of sync point needed to go through the barrier.
-cyclic
if present, the barrier will reset itself and be ready for another round once gotten through.
Then, to add a sync point:
barrier bNAME sync
This will block the parent thread until the number of sync points for bNAME reaches the NUMBER given in
the barrier declaration.
If you wish to synchronize the VCL, you need to declare a "sock" barrier. This will emit a macro
definition named "bNAME_sock" that you can use in VCL (after importing the debug vmod):
debug.barrier_sync("${bNAME_sock}");
This function returns 0 if everything went well and is the equivalent of barrier bNAME sync at the VTC
top-level.
client/server
Client and server threads are fake HTTP entities used to test your Varnish and VCL. They take any number
of arguments, and the one that are not recognized, assuming they don't start with '-', are treated as
specifications, laying out the actions to undertake:
client cNAME [...]
server sNAME [...]
Clients and server are identified by a string that's the first argument, clients' names start with 'c'
and servers' names start with 's'.
As the client and server commands share a good deal of arguments and specification actions, they are
grouped in this single section, specific items will be explicitly marked as such.
Arguments
-start Start the thread in background, processing the last given specification.
-wait Block until the thread finishes.
-run (client only)
Equivalent to "-start -wait".
-repeat NUMBER
Instead of processing the specification only once, do it NUMBER times.
-break (server only)
Stop the server.
-listen STRING (server only)
Dictate the listening socket for the server. STRING is of the form "IP PORT".
-connect STRING (client only)
Indicate the server to connect to. STRING is also of the form "IP PORT".
-dispatch (server only, s0 only)
Normally, to keep things simple, server threads only handle one connection at a time, but the
-dispatch switch allows to accept any number of connection and handle them following the given
spec.
However, -dispatch is only allowed for the server name "s0".
-proxy1 STRING (client only)
Use the PROXY protocol version 1 for this connection. STRING is of the form "CLIENTIP:PORT
SERVERIP:PORT".
-proxy2 STRING (client only)
Use the PROXY protocol version 2 for this connection. STRING is of the form "CLIENTIP:PORT
SERVERIP:PORT".
Macros and automatic behaviour
To make things easier in the general case, clients will connect by default to the first Varnish server
declared and the -vcl+backend switch of the varnish command will add all the declared servers as
backends.
Be careful though, servers will by default listen to the 127.0.0.1 IP and will pick a random port, and
publish 3 macros: sNAME_addr, sNAME_port and sNAME_sock, but only once they are started. For varnishtest
to create the vcl with the correct values, the server must be started when you use -vcl+backend.
Specification
It's a string, either double-quoted "like this", but most of the time enclosed in curly brackets,
allowing multilining. Write a command per line in it, empty line are ignored, and long line can be
wrapped by using a backslash. For example:
client c1 {
txreq -url /foo \
-hdr "bar: baz"
rxresp
} -run
accept (server only)
Close the current connection, if any, and accept a new one. Note that this new connection is
HTTP/1.x.
barrier
Same as for the top-level barrier
chunked STRING
Send STRING as chunked encoding.
chunkedlen NUMBER
Do as chunked except that varnishtest will generate the string for you, with a length of NUMBER
characters.
close (server only)
Close the connection. Note that if operating in HTTP/2 mode no extra (GOAWAY) frame is sent, it's
simply a TCP close.
delay Same as for the top-level delay.
expect STRING1 OP STRING2
Test if "STRING1 OP STRING2" is true, and if not, fails the test. OP can be ==, <, <=, >, >= when
STRING1 and STRING2 represent numbers in which case it's an order operator. If STRING1 and STRING2
are meant as strings OP is a matching operator, either == (exact match) or ~ (regex match).
varnishtet will first try to resolve STRING1 and STRING2 by looking if they have special meanings,
in which case, the resolved value is use for the test. Note that this value can be a string
representing a number, allowing for tests such as:
expect req.http.x-num > 2
Here's the list of recognized strings, most should be obvious as they either match VCL logic, or
the txreq/txresp options:
• remote.ip
• remote.port
• req.method
• req.url
• req.proto
• resp.proto
• resp.status
• resp.reason
• resp.chunklen
• req.bodylen
• req.body
• resp.bodylen
• resp.body
• req.http.NAME
• resp.http.NAME
expect_close
Reads from the connection, expecting nothing to read but an EOF.
fatal|non_fatal
Control whether a failure of this entity should stop the test.
loop NUMBER STRING
Process STRING as a specification, NUMBER times.
recv NUMBER
Read NUMBER bytes from the connection.
rxchunk
Receive an HTTP chunk.
