Assess your proficiency in infrastructure testing with this quiz on Terratest and Molecule. Explore key concepts, best practices, and real-world scenarios to enhance reliability and maintainability in IaC workflows.
Which of the following best describes the primary use of Terratest in infrastructure testing workflows?
Explanation: Terratest is primarily used to validate infrastructure code by provisioning actual resources and conducting automated tests against them. It helps ensure that infrastructure behaves as expected in real environments. The distractors are unrelated: designing user interfaces and writing documentation are not functions of Terratest, while scheduling backups is an operational task rather than a testing workflow.
In a Molecule scenario, what is typically achieved by using the 'verify' step with Ansible?
Explanation: The 'verify' step in Molecule is intended to check if the desired system state has been achieved after applying configuration, often using Ansible. This ensures that infrastructure provisioning results in the intended outcome. Creating images is unrelated to verification. Destroying resources is part of the cleanup process, not verification. Generating inventory files is generally handled earlier in the process.
When using Terratest, what is one advantage of running tests in parallel threads?
Explanation: Running Terratest tests in parallel helps speed up the testing process, resulting in faster feedback for complex infrastructures. This does not directly affect code readability, which depends on writing style. Parallelization does not improve syntax error detection, nor does it provide documentation of test cases.
Why is idempotence testing important in Molecule workflows, especially after running a configuration role twice?
Explanation: Idempotence testing ensures that applying the same configuration multiple times does not cause additional changes, which is essential for predictable and stable infrastructure provisioning. Speed of provisioning is unrelated to idempotence. Encryption of variables and scenario rollback are not direct benefits of the idempotence check.
In both Terratest and Molecule testing setups, why is it best practice to destroy infrastructure resources after tests complete?
Explanation: Destroying test resources ensures that no unnecessary costs are incurred and prevents potential security or operational risks from unused infrastructure. While it is a good practice, it does not affect code coverage percentages or unit test speed, and it does not automatically simplify script syntax.