Postman API Automation Testing Tutorial Advance Usage common command line options and file upload

4 min readNov 29, 2023

Advanced Usage

This section will introduce some advanced features of Postman and Newman, including common command-line options, file upload scenarios, and SSL certificate configurations.

File Upload Scenarios

When performing interface automation with Postman and Newman, file uploads can be achieved using the form-data method.

The file must exist in the current working directory, and the “src” attribute in the request must also include the filename.

In this collection, the file “demo.txt” should be present in the current working directory.

{
    "info": {
        "name": "file-upload"
    },
    "item": [
        {
            "request": {
                "url": "https://postman-echo.com/post",
                "method": "POST",
                "body": {
                    "mode": "formdata",
                    "formdata": [
                        {
                            "key": "file",
                            "type": "file",
                            "enabled": true,
                            "src": "demo.txt"
                        }
                    ]
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

Note: Adjust the path for file uploads to ensure that the file exists in the project’s root directory or use an absolute path.

Common Newman Command-Line Options

Newman is a command-line tool used to run Postman collections. It provides many options that can be used when running collections.

Here are some common Newman command-line options along with examples:

Basic Commands

newman run <collection>： Used to run a Postman collection.

newman run collection.json

-e, --environment <environment>： Specify an environment file.

newman run collection.json -e environment.json

-g, --globals <globals>： Specify a global variables file.

newman run collection.json -g globals.json

-d, --iteration-data <data>： Specify a data file for data-driven testing.

newman run collection.json -d data-file.csv

Output and Reporting

-r, --reporters <reporters>： Specify reporters to generate multiple reports, such as cli, json, html, etc.

newman run collection.json -r cli,json

--reporter-json-export <file>： Export test results as a JSON file.

newman run collection.json --reporters json --reporter-json-export output.json

--reporter-html-export <file>： Export test results as an HTML file.

newman run collection.json --reporters html --reporter-html-export output.html

--reporter-html-template <file>： Use a custom HTML template to generate HTML reports.

newman run collection.json --reporters html --reporter-html-template custom-template.hbs

Other Options

-h, --help： Display help information, listing all command-line options.

newman run --help

-v, --version： Display Newman version information.

newman --version

-x, --suppress-exit-code： Do not return a non-zero exit code on failure.

newman run collection.json -x

--delay-request <ms>： Set a delay between requests to simulate real-world scenarios.

newman run collection.json --delay-request 1000

--timeout <ms>： Set the timeout for requests.

newman run collection.json --timeout 5000

--no-color： Disable colored output in the console.

newman run collection.json --no-color

--bail： Stop running on the first failed test.

newman run collection.json --bail

These are just some common Newman command-line options. You can run newman run --help to see all available options and their descriptions. Depending on your testing needs, you may need to adjust and combine these options.

SSL Certificate Configuration

Client certificates are an alternative to traditional authentication mechanisms. They allow users to send authenticated requests to servers using public certificates and optional private keys to verify certificate ownership. In some cases, the private key may also be protected by a secret passphrase, providing an additional layer of authentication security.

Newman supports SSL client certificates through the following CLI options:

Using a Single SSL Client Certificate

Add the following options directly after the newman command based on your certificate situation.

--ssl-client-cert Followed by the path to the public client certificate file.
--ssl-client-key Followed by the path to the client private key (optional).
--ssl-client-passphrase Followed by the secret passphrase used to protect the private client key (optional).

Using Multiple SSL Client Certificates

Applicable when you need to support multiple certificates for each run.

--ssl-client-cert-list Path to the SSL client certificate list configuration file (in JSON format).

Reference example/ssl-client-cert-list.json.

[
    {
        "name": "domain1",
        "matches": ["https://test.domain1.com/*", "https://www.domain1/*"],
        "key": {"src": "./client.domain1.key"},
        "cert": {"src": "./client.domain1.crt"},
        "passphrase": "changeme"
    },
    {
        "name": "domain2",
        "matches": ["https://domain2.com/*"],
        "key": {"src": "./client.domain2.key"},
        "cert": {"src": "./client.domain2.crt"},
        "passphrase": "changeme"
    }
]

Additionally, this JSON configuration is suitable for different certificates in different environments based on matches for different URLs and hostnames.

Note: This option allows setting different SSL client certificates based on the URL or hostname. This option takes precedence over –ssl-client-cert, –ssl-client-key, and –ssl-client-passphrase options. If there are no matching URLs in the list, these options will be used as fallback.

Trusted CA Certificates

Applicable when you need to trust custom CA certificates.

If you don’t want to use the –insecure option, you can provide additional trusted CA certificates like this:

--ssl-extra-ca-certs Followed by a list of file paths to one or more PEM format trusted CA certificates.

Reference

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