rxpri (server only)
Receive a preface. If valid set the server to HTTP/2, abort otherwise.
rxreq (server only)
Receive and parse a request's headers and body.
rxreqbody (server only)
Receive a request's body.
rxreqhdrs
Receive and parse a request's headers (but not the body).
rxresp [-no_obj] (client only)
Receive and parse a response's headers and body. If -no_obj is present, only get the headers.
rxrespbody (client only)
Receive a response's body.
rxresphdrs (client only)
Receive and parse a response's headers.
send STRING
Push STRING on the connection.
send_n NUMBER STRING
Write STRING on the socket NUMBER times.
send_urgent STRING
Send string as TCP OOB urgent data. You will never need this.
sendhex STRING
Send bytes as described by STRING. STRING should consist of hex pairs possibly separated by
whitespace or newlines. For example: "0F EE a5 3df2".
settings -dectbl INT
Force internal HTTP/2 settings to certain values. Currently only support setting the decoding
table size.
shell
Same as for the top-level shell.
stream HTTP/2 introduces the concept of streams, and these come with their own specification, and as it's
quite big, have been moved to their own chapter.
timeout NUMBER
Set the TCP timeout for this entity.
txpri (client only)
Send an HTTP/2 preface ("PRI * HTTP/2.0\r\n\r\nSM\r\n\r\n") and set client to HTTP/2.
txreq|txresp [...]
Send a minimal request or response, but overload it if necessary.
txreq is client-specific and txresp is server-specific.
The only thing different between a request and a response, apart from who can send them is that
the first line (request line vs status line), so all the options are prety much the same.
-req STRING (txreq only)
What method to use (default: "GET").
-url STRING (txreq only)
What location to use (default "/").
-proto STRING
What protocol use in the status line. (default: "HTTP/1.1").
-status NUMBER (txresp only)
What status code to return (default 200).
-reason STRING (txresp only)
What message to put in the status line (default: "OK").
These three switches can appear in any order but must come before the following ones.
-nolen Don't include a Content-Length header in the response.
-hdr STRING
Add STRING as a header, it must follow this format: "name: value". It can be called
multiple times.
-hdrlen STRING NUMBER
Add STRING as a header with NUMBER bytes of content.
You can then use the arguments related to the body:
-body STRING
Input STRING as body.
-bodylen NUMBER
Generate and input a body that is NUMBER bytes-long.
-gziplevel NUMBER
Set the gzip level (call it before any of the other gzip switches).
-gzipresidual NUMBER
Add extra gzip bits. You should never need it.
-gzipbody STRING
Zip STRING and send it as body.
-gziplen NUMBER
Combine -body and -gzipbody: create a body of length NUMBER, zip it and send as body.
write_body STRING
Write the body of a request or a response to a file. By using the shell command, higher-level
checks on the body can be performed (eg. XML, JSON, ...) provided that such checks can be
delegated to an external program.
delay
Sleep for the number of seconds specified in the argument. The number can include a fractional part, e.g.
1.5.
err_shell
This is very similar to the the shell command, except it takes a first string as argument before the
command:
err_shell "foo" "echo foo"
err_shell expect the shell command to fail AND stdout to match the string, failing the test case
otherwise.
feature
Test that the required feature(s) for a test are available, and skip the test otherwise; or change the
interpretation of the test, as documented below. feature takes any number of arguments from this list:
SO_RCVTIMEO_WORKS
The SO_RCVTIMEO socket option is working
64bit The environment is 64 bits
!OSX The environment is not OSX
dns DNS lookups are working
topbuild
varnishtest has been started with '-i'
root varnishtest has been invoked by the root user
user_varnish
The varnish user is present
user_vcache
The vcache user is present
group_varnish
The varnish group is present
cmd <command-line>
A command line that should execute with a zero exit status
ignore_unknown_macro
Do not fail the test if a string of the form ${...} is not recognized as a macro.
Be careful with the last feature, because it may cause a test with a misspelled macro to fail silently.
You should only need it if you must run a test with strings of the form "${...}".
logexpect
Reads the VSL and looks for records matching a given specification. It will process records trying to
match the first pattern, and when done, will continue processing, trying to match the following pattern.
If a pattern isn't matched, the test will fail.
logexpect threads are declared this way:
logexpect lNAME -v <id> [-g <grouping>] [-d 0|1] [-q query] \
[vsl arguments] {
expect <skip> <vxid> <tag> <regex>
expect <skip> <vxid> <tag> <regex>
...
