Automatically smoke test all webpages in application, after deployment

Question

After I deploy a build to staging. I would like to have a system that smoke tests all our webpages looking for error http status codes (400,500).

What is the easiest, fastest way to get a system like this into place.

If I use selenium or WebAII it seems like I'd have to do alot of work generating basic unit tests.

Ideally Id like to be able to autogenerate a dead simple test for all my page, then over time build some more interactive UI tests.

I dont really want to roll my own solution using wget or something.

I'd appreciate some suggestions.

Thanks

Answer 1

Ideally Id like to be able to auto-generate a dead simple test for all my page, then over time build some more interactive UI tests.

I don't know any solution (this doesn't mean it doesn't exists) that will do this fully automatically for a whole website. Unless your site is mostly made of static parts, navigation isn't just about following links and is in general too complex to automate this task: navigation often involves filling forms, submitting them, browsing results, clicking to view the details of one particular item, etc and this requires some human input.

Actually, the non-custom solution that come to my mind to ease this task would be to use a recorder like Selenium IDE. But I agree that if you are starting from scratch, this will require some work.

I dont really want to roll my own solution using wget or something.

To be honest, this might be the best option though (e.g. a one shot generation of test source files from a selenium template for all known pages/URLs using the scripting language of your choice).

Answer 2

I think u can do a descriptive programming in QTP (ie) as per the requirement u do the script and store the debug results. Once ur application deployed run the qtp script which u created and check the results.

We used to do the smoke test using the QTP ie everytime build as been deployed. To verify whether application displays all the pages without errors.

Answer 3

I have seen a ruby script before that does something similar. Is in the book Wicked Cool Ruby Scripts

This is very similar

Goes through all the links and gets the returns codes. May not test everything but is a good start.

Answer 4

For a simple applications with limited set of pages you may use swat tool which is DSL to create smoke tests for web applications. It's easy enough to start use it. Regards.