Question Advice on testing extensions on various systems

[AlexFye]

Server operating system version

debian 11

Plesk version and microupdate number

18.0.48

Hello,

I would like to know what's the best way of testing our in-development extension on Plesk. I saw on your blog that you have a list of officially supported OSs, as well as some guidelines on testing extensions. However, there are many different OSs to test the extension on, and we don't have much time to test it on all of these OSs.
Do you have any suggestions on how we can test the extension within as short a time as possible? Are there automation tools that we can use that don't require much effort to set up? Can we limit testing of the extension to certain OSs and still be able to support all of them?

Thanks in advance,
Alex.

 

[propz]

Hi guys, I'm also interested in this. It won't be possible for me to setup multiple servers with different OS and Plesk version to test my extension, I can't afford it as single developer.

Are there some kind of test instances for developers like me?

 

[Peter Debik]

Cloud instances from well known hypervisor vendors are available for as little as only 2 €/month.

 

[propz]

Thanks for the tip Peter, but I actually hope and expect Plesk itself to do something about it. It would be benefitial for the plesk dev community to get some kind of testing instances. Something like browserstack but with plesk versions, so devs can quickly do some tests.

 

[Peter Debik]

I've been using Browserstack for a long while, but they are not free either if you want the kind of testing instance scenario that is asked for in this thread. If you are into serious development, you can apply for a free Plesk developer's license: https://support.plesk.com/hc/en-us/...w-to-get-a-development-test-license-for-Plesk

 

[propz]

I've been using Browserstack for a long while, but they are not free either if you want the kind of testing instance scenario that is asked for in this thread. If you are into serious development, you can apply for a free Plesk developer's license: https://support.plesk.com/hc/en-us/...w-to-get-a-development-test-license-for-Plesk

Another good tip, thanks again.
I think my post sounds quite demanding, that's not my intent here.
I was just thinking, that it'd be a good thing to support the dev community.

I have a few more issues with testing:
- Older plesk versions (Onyx and below) are already at EOL. So there is no need to support them? ARe there any numbers or usage statistics for different versions?
- What "plesk_min_version" should I support? There is no way to test it with older versions right? By older versions I mean the 56 smaller updates from 18.0.0 to latest version 18.0.56.

 

[Peter Debik]

There is no need to support older versions. It's a huge mistake some server owners are making to delay updates for a very long time. It's o.k. to do that for a short while for a number of reasons, but the longer users wait with updating, the more problems they'll create for their systems, e.g. outdated operating system, outdated Plesk, outdated extensions, no more security updates for outdated PHP etc. Focus on the future, develop for the future, not for the past.