} [-start|-wait]
And once declared, you can start them, or wait on them:
logexpect lNAME <-start|-wait>
With:
lNAME Name the logexpect thread, it must start with 'l'.
-v id Specify the varnish instance to use (most of the time, id=v1).
-g <session|request|vxid|raw
Decide how records are grouped, see -g in man varnishlog for more information.
-d <0|1>
Start processing log records at the head of the log instead of the tail.
-q query
Filter records using a query expression, see man vsl-query for more information.
-start Start the logexpect thread in the background.
-wait Wait for the logexpect thread to finish
VSL arguments (similar to the varnishlog options):
-b|-c Process only backend/client records.
-C Use caseless regex
-i <taglist>
Include tags
-I <[taglist:]regex>
Include by regex
-T <seconds>
Transaction end timeout
And the arguments of the specifications lines are:
skip: [uint|*]
Max number of record to skip
vxid: [uint|*|=]
vxid to match
tag: [tagname|*|=]
Tag to match against
regex: regular expression to match against (optional)
For skip, vxid and tag, '*' matches anything, '=' expects the value of the previous matched record.
process
Run a process in the background with stdout and stderr redirected to ${pNAME_out} and ${pNAME_err}, both
located in ${pNAME_dir}:
process pNAME SPEC [-log] [-start] [-wait] [-run] [-kill STRING] \
[-stop] [-write STRING] [-writeln STRING] [-close]
pNAME Name of the process. It must start with 'p'.
SPEC The command(s) to run in this process.
-log Log stdout/stderr with vtc_dump(). Must be before -start/-run.
-start Start the process.
-wait Wait for the process to finish.
-run Shorthand for -start -wait.
In most cases, if you just want to start a process and wait for it to finish, you can use the
varnishtest shell command instead. The following commands are equivalent:
shell "do --something"
process p1 "do --something" -run
However, you may use the the process variant to conveniently collect the standard input and output
without dealing with shell redirections yourself. The shell command can also expect an expression
from either output, consider using it if you only need to match one.
-kill STRING
Send a signal to the process. The argument can be either the string "TERM", "INT", or "KILL" for
SIGTERM, SIGINT or SIGKILL signals, respectively, or a hyphen (-) followed by the signal number.
If you need to use other signal names, you can use the kill(1) command directly:
shell "kill -USR1 ${pNAME_pid}"
Note that SIGHUP usage is discouraged in test cases.
-stop Shorthand for -kill TERM.
-write STRING
Write a string to the process' stdin.
-writeln STRING
Same as -write followed by a newline (\n).
-close Close the process' stdin.
setenv
Set or change an environment variable:
setenv FOO "bar baz"
The above will set the environment variable $FOO to the value provided. There is also an -ifunset
argument which will only set the value if the the environment variable does not already exist:
setenv -ifunset FOO quux
shell
Pass the string given as argument to a shell. If you have multiple commands to run, you can use curly
barces to describe a multi-lines script, eg:
shell {
echo begin
cat /etc/fstab
echo end
}
By default a zero exit code is expected, otherwise the vtc will fail.
Notice that the commandstring is prefixed with "exec 2>&1;" to join stderr and stdout back to the
varnishtest process.
Optional arguments:
-err Expect non-zero exit code.
-exit N
Expect exit code N instead of zero.
-expect STRING
Expect string to be found in stdout+err.
-match REGEXP
Expect regexp to match the stdout+err output.
stream
(note: this section is at the top-level for easier navigation, but it's part of the client/server
specification)
Streams map roughly to a request in HTTP/2, a request is sent on stream N, the response too, then the
stream is discarded. The main exception is the first stream, 0, that serves as coordinator.
Stream syntax follow the client/server one:
stream ID [SPEC] [ACTION]
ID is the HTTP/2 stream number, while SPEC describes what will be done in that stream.
Note that, when parsing a stream action, if the entity isn't operating in HTTP/2 mode, these spec is ran
before:
txpri/rxpri # client/server
stream 0 {
txsettings
rxsettings
txsettings -ack
rxsettings
expect settings.ack == true
} -run
And HTTP/2 mode is then activated before parsing the specification.
Actions
-start Run the specification in a thread, giving back control immediately.
-wait Wait for the started thread to finish running the spec.
-run equivalent to calling -start then -wait.
Specification
The specification of a stream follows the exact same rules as one for a client or a server.
txreq, txresp, txcont, txpush
These four commands are about sending headers. txreq and txresp will send HEADER frames; txcont will send
CONTINUATION frames; txpush PUSH frames. The only difference between txreq and txresp are the default
headers set by each of them.
