Installing

Avocado is primarily written in Python, so a standard Python installation is possible and often preferable. You can also install from your Linux distribution repository, if available.

Note

Please note that this installs the Avocado core functionality. Many Avocado features are distributed as non-core plugins. Visit the Avocado Plugin section on the left menu.

Tip

If you are looking for Virtualization specific testing, also consider looking at Avocado-VT installation instructions after finishing the Avocado installation.

Installing from PyPI

The simplest installation method is through pip. On most POSIX systems with Python 3.9 (or later) and pip available, installation can be performed with a single command:

$ pip3 install --user avocado-framework

This will fetch the Avocado package (and possibly some of its dependencies) from the PyPI repository, and will attempt to install it in the user’s home directory (usually under ~/.local), which you might want to add to your PATH variable if not done already.

Tip

If you want to perform a system-wide installation, drop the --user switch.

If you want even more isolation, Avocado can also be installed in a Python virtual environment. with no additional steps besides creating and activating the “venv” itself:

$ python3 -m venv /path/to/new/virtual_environment
$ source /path/to/new/virtual_environment/bin/activate
$ pip3 install avocado-framework

Installing from packages

Fedora

Avocado is available as a standard Fedora package. Simply run:

$ dnf install python3-avocado

The exact version of Avocado is dependent on the Fedora version and its release constraints. If you’re looking to have the latest Avocado release, please use Avocado’s COPR repo, by running:

$ dnf copr enable @avocado/avocado-latest-release
$ dnf install python3-avocado

Enterprise Linux

The latest release of Avocado is available on the same COPR repo described previously. To install the latest Avocado release on Enterprise Linux 9, run:

$ dnf copr enable @avocado/avocado-latest-release
$ dnf install python3-avocado

Latest Development RPM Packages from COPR

Avocado provides a repository of continuously built packages from the GitHub repository’s master branch. These packages are currently available for some of the latest Enterprise Linux and Fedora versions, for a few different architectures.

If you’re interested in using the very latest development version of Avocado from RPM packages, you can do so by running:

$ dnf copr enable @avocado/avocado-latest
$ dnf install python3-avocado*

The following image shows the status of the Avocado packages building on COPR:

$https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/g/avocado/avocado-latest/package/python-avocado/status_image/last_build.png$

OpenSUSE

The OpenSUSE project provides packages for Avocado. Check the Virtualization:Tests project in OpenSUSE build service to get the packages from there.

Debian

DEB package support is available in the source tree (look at the contrib/packages/debian directory. No actual packages are provided by the Avocado project or the Debian repos.

Installing from source code

First make sure you have a basic set of packages installed. The following applies to Fedora based distributions, please adapt to your platform:

$ sudo dnf install -y python3 git gcc python3-pip

Then to install Avocado from the git repository run:

$ git clone git://github.com/avocado-framework/avocado.git
$ cd avocado
$ pip install . --user

To install an optional plugin run:

$ pip install optional_plugins/<plugin_name> --user

I.e. for the HTML plugin:

$ pip install optional_plugins/html --user

Check the directory optional_plugins for additional features you might be interested in.