Mochitest FAQ

SSL and https-enabled tests

Mochitests must be run from http://mochi.test/ to succeed. However, some tests may require use of additional protocols, hosts, or ports to test cross-origin functionality.

The Mochitest harness addresses this need by mirroring all content of the original server onto a variety of other servers through the magic of proxy autoconfig and SSL tunneling. The full list of schemes, hosts, and ports on which tests are served, is specified in build/pgo/server-locations.txt.

The origins described there are not the same, as some of them specify particular SSL certificates for testing purposes, while some allow pages on that server to request elevated privileges; read the file for full details.

It works as follows: The Mochitest harness includes preference values which cause the browser to use proxy autoconfig to match requested URLs with servers. The network.proxy.autoconfig_url preference is set to a data: URL that encodes the JavaScript function, FindProxyForURL, which determines the host of the given URL. In the case of SSL sites to be mirrored, the function maps them to an SSL tunnel, which transparently forwards the traffic to the actual server, as per the description of the CONNECT method given in RFC 2817. In this manner a single HTTP server at http://127.0.0.1:8888 can successfully emulate dozens of servers at distinct locations.

What if my tests aren’t done when onload fires?

Use add_task(), or call SimpleTest.waitForExplicitFinish() before onload fires (and SimpleTest.finish() when you’re done).

How can I get the full log output for my test in automation for debugging?

Add the following to your test:

SimpleTest.requestCompleteLog();

What if I need to change a preference to run my test?

The SpecialPowers object provides APIs to get and set preferences:

await SpecialPowers.pushPrefEnv({ set: [["your-preference", "your-value" ]] });
// ...
await SpecialPowers.popPrefEnv(); // Implicit at the end of the test too.

You can also set prefs directly in the manifest:

[DEFAULT]
prefs =
  browser.chrome.guess_favicon=true

If you need to change a pref when running a test locally, you can use the --setpref flag:

./mach mochitest --setpref="javascript.options.jit.chrome=false" somePath/someTestFile.html

Equally, if you need to change a string pref:

./mach mochitest --setpref="webgl.osmesa=string with whitespace" somePath/someTestFile.html

Can tests be run under a chrome URL?

Yes, use mochitest-chrome.

How do I change the HTTP headers or status sent with a file used in a Mochitest?

Create a text file next to the file whose headers you want to modify. The name of the text file should be the name of the file whose headers you’re modifying followed by ^headers^. For example, if you have a file foo.jpg, the text file should be named foo.jpg^headers^. (Don’t try to actually use the headers file in any other way in the test, because the HTTP server’s hidden-file functionality prevents any file ending in exactly one ^ from being served.)

Edit the file to contain the headers and/or status you want to set, like so:

HTTP 404 Not Found
Content-Type: text/html
Random-Header-of-Doom: 17

The first line sets the HTTP status and a description (optional) associated with the file. This line is optional; you don’t need it if you’re fine with the normal response status and description.

Any other lines in the file describe additional headers which you want to add or overwrite (most typically the Content-Type header, for the latter case) on the response. The format follows the conventions of HTTP, except that you don’t need to have HTTP line endings and you can’t use a header more than once (the last line for a particular header wins). The file may end with at most one blank line to match Unix text file conventions, but the trailing newline isn’t strictly necessary.

How do I write tests that check header values, method types, etc. of HTTP requests?

To write such a test, you simply need to write an SJS (server-side JavaScript) for it. See the testing HTTP server docs for less mochitest-specific documentation of what you can do in SJS scripts.

An SJS is simply a JavaScript file with the extension .sjs which is loaded in a sandbox. Don’t forget to reference it from your mochitest.ini file too!

[DEFAULT]
support-files =
  test_file.sjs

The global property handleRequest defined by the script is then executed with request and response objects, and the script populates the response based on the information in the request.

Here’s an example of a simple SJS:

function handleRequest(request, response) {
  // Allow cross-origin, so you can XHR to it!
  response.setHeader("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "*", false);
  // Avoid confusing cache behaviors
  response.setHeader("Cache-Control", "no-cache", false);
  response.setHeader("Content-Type", "text/plain", false);
  response.write("Hello world!");
}

The file is run, for example, at either http://mochi.test:8888/tests/PATH/TO/YOUR/test_file.sjs, http://{server-location}/tests/PATH/TO/YOUR/test_file.sjs - see build/pgo/server-locations.txt for server locations!

If you want to actually execute the file, you need to reference it somehow. For instance, you can XHR to it OR you could use a HTML element:

var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open("GET", "http://test/tests/dom/manifest/test/test_file.sjs");
xhr.onload = function(e){ console.log("loaded!", this.responseText)}
xhr.send();

The exact properties of the request and response parameters are defined in the nsIHttpRequestMetadata and nsIHttpResponse interfaces in nsIHttpServer.idl. However, here are a few useful ones:

  • .scheme (string). The scheme of the request.

  • .host (string). The scheme of the request.

  • .port (string). The port of the request.

  • .method (string). The HTTP method.

  • .httpVersion (string). The protocol version, typically “1.1”.

  • .path (string). Path of the request,

  • .headers (object). Name and values representing the headers.

  • .queryString (string). The query string of the requested URL.

  • .bodyInputStream ??

  • .getHeader(name). Gets a request header by name.