-noadd Do not add default headers. Useful to avoid duplicates when sending default headers using -hdr,
-idxHdr and -litIdxHdr.
-status INT (txresp)
Set the :status pseudo-header.
-url STRING (txreq, txpush)
Set the :path pseudo-header.
-req STRING (txreq, txpush)
Set the :method pseudo-header.
-scheme STRING (txreq, txpush)
Set the :scheme pseudo-header.
-hdr STRING1 STRING2
Insert a header, STRING1 being the name, and STRING2 the value.
-idxHdr INT
Insert an indexed header, using INT as index.
-litIdxHdr inc|not|never INT huf|plain STRING
Insert an literal, indexed header. The first argument specify if the header should be added to the
table, shouldn't, or mustn't be compressed if/when retransmitted.
INT is the idex of the header name to use.
The third argument informs about the Huffman encoding: yes (huf) or no (plain).
The last term is the literal value of the header.
-litHdr inc|not|never huf|plain STRING1 huf|plain STRING2
Insert a literal header, with the same first argument as -litIdxHdr.
The second and third terms tell what the name of the header is and if it should be
Huffman-encoded, while the last two do the same regarding the value.
-body STRING (txreq, txresp)
Specify a body, effectively putting STRING into a DATA frame after the HEADER frame is sent.
-bodylen INT (txreq, txresp)
Do the same thing as -body but generate an string of INT length for you.
-nostrend (txreq, txresp)
Don't set the END_STREAM flag automatically, making the peer expect a body after the headers.
-nohdrend
Don't set the END_HEADERS flag automatically, making the peer expect more HEADER frames.
-dep INT (txreq, txresp)
Tell the peer that this content depends on the stream with the INT id.
-ex (txreq, txresp)
Make the dependency exclusive (-dep is still needed).
-weight (txreq, txresp)
Set the weight for the dependency.
-promised INT (txpush)
The id of the promised stream.
-pad STRING / -padlen INT (txreq, txresp, txpush)
Add string as padding to the frame, either the one you provided with -pad, or one that is
generated for you, of length INT is -padlen case.
txdata
By default, data frames are empty. The receiving end will know the whole body has been delivered thanks
to the END_STREAM flag set in the last DATA frame, and txdata automatically set it.
-data STRING
Data to be embedded into the frame.
-datalen INT
Generate and INT-bytes long string to be sent in the frame.
-pad STRING / -padlen INT
Add string as padding to the frame, either the one you provided with -pad, or one that is
generated for you, of length INT is -padlen case.
-nostrend
Don't set the END_STREAM flag, allowing to send more data on this stream.
rxreq, rxresp
These are two convenience functions to receive headers and body of an incoming request or response. The
only difference is that rxreq can only be by a server, and rxresp by a client.
rxhdrs
rxhdrs will expect one HEADER frame, then, depending on the arguments, zero or more CONTINUATION frame.
-all Keep waiting for CONTINUATION frames until END_HEADERS flag is seen.
-some INT
Retrieve INT - 1 CONTINUATION frames after the HEADER frame.
rxpush
This works like rxhdrs, expecting a PUSH frame and then zero or more CONTINUATION frames.
-all Keep waiting for CONTINUATION frames until END_HEADERS flag is seen.
-some INT
Retrieve INT - 1 CONTINUATION frames after the PUSH frame.
rxdata
Receiving data is done using the rxdata keywords and will retrieve one DATA frame, if you wish to receive
more, you can use these two convenience arguments:
-all keep waiting for DATA frame until one sets the END_STREAM flag
-some INT
retrieve INT DATA frames.
delay
Same as for the top-level delay.
Receive a frame, any frame.
sendhex
Push bytes directly on the wire. sendhex takes exactly one argument: a string describing the bytes, in
hex notation, will possible whitespaces between them. Here's an example:
sendhex "00 00 08 00 0900 8d"
rxgoaway
Receive a GOAWAY frame.
txgoaway
Possible options include:
-err STRING|INT
set the error code to explain the termination. The second argument can be a integer or the string
version of the error code as found in rfc7540#7.
-laststream INT
the id of the "highest-numbered stream identifier for which the sender of the GOAWAY frame might
have taken some action on or might yet take action on".
-debug specify the debug data, if any to append to the frame.
rxping
Receive a PING frame.
txping
Send PING frame.
-data STRING
specify the payload of the frame, with STRING being an 8-char string.
-ack set the ACK flag.
rxprio
Receive a PRIORITY frame.
txprio
Send a PRIORITY frame
-stream INT
indicate the id of the stream the sender stream depends on.
-ex the dependency should be made exclusive (only this streams depends on the parent stream).
