First, you will need to identify the unique commit ID (hash) of the patch you wish to test. This is most easily found by clicking on a link in the related launchpad bug. Once there, copy the first 7+ characters from the unique commit code.

The next steps will be somewhat different depending on whether you have direct access to a test server that has Git installed or whether you have file access via WinSCP or another file transfer program.

1. Open Git Bash on your computer.
2. Navigate into your Evergreen repository.
3. If the main branch isn't currently checked out, check it out: git checkout main
4. Make sure your local repository is current: git pull

1. Create and checkout a local testing branch: git checkout -b lp12345_branch_name
   • This branch does not have to have the same name as the branch you will be testing, but it makes it easier to keep track of.
2. Pull changes into the testing branch using the unique commit id: git cherry-pick 7ab7281f5
   • If you receive an error while cherry picking, you can stop it: git cherry-pick –abort
   • If the branch has multiple commits, you can cherry-pick them one at a time (oldest to newest) or you can cherry-pick a range of commits at once (oldest to newest): git cherry-pick 7ab7281f5^..8lgls9a34

Using WinSCP (or your other FTP-style program), transfer each of the changed files in the patch from your local repository to the related 'installed' locations on the server. (See https://wiki.evergreen-ils.org/doku.php?id=newdevs:landscape:tree

Note: Your test server does not need to have an SSH key if you are just pulling branches for testing. Instead, you can set up your connection to the remote working repo as read-only: git://git.evergreen-ils.org:working/Evergreen.git

1. Open Git Bash on the server as the root user.
2. Navigate into your Evergreen repository.
3. If the main branch isn't currently checked out, check it out: git checkout main
4. Make sure your local repository is current: git pull

1. Create and checkout a local testing branch: git checkout -b lp12345_branch_name
   • This branch does not have to have the same name as the branch you will be testing, but it makes it easier to keep track of.
2. Pull changes into the testing branch using the unique commit id: git cherry-pick 7ab7281f5
   • If you receive an error while cherry picking, you can stop it: git cherry-pick –abort

Copy each file to the 'installed' directory. For example:

cp Open-ILS/src/templates/header.tt2 /openils/var/templates/header.tt2

If you are only testing changes to template (tt2) files or basic javascript files, then just clearing the browser cache may be sufficient.

If you are testing changes to configuration files, Perl files, or javascript files, you may also need to restart various services (these instructions require command line access to the root user on the test server).

To restart OpenSRF (this restarts Evergreen):

su - opensrf -c "bash -i -c '/openils/bin/osrf_control --localhost --restart-all'"

To restart Autogen (this refreshes the org unit tree, incorporates field mapper changes, etc.):

su - opensrf -c /openils/bin/autogen.sh

To restart Apache and WebSockets (the underlying servers/protocols):

systemctl restart apache2 websocketd-osrf

If your test server is running the NGINX http/proxy server, you can also restart that:

systemctl restart nginx

If you are testing very large changes, or changes that modify the database, you may need to rebuild the Evergreen installation. This requires significant Linux knowledge to do, and instructions are located at: https://evergreen-ils.org/documentation/install/README_3_3.html

Test everything thoroughly to be sure it solves the problem that the developer wanted to solve. Be sure to test any other related pages/features to be sure that the new changes do not break any existing functionality.

If testing is not successful, update the launchpad bug report with details.

If testing is successful, acknowledge it by adding a sign-off branch.