Shell script testing through terminal simulation

Question

I am developing a generic bash script which could be executed in different distro.

I have only a CentOS virtual machine and I would be interested to test my script on a virtual terminal (online or as a software, without writing access, just able read some standard files from the OS) but like I am running it in a different distro (possibility to switch between distro).

One example is to make a distro detection and I do not know what will be the expected info I will get from other distro.

For example on my VM I get:

$> test.sh
Your linux distribution is: CentOS
$>

I just do not know what will be the result in RedHat, Ubuntu, Debian, etc...

The code for the test.sh is here.

This idea comes from the front-end development where you have similar tools to test your web pages in different browsers without having all really installed. I know an OS is quite more complex than just a browser, but the question remains after few searches on Google.

Answer 1

As Chris Down said in the comments, detecting the distribution is really a bad way of detecting the package system. For example, you mentioned "REDHAT + CENTOS + FEDORA = rpm+yum support, and DEBIAN + UBUNTU = deb+apt-get". OK, what about Mint, LMDE, Kali, Backtrack, Crashbang and all the other distros using dpkg/apt-get? Or Scientific Linux, Yellow Dog Linux and Oracle Linux all of whom use yum? Not to mention other RPM-based distros that don't use yum like SuSe, OpenSuSe, Mandriva Linux, Rosa Linux or Mageia?

A much better way would be to detect the tool you want to use. I would also suggest you use the rpm system directly rather than yum, why limit yourself to the 6 RPM-based distros that use yum?

I would simply test if the system you find yourself on uses rpm or dpkg to manage their packages:

if [ $(rpm -qa 2>/dev/null | wc -l ) -gt 10 ]; then 
  system="rpm" 
elif [ $(dpkg -l 2>/dev/null | wc -l ) -gt 10 ]; then 
  system="dpkg" 
else 
  system="unk"
fi 
echo $system

Since rpm can be installed on dpkg based distros and vice versa, I am testing whether there are more than 10 packages installed with each tool.

For a better way to detect the actual distribution see the accepted answer here, that should give you an idea of how complicated it is. Do you really want to write distro-specific tests for dozens of distros when you could easily simply detect the packaging system used instead?

Answer 2

Python

#!/usr/bin/env python
import platform

"""

Fingerprint the following operating system

        * Mac OS X
        * Ubuntu
        * Red Hat/CentOS
        * FreeBSD
        * SunOS

"""

class OpSysType(object):
        """ Determine OS type using platform module """
        def __getattr__(self,attr):
                if attr == "osx":
                        return "Mac OS X"
                elif attr == "rhel":
                        return "redhat"
                elif attr == "ubu":
                        return "ubuntu"
                elif attr == "fbsd":
                        return "FreeBSD"
                elif attr == "sun":
                        return "SunOS"
                elif attr == "unknown":
                        return "unknown"
                else:
                        raise AttributeError,attr

        def linuxtype(self):
                """ Use various method to determine Linux Type """
                if platform.dist()[0] == self.rhel:
                        return self.rhel
                elif platform.uname()[1] == self.ubu:
                        return self.ubu
                else:
                        return self.unknown

        def queryos(self):
                p = platform.system()
                if p  == "Darwin":
                        return self.osx
                elif p == "Linux":
                        return self.linuxtype()
                elif p == self.sun:
                        return self.sun
                elif p == self.fbsd:
                        return self.fbsd

def fingerprint():
        type = OpSysType()
        print type.queryos()

if __name__ == '__main__':
        fingerprint()

Answer 3

You can easily do with just uname:

OS=`uname`
  if [ "$OS" == "Linux" ];then
    distro="Linux"
elif[ "$OS" == "SunOS" ];then
    distro="Solaris"
else
    echo "CRITICAL - Unknown os"
    exit 2