---
title: SyTest
parent: Development
permalink: /development/sytest
---

# SyTest

Dendrite uses [SyTest](https://github.com/matrix-org/sytest) for its
integration testing. When creating a new PR, add the test IDs (see below) that
your PR should allow to pass to `sytest-whitelist` in dendrite's root
directory. Not all PRs need to make new tests pass. If we find your PR should
be making a test pass we may ask you to add to that file, as generally
Dendrite's progress can be tracked through the amount of SyTest tests it
passes.

## Finding out which tests to add

We recommend you run the tests locally by using the SyTest docker image.
After running the tests, a script will print the tests you need to add to
`sytest-whitelist`.

You should proceed after you see no build problems for dendrite after running:

```sh
./build.sh
```

If you are fixing an issue marked with
[Are We Synapse Yet](https://github.com/matrix-org/dendrite/labels/are-we-synapse-yet)
then there will be a list of Sytests that you should add to the whitelist when you
have fixed that issue. This MUST be included in your PR to ensure that the issue
is fully resolved.

### Using the SyTest Docker image

**We strongly recommend using the Docker image to run Sytest.**

Use the following commands to pull the latest SyTest image and run the tests:

```sh
docker pull matrixdotorg/sytest-dendrite
docker run --rm -v /path/to/dendrite/:/src/ -v /path/to/log/output/:/logs/ matrixdotorg/sytest-dendrite
```

`/path/to/dendrite/` should be replaced with the actual path to your dendrite
source code. The test results TAP file and homeserver logging output will go to
`/path/to/log/output`. The output of the command should tell you if you need to
add any tests to `sytest-whitelist`.

When debugging, the following Docker `run` options may also be useful:

* `-v /path/to/sytest/:/sytest/`: Use your local SyTest repository at
  `/path/to/sytest` instead of pulling from GitHub. This is useful when you want
  to speed things up or make modifications to SyTest.
* `-v "/path/to/gopath/:/gopath"`: Use your local `GOPATH` so you don't need to
  re-download packages on every run.
* `--entrypoint bash`: Prevent the container from automatically starting the
  tests.  When used, you need to manually run `/bootstrap.sh dendrite` inside
  the container to start them.
* `-e "DENDRITE_TRACE_HTTP=1"`: Adds HTTP tracing to server logs.
* `-e "DENDRITE_TRACE_INTERNAL=1"`: Adds roomserver internal API tracing to
  server logs.

The docker command also supports a single positional argument for the test file to
run, so you can run a single `.pl` file rather than the whole test suite. For example:

```
docker run --rm --name sytest -v "/Users/kegan/github/sytest:/sytest"
-v "/Users/kegan/github/dendrite:/src" -v "/Users/kegan/logs:/logs"
-v "/Users/kegan/go/:/gopath" -e "POSTGRES=1" -e "DENDRITE_TRACE_HTTP=1"
matrixdotorg/sytest-dendrite:latest tests/50federation/40devicelists.pl
```

### Manually Setting up SyTest

**We advise AGAINST using manual SyTest setups.**

If you don't want to use the Docker image, you can also run SyTest by hand. Make
sure you have Perl 5 or above, and get SyTest with:

(Note that this guide assumes your SyTest checkout is next to your
`dendrite` checkout.)

```sh
git clone -b develop https://github.com/matrix-org/sytest
cd sytest
./install-deps.pl
```

Set up the database:

```sh
sudo -u postgres psql -c "CREATE USER dendrite PASSWORD 'itsasecret'"
sudo -u postgres psql -c "ALTER USER dendrite CREATEDB"
for i in dendrite0 dendrite1 sytest_template; do sudo -u postgres psql -c "CREATE DATABASE $i OWNER dendrite;"; done
mkdir -p "server-0"
cat > "server-0/database.yaml" << EOF
args:
    user: dendrite
    password: itsasecret
    database: dendrite0
    host: 127.0.0.1
    sslmode: disable
type: pg
EOF
mkdir -p "server-1"
cat > "server-1/database.yaml" << EOF
args:
    user: dendrite
    password: itsasecret
    database: dendrite1
    host: 127.0.0.1
    sslmode: disable
type: pg
EOF
```

Run the tests:

```sh
POSTGRES=1 ./run-tests.pl -I Dendrite::Monolith -d ../dendrite/bin -W ../dendrite/sytest-whitelist -O tap --all | tee results.tap
```

where `tee` lets you see the results while they're being piped to the file, and
`POSTGRES=1` enables testing with PostgeSQL. If the `POSTGRES` environment
variable is not set or is set to 0, SyTest will fall back to SQLite 3. For more
flags and options, see <https://github.com/matrix-org/sytest#running>.

Once the tests are complete, run the helper script to see if you need to add
any newly passing test names to `sytest-whitelist` in the project's root
directory:

```sh
../dendrite/show-expected-fail-tests.sh results.tap ../dendrite/sytest-whitelist ../dendrite/sytest-blacklist
```

If the script prints nothing/exits with 0, then you're good to go.