# Testing on Windows Nodes

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/testing-on-windows-nodes/5121>\
**Category:** Chef Infra (archive)\
**Created:** [March 14, 2014, 6:09pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/testing-on-windows-nodes/5121 "2014-03-14T18:09:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![David\_A\_Williams](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/david_a_williams/32/209_2.png) [@David\_A\_Williams](https://discourse.chef.io/u/David_A_Williams)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2014, 6:09pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/testing-on-windows-nodes/5121/1 "2014-03-14T18:09:16Z")

</div>

Hello All,

I’m getting to the point where I would like to implement tests for my cookbooks. I’m looking at test kitchen but I don’t think it works on Windows nodes. Does anyone have any recomindations or books for testing Windows nodes?

Thanks,

David

* * *

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**Author:** ![jdunn](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/jdunn/32/1800_2.png) [@jdunn](https://discourse.chef.io/u/jdunn)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 7:52pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/testing-on-windows-nodes/5121/2 "2014-03-15T19:52:42Z")

</div>

It's still pretty early days for testing on Windows, so you're right,  
Test Kitchen doesn't currently support Windows. However this is what I  
do:

- Use Vagrant directly, old-style (with a single Vagrantfile)
- Use vagrant-berkshelf to resolve dependencies

You can also run ServerSpec tests on the target machine, however I  
haven't personally tried that yet.

- Julian

On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 2:09 PM, David A. Williams [dwilliams@daxko.com](mailto:dwilliams@daxko.com) wrote:

> Hello All,
> 
> I'm getting to the point where I would like to implement tests for my cookbooks. I'm looking at test kitchen but I don't think it works on Windows nodes. Does anyone have any recomindations or books for testing Windows nodes?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> David
> 
> * * *
> 
> CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This electronic mail may contain information that is privileged, confidential, and/or otherwise protected from disclosure to anyone other than its intended recipient(s). Any dissemination or use of this electronic mail or its contents by persons other than the intended recipient(s) is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail so that we may correct our internal records. Please then delete the original message. Thank you.

--  
[Julian C. Dunn [jdunn@aquezada.com](mailto:jdunn@aquezada.com) \* Sorry, I'm ]  
[WWW: [Julian Dunn's Blog - Commentary on media, technology, and everything in between.](http://www.aquezada.com/staff/julian) \* only Web 1.0 ]  
[gopher://sdf.org/1/users/keymaker/ \* compliant!]  
[PGP: 91B3 7A9D 683C 7C16 715F 442C 6065 D533 FDC2 05B9]

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![David\_Petzel](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/david_petzel/32/38_2.png) [@David\_Petzel](https://discourse.chef.io/u/David_Petzel)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2014, 8:02pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/testing-on-windows-nodes/5121/3 "2014-03-15T20:02:02Z")

</div>

While not supported it does work (with a few tweaks). Have a peek at  
[Platform detection · Issue #325 · test-kitchen/test-kitchen · GitHub](https://github.com/test-kitchen/test-kitchen/issues/325). Its far from a  
bullet proof implementation, but It has allowed me to test Windows using  
test-kitchen for a couple of months now. I'm not sure how well this works  
with something other than WinSSHD.

On Sat, Mar 15, 2014 at 3:52 PM, Julian C. Dunn [jdunn@aquezada.com](mailto:jdunn@aquezada.com) wrote:

> It's still pretty early days for testing on Windows, so you're right,  
> Test Kitchen doesn't currently support Windows. However this is what I  
> do:

Prior to getting test-kitchen working we used a combination of Vagrant with  
the vagrant-windows plugin, as well as a shell scripts wrapped around knife  
which would provision cloud instances and execute the tests. Getting it  
working under test-kitchen was a much nicer experience than either of those  
approaches.

> On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 2:09 PM, David A. Williams [dwilliams@daxko.com](mailto:dwilliams@daxko.com)  
> wrote:
> 
> > Hello All,
> > 
> > I'm getting to the point where I would like to implement tests for my  
> > cookbooks. I'm looking at test kitchen but I don't think it works on  
> > Windows nodes. Does anyone have any recomindations or books for testing  
> > Windows nodes?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![David\_A\_Williams](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/david_a_williams/32/209_2.png) [@David\_A\_Williams](https://discourse.chef.io/u/David_A_Williams)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 5:11am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/testing-on-windows-nodes/5121/4 "2014-03-16T05:11:11Z")

</div>

Thanks Julian. I'm running the same process minus serverspec.

