Klaros Test Management

What do you use for your Test Case management? Excel? Word? Paper?! While most software companies have bug tracking systems, most have poor or no test case management systems. They have no easy way to record the tests run and report the results.

After some digging, I found a free software (commercial use as well) that seems to do a good job managing tests and test cases. http://www.klaros-testmanagement.com/

Tests can be broken down into projects, environments, systems and test suites. Each test case can be broken down into steps.When executing manual tests it guides the tester through the steps of the test case and allows the tester to pass/fail each step.

Klaros allows integration with popular bug tracking systems like JIRA, Mantis, Trac, Bugzilla, etc

The default installation uses Apache Derby as the database backend. It's easy to switch Klaros to use MySQL (or another DB of your choice) instead.

The enterprise (paid) version has nicer reports but the free version is a little poor on useful reports. However, you can always tap into the database backend and write some scripts to roll your own reports. The database is complex but if you use MySQL Workbench to generate a nice ER diagram you can work your way through the rabbit hole and figure out the relationships


Installation Notes:

For my evaluation of the software I used the full Ubuntu-10.04x64 Server on a Virtual Machine. I ran most of the setup through an SSH terminal but the Klaros setup was run from within the VM's GUI console to the Ubuntu GUI. In case anyone is out there struggling like I was here are the steps I took to install Klaros:

1. Download setup

wget http://www.klaros-testmanagement.com/files/Klaros-Setup.jar

2. Install Java

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sun-java-community-team/sun-java6
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-bin sun-java6-jre sun-java6-jdk 

Check Version

java  -version
java version "1.6.0_21"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_21-b06)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 17.0-b16, mixed mode)

3. Install Klaros
I ran this from within the Ubuntu GUI terminal.

java -jar Klaros-Setup.jar

Follow instructions here: http://www.klaros-testmanagement.com/files/doc/html/User-Manual.Installation.InstallationProcess.html
  
4. Stop Klaros, if you selected to start it.

/path_to_klaros/bin/catalina.sh stop

5. (Reccomended-Optional) Switch Klaros Database
*pick a real password please!

Install MySql:

sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client
mysqladmin create klaros or mysqladmin create -uroot -proot klaros

Switch Klaros Database:

vi ~.klaros/hibernate.properties

Replace file contents with (replace mysql credentials with yours)

hibernate.dialect=org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLInnoDBDialect
hibernate.connection.driver_class=com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
hibernate.connection.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/klaros
hibernate.connection.username=root
hibernate.connection.password=root

7. Start Klaros

/path_to_klaros/bin/catalina.sh start

You can use --help for more options
 
8. Test in browser Navigate to: http://localhost:18080/klaros-web/  

9. Check if Klaros has populated mysql If you switched the database in step 5

mysql klaros -uroot -p

... 

mysql> show tables 

10. Setup email
To allow Klaros to send out emails I installed postfix as my mailserver. You can find installation guides online. One snag I hit is the fully qualified hostname is in your hosts file before localhost

user@ubuntu:~$ cat /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1       klaros.myserver.com localhost
127.0.1.1       ubuntu

Thats It!