Tunnel

1. Overview

Zoho QEngine provides a secure and encapsulated pathway called Tunnel, which enables connections between your local server and Zoho Cloud. For example, remote browsers running in Zoho Cloud can effectively resolve localhost URLs through tunnels, allowing testers to interact with locally-hosted websites that are behind a corporate firewall.

Let's assume you're a part of a software development team working on a web application destined for public release. To thoroughly test the application's functionality, security, and performance, you need to replicate real-world scenarios without exposing their preproduction environment to potential threats. By employing tunnels, you can establish isolated testing environments, often referred to as development servers, where they can conduct comprehensive testing without compromising the integrity of their live systems. These tunnels securely route traffic from testers and quality assurance teams to connect from their local environments to the cloud-based test servers. This ensures that any issues or vulnerabilities discovered during testing can be addressed before the application goes live, safeguarding the user experience and data security.

To use tunnels for your testing needs, you must first register a tunnel in Zoho QEngine, which serves as the bridge between your local network and the cloud. Once registered, users can associate the tunnel with multiple projects, making it easier to perform testing within their private network through a single secure connection.

1.1. Understanding Different Types of Network Traffic

Configuring the tunnel for your private domains or websites assists in routing traffic from the testing environment to the target application, thereby enabling smooth testing and interaction. When you set up a tunnel, you're essentially creating a secure and controlled connection between your testing environment and the application under test. This traffic includes requests for web pages, API calls, and other interactions that occur during the testing process.

This can be achieved using different network traffic types: All Domains, Unresolved Domains, and Whitelisted Domains.

All Domains: Allows all domains to be fetched from Zoho Cloud to the user's local private network through the tunnel.

Unresolved Domains: Allows the tunnel to try and resolve the domain's IP using Public DNS. If it is resolved, then the domain will be loaded using Zoho Cloud. Else, it will be routed through the tunnel.

For example, your development and testing teams often work with various domain names (e.g., www.mytestapp.dev) for creating and testing new applications. These custom domain names may not exist in the public DNS and need not be resolved externally. When Unresolved Domain network traffic type is chosen, tunnel recognizes that it's not found in the public DNS and routes it through the secure tunnel to your local network, ensuring seamless and private access. For other standard domains that exist in the public DNS, tunnel optimally loads them through the Zoho Cloud , enhancing overall performance.

Whitelisted Domains: Users can specify a list of domains or websites that are allowed to pass through the tunnel. All the other domains or websites will be routed to Zoho Cloud, optimizing performance and efficiency.

Note: You can specify the blocklisted domains you want to restrict during testing, and it's important to note that these domains will be blocked regardless of the network traffic type you've selected.

2. Navigation to tunnels page

You can access the tunnels page from the following two places:

From the setup page

Navigate to the Setup page by clicking the {} icon in the top-right corner of the Home page.
From the test execution drop-down, click on Tunnels.

From within a project

Click on the required project in the Home page.

Navigate to Settings > Tunnels.

3. Configure Tunnels

3.1. Download and Install Tunnel Application

To configure tunnel for your network, you need to first download and install the tunnel application. Follow the steps as in the Download and Install Tunnel Application page.

3.2. Register and Setup Tunnel

Once the tunnel is installed, it must remain in its running state to function properly. It continuously runs in the background, ensuring it's prepared to execute tests whenever required. After installation, you’ll need to register the tunnel with Zoho QEngine, which is a one-time setup. However, you can link the tunnel to additional projects at any point, allowing you the flexibility to manage and update your private testing environments as necessary.

Step 1: Tunnel Window

Click the Zoho QEngine { } icon from the system tray and select Register Tunnel from the drop-down. This will take you to the registration page for Zoho QEngine.
Click Generate Code.

Copy the generated code.

Step 2: In Zoho QEngine

Navigate to the Setup page in Zoho QEngine and select Tunnels from the Test Execution dropdown. On the Tunnels page, click Register Tunnel.
Provide a Name for your tunnel, associate the required projects, and paste the registration code you copied. Click Register.

Once the tunnel is registered, you can access it from the listing page to view its configuration details.

This listing displays details like the tunnel's name, the owner who registered the tunnel, network traffic configurations, the tunnel's version, and the tunnel's status: Connected, Disconnected, or Yet to Connect.

Note: If your tunnel is in the Yet to Connect state, it requires your attention, as the registration process may not have completed successfully. This could be due to several reasons:

The code entered may be incorrect. In this case, try regenerating a new code.
The tunnel may have been down during the registration process. Wait for some time and try again.
There could be a network or server issue. Ensure your network connection is stable.

To resolve the Yet to Connect state, click Update, which will open a pop-up window to retry the registration process. Enter the new code in the pop-up and click Update to complete the registration. If the issue persists, contact support at support@zohoqengine.com.

Alternatively, you can register your tunnel either from within a specific project or while customizing a test case run in that project.

From the Select Tunnel field, click +Register Tunnel.
Provide a name to the tunnel and paste the registration code you copied. Click Register.

Note: You can register a maximum of 20 tunnels.

Only after successfully registering the tunnel can you configure the essential network traffic settings. By default, all domains will be allowed through the tunnel until you specify a particular network traffic type. To change this configuration, you need to edit the network traffic type. Learn more

4. Link Projects with Registered Tunnels

You can associate your projects with any registered tunnels using the following steps:

From Projects, navigate to Settings and select Tunnels.
Click Add Tunnel.
Select the tunnel you want to add and click Save.

5. Manage Tunnels

The Tunnels page allows you to view, edit, and remove registered tunnels. You can perform these actions from the Tunnels page within Setup, as well as from individual Projects.

5.1. View Tunnels

To view the list of registered tunnels, follow the steps below:

Click on the required tunnel to view its configuration details.
View the respective Tunnel Information and Network Traffic configuration details.

Tunnel Information - This includes comprehensive tunnel information, including tunnel name, machine's OS Type, OS version, IP address, and RAM details.
Network Traffic - This provides details of the network traffic configurations for the respective tunnel. Learn more

5.2. Edit Tunnel

You can edit the tunnel configuration any time. Select the tunnel you wish to make changes to view the tunnel details page. Edit fields such as Tunnel Name and Network Traffic Type. In addition to these fields, details like OS Type, OS Version, IP, and RAM are automatically captured upon registering. By default, All Domain will be selected as the Network Traffic Type.

Click Edit to make the required changes.

The pop up allows you to change the Tunnel Name and the Network Traffic type. The network traffic types include: All, Unresolved, and Whitelisted. According to the type selected, the domains or websites are channeled through the tunnel. Learn more.
You can specify the domains to be blocked in the Block List field. These domains will be blocked irrespective of the network traffic type.
Click Update to confirm the changes.

Note: The network traffic type configured are common to the tunnel and not specific to individual projects. Learn more how to configure network traffic type

5.3. Delete Tunnel

To revoke the registration of the tunnel with associated projects, follow the steps below:

Inside the listing page of the tunnel, hover on the required tunnel and click the delete icon.

Note: If any of the tunnels is used in test plans, they'll have to be removed from those test plans before they can be deleted.

6. Related Links

Download and Install Tunnel Application

Live Preview

Test Plans

7. What's Next?

Next Steps

Previous Steps

Next Steps

Now that you've seen how to configure and set up the tunnel, you can configure them inside run for your test cases. Execute the test cases on Zoho Cloud to achieve smooth and uninterrupted testing.

Previous Steps

Before registering your tunnel with the desired projects, ensure the tunnel is installed and running. Learn more