David

> On Mar 15, 2014, at 2:53 PM, "Julian C. Dunn" [jdunn@aquezada.com](mailto:jdunn@aquezada.com) wrote:
> 
> It's still pretty early days for testing on Windows, so you're right,  
> Test Kitchen doesn't currently support Windows. However this is what I  
> do:
> 
> - Use Vagrant directly, old-style (with a single Vagrantfile)
> - Use vagrant-berkshelf to resolve dependencies
> 
> You can also run ServerSpec tests on the target machine, however I  
> haven't personally tried that yet.
> 
> - Julian
> 
> > On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 2:09 PM, David A. Williams [dwilliams@daxko.com](mailto:dwilliams@daxko.com) wrote:  
> > Hello All,
> > 
> > I'm getting to the point where I would like to implement tests for my cookbooks. I'm looking at test kitchen but I don't think it works on Windows nodes. Does anyone have any recomindations or books for testing Windows nodes?
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> > David
> > 
> > * * *
> > 
> > CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This electronic mail may contain information that is privileged, confidential, and/or otherwise protected from disclosure to anyone other than its intended recipient(s). Any dissemination or use of this electronic mail or its contents by persons other than the intended recipient(s) is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail so that we may correct our internal records. Please then delete the original message. Thank you.
> 
> --  
> [Julian C. Dunn [jdunn@aquezada.com](mailto:jdunn@aquezada.com) \* Sorry, I'm ]  
> [WWW: [http://www.aquezada.com/staff/julian](http://www.aquezada.com/staff/julian) \* only Web 1.0 ]  
> [gopher://sdf.org/1/users/keymaker/ \* compliant!]  
> [PGP: 91B3 7A9D 683C 7C16 715F 442C 6065 D533 FDC2 05B9]

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This electronic mail may contain information that is privileged, confidential, and/or otherwise protected from disclosure to anyone other than its intended recipient(s). Any dissemination or use of this electronic mail or its contents by persons other than the intended recipient(s) is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail so that we may correct our internal records. Please then delete the original message. Thank you.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Maxime\_Brugidou](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/maxime_brugidou/32/55_2.png) [@Maxime\_Brugidou](https://discourse.chef.io/u/Maxime_Brugidou)\
**Post date:** [March 16, 2014, 10:10am UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/testing-on-windows-nodes/5121/5 "2014-03-16T10:10:34Z")

</div>

It actually works with older versions of test-kitchen using vagrant-windows  
that connects through WinRM to the windows box (we built a Windows 2008R2  
box from opscode bento definitions).

Unfortunately now you have to use SSH with newer versions of test-kitchen  
and they dropped the use\_vagrant\_provision option.  
On Mar 16, 2014 6:11 AM, "David A. Williams" [dwilliams@daxko.com](mailto:dwilliams@daxko.com) wrote:

> Thanks Julian. I'm running the same process minus serverspec.
> 
> David
> 
> > On Mar 15, 2014, at 2:53 PM, "Julian C. Dunn" [jdunn@aquezada.com](mailto:jdunn@aquezada.com)  
> > wrote:
> > 
> > It's still pretty early days for testing on Windows, so you're right,  
> > Test Kitchen doesn't currently support Windows. However this is what I  
> > do:
> > 
> > - Use Vagrant directly, old-style (with a single Vagrantfile)
> > - Use vagrant-berkshelf to resolve dependencies
> > 
> > You can also run ServerSpec tests on the target machine, however I  
> > haven't personally tried that yet.
> > 
> > - Julian
> > 
> > > On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 2:09 PM, David A. Williams [dwilliams@daxko.com](mailto:dwilliams@daxko.com)  
> > > wrote:  
> > > Hello All,
> > > 
> > > I'm getting to the point where I would like to implement tests for my  
> > > cookbooks. I'm looking at test kitchen but I don't think it works on  
> > > Windows nodes. Does anyone have any recomindations or books for testing  
> > > Windows nodes?
> > > 
> > > Thanks,
> > > 
> > > David
> > > 
> > > * * *
> > > 
> > > CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This electronic mail may contain information  
> > > that is privileged, confidential, and/or otherwise protected from  
> > > disclosure to anyone other than its intended recipient(s). Any  
> > > dissemination or use of this electronic mail or its contents by persons  
> > > other than the intended recipient(s) is strictly prohibited. If you have  
> > > received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately  
> > > by reply e-mail so that we may correct our internal records. Please then  
> > > delete the original message. Thank you.
> > 
> > --  
> > [Julian C. Dunn [jdunn@aquezada.com](mailto:jdunn@aquezada.com) \* Sorry, I'm ]  
> > [WWW: [Julian Dunn's Blog - Commentary on media, technology, and everything in between.](http://www.aquezada.com/staff/julian) \* only Web 1.0 ]  
> > [gopher://sdf.org/1/users/keymaker/ \* compliant!]  
> > [PGP: 91B3 7A9D 683C 7C16 715F 442C 6065 D533 FDC2 05B9]
> 
> CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This electronic mail may contain information that  
> is privileged, confidential, and/or otherwise protected from disclosure to  
> anyone other than its intended recipient(s). Any dissemination or use of  
> this electronic mail or its contents by persons other than the intended  
> recipient(s) is strictly prohibited. If you have received this  
> communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by reply  
> e-mail so that we may correct our internal records. Please then delete the  
> original message. Thank you.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![steve](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/steve/32/294_2.png) [@steve](https://discourse.chef.io/u/steve)\
**Post date:** [March 17, 2014, 9:16pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/testing-on-windows-nodes/5121/6 "2014-03-17T21:16:42Z")

