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Development Environment Setup

First, clone our repository:

git clone git://github.com/tls-attacker/TLS-Anvil

Compile From Terminal​

TLS-Anvil depends on specific versions of TLS-Attacker, TLS-Scanner, and Anvil-Core as its testing framework. These are managed as Maven dependencies and will be automatically fetched during the build process.

mvn clean install -DskipTests

TLS-Anvil can be started by executing the JAR file:

cd apps
java -jar TLS-Anvil.jar

Setup IDE​

TLS-Anvil was primarily developed using IntelliJ IDEA and NetBeans. Since IntelliJ IDEA offers more advanced JUnit integration, the following section describes a basic setup for IDEA.

IntelliJ IDEA​

  1. Open the TLS-Testsuite project by selecting the root pom.xml file in IntelliJ IDEA.
  2. If you intend to modify TLS-Attacker and TLS-Scanner as well (which are maintained in separate Git repositories):
    1. Add TLS-Attacker (TLS-Attacker/pom.xml) as a new module.
    2. Add TLS-Scanner (TLS-Scanner/pom.xml) as a new module.

At this point, the project should compile successfully.

Since TLS-Anvil uses JUnit as its testing framework, individual tests can be executed directly from the IDE. For example, when opening a TLS-Anvil test template located in the de.rub.nds.tlstest.suite.tests package, a green play button will appear next to each test method.

The example in the screenshot is a server test, so a TLS server must be running. Additionally, TLS-Anvil requires connection details to the server. These options are configured via environment variables, which correspond to the regular TLS-Anvil CLI options.

The recommended approach is to edit the JUnit 5 run configuration template in IntelliJ IDEA:

  1. Open Edit Configurations from the command palette.
  2. In the bottom left, select Edit Configuration Templates.
  3. Select the JUnit template.
  4. Configure the environment variables:
    • Use COMMAND_SERVER to specify CLI options for testing a server.
      Example:
-networkInterface lo0 -parallelHandshakes 1 -strength 1 server -connect localhost:8443 -doNotSendSNIExtension
  • Use COMMAND_CLIENT to specify CLI options for testing a client.
    Example:
-networkInterface lo0 -parallelHandshakes 1 -strength 1 client -port 8443 -triggerScript [path to script]

Once the environment variables are configured, you can run client or server tests by clicking the green play buttons next to the test methods. TLS-Anvil will use these variables to configure the test backend accordingly.

NetBeans or Other IDEs​

TLS-Anvil is a Maven-based project and can be built like any other Maven Java project. To execute specific test templates during development, the TLS-Anvil CLI provides two options:

  • -testPackage [package] — Runs all tests within the specified Java package.
  • -tags [tag] — Runs only test templates annotated with the specified tag. When developing a new test case, temporarily annotate the test method with @Tag("tag") to run only that specific test template.