running junit tests with and without a security manager

[Rick Hillegas <Ri...@Sun.COM>]

I would like to test out some combinations of running the network server 
with and without a security manager and with and without certain system 
properties set. Ideally, it would be nice to run all of these 
combinations in a single master run of all of our JUnit tests.

Unfortunately, this would involve installing and uninstalling the 
security manager several times during the run of the master suite. Right 
now, our JUnit tests don't seem to allow the security manager to be 
uninstalled. That's my reading of the SecurityManagerSetup decorator. 
The javadoc for SecurityManagerSetup.noSecurityManager() says that we're 
missing some context which we would need to re-install the security 
manager at decorator teardown.

I would appreciate the community's advice on the following points:

1) What is the missing context which prevents us from uninstalling and 
re-installing the security manager?

2) How can I test all of the combinations I need? Should I:

2a) Put some effort into saving that missing context so that the 
security manager can be bounced?

2b) Should a master run of the JUnit tests actually turn into 2 runs, 
one with and one without a security manager?

2c) Other suggestions?

Thanks,
-Rick

Re: running junit tests with and without a security manager

[Daniel John Debrunner <dj...@apache.org>]

Rick Hillegas wrote:
> I would like to test out some combinations of running the network server 
> with and without a security manager and with and without certain system 
> properties set. Ideally, it would be nice to run all of these 
> combinations in a single master run of all of our JUnit tests.
> 
> Unfortunately, this would involve installing and uninstalling the 
> security manager several times during the run of the master suite. Right 
> now, our JUnit tests don't seem to allow the security manager to be 
> uninstalled. That's my reading of the SecurityManagerSetup decorator. 
> The javadoc for SecurityManagerSetup.noSecurityManager() says that we're 
> missing some context which we would need to re-install the security 
> manager at decorator teardown.
> 
> I would appreciate the community's advice on the following points:
> 
> 1) What is the missing context which prevents us from uninstalling and 
> re-installing the security manager?

Lack of itch to scratch more than anything. Note that issues only exists 
with an external security manager, i.e. the noSecurityManager() 
decorator does work and is used today in the tests.

Some issues exist but they may be edge cases:
   a) may not have permission to uninstall the security manager
   b) may not have permission to get the location of the old policy file
   c) may not have the ability to create an instance of the old security 
manager (though possibly could just use the old reference?) if not using 
the standard one.

> 2) How can I test all of the combinations I need? Should I:
> 
> 2a) Put some effort into saving that missing context so that the 
> security manager can be bounced?

I have run the tests with an external security manager with a simpler 
policy. see http://wiki.apache.org/db-derby/JunitVmIssues

I've modified noSecurityManager() before that it does not return an 
empty suite if an external security manger is installed. It works with 
the simpler policy file.

> 2b) Should a master run of the JUnit tests actually turn into 2 runs, 
> one with and one without a security manager?

I don't believe so. Having the ability to run without the security 
manager is fine, but I don't believe it should be "forced" on anyone as 
a standard recommended run. I don't see how not installing a security 
manager changes the code path for Derby in such a way that it would 
expose bugs in Derby.

Dan.