</div>

Is anybody testing on Windows with containers? I was thinking maybe  
Virtuozzo. (Are there any other options that don't involve Azure?)

I'll be retooling our CI's functional testing soon and if I switch to LXC  
I'm pretty sure my Linux tests will literally run 10x-20x faster than  
Windows VMs (provisioned through our internal cloud). That's kind of  
embarrassing, so I thought I'd see if anyone out there has solved for this  
already.

On Sun, Mar 16, 2014 at 3:10 AM, Maxime Brugidou  
[maxime.brugidou@gmail.com](mailto:maxime.brugidou@gmail.com)wrote:

> It actually works with older versions of test-kitchen using  
> vagrant-windows that connects through WinRM to the windows box (we built a  
> Windows 2008R2 box from opscode bento definitions).
> 
> Unfortunately now you have to use SSH with newer versions of test-kitchen  
> and they dropped the use\_vagrant\_provision option.  
> On Mar 16, 2014 6:11 AM, "David A. Williams" [dwilliams@daxko.com](mailto:dwilliams@daxko.com) wrote:
> 
> > Thanks Julian. I'm running the same process minus serverspec.
> > 
> > David
> > 
> > > On Mar 15, 2014, at 2:53 PM, "Julian C. Dunn" [jdunn@aquezada.com](mailto:jdunn@aquezada.com)  
> > > wrote:
> > > 
> > > It's still pretty early days for testing on Windows, so you're right,  
> > > Test Kitchen doesn't currently support Windows. However this is what I  
> > > do:
> > > 
> > > - Use Vagrant directly, old-style (with a single Vagrantfile)
> > > - Use vagrant-berkshelf to resolve dependencies
> > > 
> > > You can also run ServerSpec tests on the target machine, however I  
> > > haven't personally tried that yet.
> > > 
> > > - Julian
> > > 
> > > > On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 2:09 PM, David A. Williams \<  
> > > > [dwilliams@daxko.com](mailto:dwilliams@daxko.com)\> wrote:  
> > > > Hello All,
> > > > 
> > > > I'm getting to the point where I would like to implement tests for my  
> > > > cookbooks. I'm looking at test kitchen but I don't think it works on  
> > > > Windows nodes. Does anyone have any recomindations or books for testing  
> > > > Windows nodes?
> > > > 
> > > > Thanks,
> > > > 
> > > > David
> > > > 
> > > > * * *
> > > > 
> > > > CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This electronic mail may contain information  
> > > > that is privileged, confidential, and/or otherwise protected from  
> > > > disclosure to anyone other than its intended recipient(s). Any  
> > > > dissemination or use of this electronic mail or its contents by persons  
> > > > other than the intended recipient(s) is strictly prohibited. If you have  
> > > > received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately  
> > > > by reply e-mail so that we may correct our internal records. Please then  
> > > > delete the original message. Thank you.
> > > 
> > > --  
> > > [Julian C. Dunn [jdunn@aquezada.com](mailto:jdunn@aquezada.com) \* Sorry, I'm ]  
> > > [WWW: [http://www.aquezada.com/staff/julian](http://www.aquezada.com/staff/julian) \* only Web 1.0 ]  
> > > [gopher://sdf.org/1/users/keymaker/ \* compliant!]  
> > > [PGP: 91B3 7A9D 683C 7C16 715F 442C 6065 D533 FDC2 05B9]
> > 
> > CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This electronic mail may contain information  
> > that is privileged, confidential, and/or otherwise protected from  
> > disclosure to anyone other than its intended recipient(s). Any  
> > dissemination or use of this electronic mail or its contents by persons  
> > other than the intended recipient(s) is strictly prohibited. If you have  
> > received this communication in error, please notify the sender immediately  
> > by reply e-mail so that we may correct our internal records. Please then  
> > delete the original message. Thank you.