Run CAT on Linux

Two CAT tools run on Linux: CAT CLI, a single executable that needs nothing installed first, and the PowerShell module under PowerShell 7. Both run the same tests with the same engine.

Two of the four CAT tools run on Linux. CAT CLI is a single self-contained executable — nothing has to be installed first, which makes it the tool for a container or a locked-down machine. The PowerShell module needs PowerShell 7.6 or later and gives you test results as PowerShell objects. The Python module is Windows-only; CAT Studio is a Windows application.

Neither tool has, on Linux, the providers built on Windows components (Dax@*, PowerBI@*, CsvOleDB@1, ExcelOleDB@1), and the Excel output needs libgdiplus installed. Databases, CSV and YAML files, the JSON/YAML/JUnit/TRX and database outputs — all there.

Install CAT CLI #

Download the archive for your architecture (uname -m prints x86_64 for x64, aarch64 for arm64), check its hash, unpack it and link it onto PATH. Replace <version> with the current version from the Releases page; the lines are chained with &&, so a failed hash check stops the sequence before anything is unpacked:

curl -fLO https://docs.justcat.it/releases/cat-cli-<version>-linux-x64.tar.gz && \
curl -fLO https://docs.justcat.it/releases/cat-cli-<version>-linux-x64.tar.gz.sha256 && \
sha256sum -c cat-cli-<version>-linux-x64.tar.gz.sha256 && \
sudo rm -rf /opt/catcli && \
sudo mkdir -p /opt/catcli && \
sudo tar -xzf cat-cli-<version>-linux-x64.tar.gz -C /opt/catcli && \
sudo ln -sfn /opt/catcli/catcli /usr/local/bin/catcli

Homebrew works on Linux too: brew install justcatit/cat/catcli.

Your distribution needs curl and ICU installed — desktop distributions have both, a minimal container image does not; Installation has the install command for each distribution. Then:

catcli --version
cd /path/to/your/project
catcli run

See CAT CLI installation for updating, removing and the no-sudo variant, and CAT CLI introduction for the verbs.

Install PowerShell 7 #

Microsoft has a nice article with step-by-step instructions to install PowerShell 7 on Ubuntu. At the moment Focal, Jammy and Noble are supported:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/install/install-ubuntu?view=powershell-7.6

Install the CAT PowerShell module #

First, you need to run PowerShell 7:

pwsh

PowerShell prints its version. Notice it also changes the prompt, now you are “in PowerShell”, not “in bash”. The prompt now starts with “PS” letters:

Your terminal now expects PowerShell commands. You can easily install CAT with a single line, the same way as on Windows:

Install-Module CAT -AcceptLicense -Force -AllowClobber -Scope CurrentUser

Use the PowerShell module #

Now you can use any commands from CAT PowerShell module.

Don’t forget you need to run Import-Module CAT everytime before you use CAT module. Example:

For non-interactive way, you can save your commands into a .ps1 script and run it like this:

pwsh ./run-cat-tests.ps1

Related #

• CAT in cron — scheduling CAT on Linux.
• CAT CLI installation — the reference, including arm64, updating and removing.
• PowerShell module — the reference, including the Linux file locations.