-weight INT
an 8-bits integer is used to balance priority between streams depending on the same streams.
rxrst
Receive a RST_STREAM frame.
txrst
Send a RST_STREAM frame. By default, txrst will send a 0 error code (NO_ERROR).
-err STRING|INT
Sets the error code to be sent. The argument can be an integer or a string describing the error,
such as NO_ERROR, or CANCEL (see rfc7540#11.4 for more strings).
rxsettings
Receive a SETTINGS frame.
txsettings
SETTINGS frames must be acknowledge, arguments are as follow (most of them are from rfc7540#6.5.2):
-hdrtbl INT
headers table size
-push BOOL
whether push frames are accepted or not
-maxstreams INT
maximum concurrent streams allowed
-winsize INT
sender's initial window size
-framesize INT
largest frame size authorized
-hdrsize INT
maximum size of the header list authorized
-ack set the ack bit
rxwinup
Receive a WINDOW_UPDATE frame.
txwinup
Transmit a WINDOW_UPDATE frame, increasing the amount of credit of the connection (from stream 0) or of
the stream (any other stream).
-size INT
give INT credits to the peer.
write_body STRING
Same as the write_body command for HTTP/1.
expect
expect in stream works as it does in client or server, except that the elements compared will be
different.
Most of these elements will be frame specific, meaning that the last frame received on that stream must
of the correct type.
Here the list of keywords you can look at.
varnish
Define and interact with varnish instances.
To define a Varnish server, you'll use this syntax:
varnish vNAME [-arg STRING] [-vcl STRING] [-vcl+backend STRING]
[-errvcl STRING STRING] [-jail STRING] [-proto PROXY]
The first varnish vNAME invocation will start the varnishd master process in the background, waiting for
the -start switch to actually start the child.
With:
vNAME Identify the Varnish server with a string, it must starts with 'v'.
-arg STRING
Pass an argument to varnishd, for example "-h simple_list".
-vcl STRING
Specify the VCL to load on this Varnish instance. You'll probably want to use multi-lines strings
for this ({...}).
-vcl+backend STRING
Do the exact same thing as -vcl, but adds the definition block of known backends (ie. already
defined).
-errvcl STRING1 STRING2
Load STRING2 as VCL, expecting it to fail, and Varnish to send an error string matching STRING2
-jail STRING
Look at man varnishd (-j) for more information.
-proto PROXY
Have Varnish use the proxy protocol. Note that PROXY here is the actual string.
You can decide to start the Varnish instance and/or wait for several events:
varnish vNAME [-start] [-wait] [-wait-running] [-wait-stopped]
-start Start the child process.
-stop Stop the child process.
-syntax
Set the VCL syntax level (default: 4.0)
-wait Wait for that instance to terminate.
-wait-running
Wait for the Varnish child process to be started.
-wait-stopped
Wait for the Varnish child process to stop.
-cleanup
Once Varnish is stopped, clean everything after it. This is only used in very few tests and you
should never need it.
Once Varnish is started, you can talk to it (as you would through varnishadm) with these additional
switches:
varnish vNAME [-cli STRING] [-cliok STRING] [-clierr STRING]
[-expect STRING OP NUMBER]
-cli STRING|-cliok STRING|-clierr STATUS STRING|-cliexpect REGEXP STRING
All four of these will send STRING to the CLI, the only difference is what they expect the result
to be. -cli doesn't expect anything, -cliok expects 200, -clierr expects STATUS, and -cliexpect
expects the REGEXP to match the returned response.
-expect STRING OP NUMBER
Look into the VSM and make sure the counter identified by STRING has a correct value. OP can be
==, >, >=, <, <=. For example:
varnish v1 -expect SMA.s1.g_space > 1000000
-vsc PATTERN
Dump VSC counters matching PATTERN. The PATTERN is a 'glob' style pattern (ie: fnmatch(3)) as
used in shell filename expansion. To see all counters use pattern "*", to see all counters about
requests use "req".
-vsl_catchup
Wait until the logging thread has idled to make sure that all the generated log is flushed
varnishtest
This should be the first command in your vtc as it will identify the test case with a short yet
descriptive sentence. It takes exactly one argument, a string, eg:
varnishtest "Check that varnishtest is actually a valid command"
It will also print that string in the log.
HISTORY
This document has been written by Guillaume Quintard.
SEE ALSO
• varnishtest(1) • vmod_vtc(3)
COPYRIGHT
This document is licensed under the same licence as Varnish itself. See LICENCE for details.
• Copyright (c) 2006-2016 Varnish Software AS
VTC(7)