validate_bes_xml

A python module for validating BigFix XML files and content.

Validates .bes and .ojo files against the official BigFix XML schemas (bundled with the module) and reports what is wrong and where when a file does not validate. Useful locally and as a CI check for repositories of BigFix content.

How it works

For each XML file, the validator:

1. Parses the file and reports XML syntax errors, if any.
2. Determines which schema to use, in this order:
   • .ojo in the file name -> BESOJO.xsd
   • .BESDomain in the file name (any case) -> BESDomain.xsd
   • an attribute on the root tag referencing an .xsd file (e.g. xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="BES.xsd")
   • the name of the root tag itself (e.g. <BES> -> BES.xsd)
3. Validates the file against that schema and prints the line number and reason for every schema violation found.

Bundled schemas:

• BES.xsd - Fixlets, Tasks, Analyses, Baselines, Computer Groups, etc.
• BESAPI.xsd - BigFix REST API XML
• BESOJO.xsd - Wizards / Dashboards (.ojo files)
• BESDomain.xsd - Domain content

Additional .xsd files placed in the current working directory (or a schemas subfolder of it) are picked up automatically.

Requirements

• Python 3
• lxml

Installation

pip install validate-bes-xml

Or from a clone of this repository:

pip install .

Usage

Command line

Validate all .bes and .ojo files in the current directory and its subfolders (excluding .git):

python -m validate_bes_xml

The exit code is the number of files that failed validation, so 0 means everything validated. This makes it easy to use as a CI check:

# example GitHub Actions step
- name: Validate BES XML
  run: |
    pip install validate-bes-xml
    python -m validate_bes_xml

Example output for an invalid file:

Schema Validation Error in: ./example.bes
  validated against schema: .../validate_bes_xml/schemas/BES.xsd
  Line 2: Element 'BES': Missing child element(s). Expected is one of ( Fixlet, Task, Analysis, SingleAction, SourcedFixletAction, MultipleActionGroup, Baseline, ComputerGroup, CustomSite, ActionSite ).
2 errors found in 71 xml files

Python

import validate_bes_xml

# validate a single file, returns True or False:
validate_bes_xml.validate_xml("example.bes")

# validate all .bes and .ojo files in a folder tree,
# returns the number of files that failed validation:
validate_bes_xml.validate_all_files("path/to/content")

# customize which file extensions are scanned:
validate_bes_xml.validate_all_files(".", file_extensions=(".bes",))

To validate XML that is not in a file on disk, or to get the errors back instead of printed, use validate_bes(). It never prints, and returns a ValidationResult that is truthy when valid:

import validate_bes_xml

result = validate_bes_xml.validate_bes(raw_bytes, filename="example.bes")
if not result:
    print("failed against", result.schema)
    for line, message in result.errors:
        print(f"Line {line}: {message}")

validate_bes() accepts:

• a file path, as a str or pathlib.Path
• XML text, as a str that starts with < (a leading BOM is ignored)
• bytes, bytearray, or memoryview (the XML encoding declaration is used)
• a binary or text file-like object
• a parsed lxml.etree ElementTree or Element

Use xml= or path= instead of the first argument to skip guessing whether a str is XML text or a path. Pass filename= so in-memory XML gets the same .ojo / .BESDomain schema rules as a file. It defaults to the path, or to the .name of an open file.

ValidationResult fields:

• valid: True or False
• schema: path of the schema that was used, or None when the XML did not parse or no bundled schema matched
• errors: list of (line, message) tuples; line is None when unknown

Each .xsd is compiled once per process and reused.

validate_xml(path, verbose=False) validates a file without printing.

Development

Clone the repository, then install the requirements:

pip install -r requirements.txt
pip install pytest

Run the tests from the root of the repository:

pytest -v

The test examples live in tests/examples: files in good must validate, files in bad must not.

Related

• jgstew/bigfix_prefetch
• BigFix Developer documentation

License

MIT