README.md
1 # BoringSSL SSL Tests
2
3 This directory contains BoringSSL's protocol-level test suite.
4
5 Testing a TLS implementation can be difficult. We need to produce invalid but
6 sufficiently correct handshakes to get our implementation close to its edge
7 cases. TLS's cryptographic steps mean we cannot use a transcript and effectively
8 need a TLS implementation on the other end. But we do not wish to litter
9 BoringSSL with options for bugs to test against.
10
11 Instead, we use a fork of the Go `crypto/tls` package, heavily patched with
12 configurable bugs. This code, along with a test suite and harness written in Go,
13 lives in the `runner` directory. The harness runs BoringSSL via a C/C++ shim
14 binary which lives in this directory. All communication with the shim binary
15 occurs with command-line flags, sockets, and standard I/O.
16
17 This strategy also ensures we always test against a second implementation. All
18 features should be implemented twice, once in C for BoringSSL and once in Go for
19 testing. If possible, the Go code should be suitable for potentially
20 upstreaming. However, sometimes test code has different needs. For example, our
21 test DTLS code enforces strict ordering on sequence numbers and has controlled
22 packet drop simulation.
23
24 To run the tests manually, run `go test` from the `runner` directory. It takes
25 command-line flags found at the top of `runner/runner.go`. The `-help` option
26 also works after using `go test -c` to make a `runner.test` binary first.
27
28 If adding a new test, these files may be a good starting point:
29
30 * `runner/runner.go`: the test harness and all the individual tests.
31 * `runner/common.go`: contains the `Config` and `ProtocolBugs` struct which
32 control the Go TLS implementation's behavior.
33 * `test_config.h`, `test_config.cc`: the command-line flags which control the
34 shim's behavior.
35 * `bssl_shim.cc`: the shim binary itself.
36
37 For porting the test suite to a different implementation see
38 [PORTING.md](./PORTING.md).
39