  • .hasHeader(name) (boolean). Gets a request header by name.

Note: The browser is free to cache responses generated by your script. If you ever want an SJS to return different data for multiple requests to the same URL, you should add a Cache-Control: no-cache header to the response to prevent the test from accidentally failing, especially if it’s manually run multiple times in the same Mochitest session.

How do I keep state across loads of different server-side scripts?

Server-side scripts in Mochitest are run inside sandboxes, with a new sandbox created for each new load. Consequently, any variables set in a handler don’t persist across loads. To support state storage, use the getState(k) and setState(k, v) methods defined on the global object. These methods expose a key-value storage mechanism for the server, with keys and values as strings. (Use JSON to store objects and other structured data.) The myriad servers in Mochitest are in reality a single server with some proxying and tunnelling magic, so a stored state is the same in all servers at all times.

The getState and setState methods are scoped to the path being loaded. For example, the absolute URLs /foo/bar/baz, /foo/bar/baz?quux, and /foo/bar/baz#fnord all share the same state; the state for /foo/bar is entirely separate.

You should use per-path state whenever possible to avoid inter-test dependencies and bugs.

However, in rare cases it may be necessary for two scripts to collaborate in some manner, and it may not be possible to use a custom query string to request divergent behaviors from the script.

For this use case only you should use the getSharedState(k, v) and setSharedState(k, v) methods defined on the global object. No restrictions are placed on access to this whole-server shared state, and any script may add new state that any other script may delete. To avoid conflicts, you should use a key within a faux namespace so as to avoid accidental conflicts. For example, if you needed shared state for an HTML5 video test, you might use a key like dom.media.video:sharedState.

A further form of state storage is provided by the getObjectState(k) and setObjectState(k, v) methods, which will store any nsISupports object. These methods reside on the nsIHttpServer interface, but a limitation of the sandbox object used by the server to process SJS responses means that the former is present in the SJS request handler’s global environment with the signature getObjectState(k, callback), where callback is a function to be invoked by getObjectState with the object corresponding to the provided key as the sole argument.

Note that this value mapping requires the value to be an XPCOM object; an arbitrary JavaScript object with no QueryInterface method is insufficient. If you wish to store a JavaScript object, you may find it useful to provide the object with a QueryInterface implementation and then make use of wrappedJSObject to reveal the actual JavaScript object through the wrapping performed by XPConnect.

For further details on state-saving mechanisms provided by httpd.js, see netwerk/test/httpserver/nsIHttpServer.idl and the nsIHttpServer.get(Shared|Object)?State methods.

How do I write a SJS script that responds asynchronously?

Sometimes you need to respond to a request asynchronously, for example after waiting for a short period of time. You can do this by using the processAsync() and finish() functions on the response object passed to the handleRequest() function.

processAsync() must be called before returning from handleRequest(). Once called, you can at any point call methods on the request object to send more of the response. Once you are done, call the finish() function. For example you can use the setState() / getState() functions described above to store a request and later retrieve and finish it. However be aware that the browser often reorders requests and so your code must be resilient to that to avoid intermittent failures.

let { setTimeout } = ChromeUtils.importESModule("resource://gre/modules/Timer.sys.mjs");

function handleRequest(request, response) {
  response.processAsync();
  response.setHeader("Content-Type", "text/plain", false);
  response.write("hello...");

  setTimeout(function() {
    response.write("world!");
    response.finish();
  }, 5 * 1000);
}

For more details, see the processAsync() function documentation in netwerk/test/httpserver/nsIHttpServer.idl.

How do I get access to the files on the server as XPCOM objects from an SJS script?

If you need access to a file, because it’s easier to store image data in a file than directly in an SJS script, use the presupplied SERVER_ROOT object state available to SJS scripts running in Mochitest:

function handleRequest(req, res) {
  var file;
  getObjectState("SERVER_ROOT", function(serverRoot) {
    file = serverRoot.getFile("tests/content/media/test/320x240.ogv");
  });
  // file is now an XPCOM object referring to the given file
  res.write("file: " + file);
}

The path you specify is used as a path relative to the root directory served by httpd.js, and an nsIFile corresponding to the file at that location is returned.

Beware of typos: the file you specify doesn’t actually have to exist because file objects are mere encapsulations of string paths.

Diagnosing and fixing leakcheck failures

Mochitests output a log of the windows and docshells that are created during the test during debug builds. At the end of the test, the test runner runs a leakcheck analysis to determine if any of them did not get cleaned up before the test was ended.

Leaks can happen for a variety of reasons. One common one is that a JavaScript event listener is retaining a reference that keeps the window alive.

// Add an observer.
Services.obs.addObserver(myObserver, "event-name");

// Make sure and clean it up, or it may leak!
Services.obs.removeObserver(myObserver, "event-name");

Other sources of issues include accidentally leaving a window, or iframe attached to the DOM, or setting an iframe’s src to a blank string (creating an about:blank page), rather than removing the iframe.

Finding the leak can be difficult, but the first step is to reproduce it locally. Ensure you are on a debug build and the MOZ_QUIET environment flag is not enabled. The leakcheck test analyzes the test output. After reproducing the leak in the test, start commenting out code until the leak goes away. Then once the leak stop reproducing, find the exact location where it is happening.

See this post for more advanced debugging techniques involving CC and GC logs.