Unit Testing ASP.Net MVC 5 Controllers using Rhino Mocks

Unit Testing ASP.Net MVC Controllers is not as straight-forward as you may thing, because as you get started, you face questions such as: how to create an HttpContext, an HttpContextBase, should you prefer mocking, and which mocking framework, etc.

After a day of googling and tinkering, I finally came up with a working solution using Rhino.Mocks and MvcContrib, both downloaded via nuget. To analyze Owin black magic, I used the source code repositories of Katana on Codeplex and symbolsource.

[TestClass()]
public class HomeIndexControllerTests
{
  [TestMethod()]
  public void HomeIndexTest()
  {

The authentication routine uses async calls, such as FindByNameAsync(). I tried to declare the test method as public async Task, but after starting the test, the IDE claimed it’s busy, but did not execute the test.

Without Task.Run(), the async method would fail throwing an AggregateException.

I found the work-around to encapsulate the whole test inside a Task.Run():

    Task.Run(() =>
    {
      var builder = new TestControllerBuilder();

First, we mock the ApplicationUserManager

      var us = MockRepository.GenerateStub<IUserStore<AppUser>>();
      var aum = MockRepository.GenerateStub<ApplicationUserManager>(us);

My class for storing users in the user database is called AppUser. The variable appuser is set to null for unauthenticated requests, and contains a valid object if authenticated:

      AppUser appuser = null;
      //appuser = new AppUser { .... values .... };  // uncomment for authenticated request

These stubs return the defined user object:

      us.Stub(u => u.FindByNameAsync(""))
        .IgnoreArguments()
        .Return(Task.FromResult(appuser));
      aum.Stub(m => m.FindByNameAsync((ClaimsIdentity)null, ""))
        .IgnoreArguments()
        .Return(Task.FromResult(appuser));

Create the Owin context and register the user manager:

      var owin = new OwinContext();
      owin.Set(aum);

Use the builder to create the controller under test:

      var controller = builder.CreateController<C.Home.IndexController>();

To test unauthenticated requests, we check whether the class or the method have an [Authorize] attribute

      if (appuser == null)
      {
        var type = controller.GetType();
        var attributes = type.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(AuthorizeAttribute), true);
        var methodInfo = type.GetMethod("Execute" 
          /*, new Type[] { ....parameter types.... } */
        );
        var methodAttributes = methodInfo.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(AuthorizeAttribute), true);
        Assert.IsFalse(attributes.Any() || methodAttributes.Any(), "Unauthorized request not allowed");
      }

Next, we wire up the HttpContext and Owin, and set the request’s cookies:

      var context = controller.HttpContext; 
      // the context is already mocked, so we can stub() it

      var dict = new Dictionary<object, object>();
      dict.Add("owin.Environment", owin.Environment);
      context.Stub(c => c.Items).Return(dict);
      var request = controller.Request;
      request.Stub(r => r.Cookies).Return(new HttpCookieCollection());

Next, we create a principal from the user object (see here for setting the name claim)

      var user = new GenericPrincipal(
        new ClaimsIdentity(
          new Claim[] { 
            new Claim(ClaimTypes.Name, appuser == null ? "" : appuser.UserName) }),
        new string[0]);
      context.User = user;

Then we create a fake HttpContext which matches the mocked HttpContextBase object created above:

      HttpContext.Current = new HttpContext(
        new HttpRequest("", "http://tempuri.org", ""),
        new HttpResponse(new StringWriter())
      );
      HttpContext.Current.Items["owin.Environment"] = owin.Environment;

      if (appuser != null)
        HttpContext.Current.User = user;

We are now ready to execute the controller method

      builder.InitializeController(controller);
      var result = controller.Execute();

And check the results: if the request is successful, the result is typically a ViewResult.

      Assert.IsInstanceOfType(result, typeof(RedirectToRouteResult));
      Assert.IsInstanceOfType(result, typeof(ViewResult));

We can now test the result values, and end the Task definition:

    }).GetAwaiter().GetResult();
  }
}