My brother needed a new simple one-page website for his CV. I usually do my websites in WordPress, but today I wanted to try something new. The content management systems (CMS) I evaluated were:
Craftcms
contentful
Octobercms.com
Pagekit
Bolt
Sitecake
Getkirby
Bludit
I found a winner: OctoberCMS! It truly is great for developing websites. Not as complicated as most CMS have gotten. Just a simple structure with real files to describe the content of the website. The website is divided into layouts, pages, partials and content. The layout is like the theme. The layout includes partials. When you want a new page (a new url) you add a page. (I skipped using the content type for now since I was making a one-page website). The editor is just simple HTML, (but you can add a proper wysiwyg editor if you want). For more complicated stuff (ecommerce and so on) you can add plugins.
Appium is generally considered a blackbox testing tool, that is it has no access to the app's methods. Appium acts on the elements accessible by an user.
But what if that is not enough? For example if you want to simulate an incoming notification, a bluetooth device connection, or a crash? For that you need whitebox testing with access to the app's internal methods.
But neither of these solutions work as a backdoor in C# apps, and I am mainly thinking about Android and iOS apps using the Xamarin framework. I also want my backdoor to be callable from Python and Robot Framework. For that I made a backdoor with MQTT messaging.
Prerequisites
MQTT broker
You will need access to a MQTT broker (server). The Eclipse Mosquitto broker is good:
Not really necessary for this backdoor to work, but it is a really good tool for testing mobile apps.
Python
Necessary to call the backdoor from if you want to use the code I wrote, but you could implement the backdoor access in any language. You just need to be able to call a MQTT broker.
Robot framework
Only necessary if you want to use it. You could run the tests in python or any other language.
// Initialize the MQTT backdoor
Task t = Backdoor.Instance.Initialize(mqttHost: "YOUR_MQTT_HOST");
// Handle backdoor events
Backdoor.Instance.BackdoorEvent += HandleBackdoorEvent;
private void HandleBackdoorEvent(object sender, BackdoorEventArgs e)
{
// here is where you implement the backdoors
if (e.Subtopic == "ReceiveNotification")
{
DisplayPopupMessage(e.Payload);
}
}
There is an example app implemented in Xamarin forms in /AppBackdoor/BackdoorExampleApp
Use the backdoor from your tests
There is a python module in appium-mqtt-backdoor\BackdoorAccess\BackdoorAccess
Call it from python like so:
from BackdoorAccess.BackdoorAccess import BackdoorAccess
backdoorAccess = BackdoorAccess(broker_host=MQTT_BROKER_HOST)
backdoorAccess.backdoor('ReceiveNotification', 'Showing popup via backdoor')
I made two examples on how to use the backdoor. One in Robot framwork and one in pure python. Both uses the same python module implementation.
Robot framework example
*** Settings ***
Library AppiumLibrary
Library ../BackdoorAccess/BackdoorAccess.py
*** Variables ***
${APPIUM_SERVER} http://127.0.0.1:4723/wd/hub
${Android apk path} ${CURDIR}/../../AppBackdoor/BackdoorExampleApp/BackdoorExampleApp.Android/bin/Debug/com.companyname.backdoorexampleapp-Signed.apk
${Android package name} com.companyname.backdoorexampleapp
${iOS app path} ${CURDIR}/../../AppBackdoor/BackdoorExampleApp/BackdoorExampleApp.iOS/bin/iPhoneSimulator/Release/BackdoorExampleApp.iOS.app
${Apple team id}
*** Test Cases ***
Test button press and notifications on Android app
[Tags] Android
Open Android example app
Click button and check that label was updated
Simulate a notification
Sleep 2
Close application
Test button press and notifications on iOS app
[Tags] iOS
Open iOS example app
Click button and check that label was updated
Simulate a notification
Sleep 2
Close application
*** Keywords ***
Open Android example app
Open Application ${APPIUM_SERVER} platformName=Android deviceName=Android Emulator noReset=true autoGrantPermissions=true app=${Android apk path} appPackage=${Android package name}
Open iOS example app
Open Application ${APPIUM_SERVER} platformName=iOS deviceName=iPhone 8 automationName=XCUITest noReset=true platformVersion=13.4 xcodeOrgId=${Apple team id} xcodeSigningId=iPhone Developer app=${iOS app path}
Click button and check that label was updated
Click element accessibility_id=A button
Element Should Contain Text accessibility_id=Number of button clicks Button was pressed once
Simulate a notification
Backdoor ReceiveNotification Showing popup via backdoor
Python unittest example
import unittest
import os
from appium import webdriver
from BackdoorAccess.BackdoorAccess import BackdoorAccess
import time
script_folder = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))
MQTT_BROKER_HOST = 'YOUR_MQTT_HOST'
APPLE_TEAM_ID = 'your team id'
class MyTestCase(unittest.TestCase):
def test_button_press_and_notifications_on_android(self):
self.open_android_example_app()
self.click_button_and_check_that_label_was_updated()
self.simulate_a_notification()
time.sleep(2)
self.driver.close_app()
def test_button_press_and_notifications_on_ios(self):
self.open_ios_example_app()
self.click_button_and_check_that_label_was_updated()
self.simulate_a_notification()
time.sleep(2)
self.driver.close_app()
def open_android_example_app(self):
desired_caps = {}
desired_caps['platformName'] = 'Android'
desired_caps['deviceName'] = 'Android Emulator'
desired_caps['noReset'] = True
desired_caps[
'app'] = f'{script_folder}/../../AppBackdoor/BackdoorExampleApp/BackdoorExampleApp.Android/bin/Release/com.companyname.backdoorexampleapp-Signed.apk'
desired_caps['appPackage'] = 'com.companyname.backdoorexampleapp'
self.driver = webdriver.Remote('http://localhost:4723/wd/hub', desired_caps)
def open_ios_example_app(self):
# modify these capabilities to work on your machine
desired_caps = {}
desired_caps['platformName'] = 'iOS'
desired_caps['deviceName'] = 'iPhone 8'
desired_caps['automationName'] = 'XCUITest'
desired_caps['noReset'] = True
desired_caps['platformVersion'] = '13.4'
desired_caps['xcodeOrgId'] = APPLE_TEAM_ID
desired_caps['xcodeSigningId'] = 'iPhone Developer'
desired_caps['app'] = os.path.abspath(f'{script_folder}/../../AppBackdoor/BackdoorExampleApp/BackdoorExampleApp.iOS/bin/iPhoneSimulator/Release/BackdoorExampleApp.iOS.app')
self.driver = webdriver.Remote('http://localhost:4723/wd/hub', desired_caps)
def click_button_and_check_that_label_was_updated(self):
# click button
button = self.driver.find_element_by_accessibility_id('A button')
button.click()
# check that label text was updated
label = self.driver.find_element_by_accessibility_id('Number of button clicks')
self.assertEqual('Button was pressed once', label.text)
def simulate_a_notification(self):
backdoorAccess = BackdoorAccess(broker_host=MQTT_BROKER_HOST)
backdoorAccess.backdoor('ReceiveNotification', 'Showing popup via backdoor')
if __name__ == '__main__':
unittest.main()
Security
Obviously having a backdoor in your application is a data security issue. Disable all backdoors before shipping the application:
#if BACKDOOR_ENABLED
// Initialize the MQTT backdoor
Task t = Backdoor.Instance.Initialize(mqttHost: "YOUR_MQTT_HOST");
...
#endif