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What is "black box" testing and how it is different from ordinary testing? For example black box tests prior to deploying to production.

Note: "black box" testing is a common requirement when applying for devops roles (not necessary a tester thing).

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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it belongs to the this question belongs in the Software Quality Assurance & Testing SE, not here
    – Rsf
    Commented Mar 1, 2017 at 9:13
  • @Rsf or to security.stackexchange.com White-box vs. Black-box
    – Tensibai
    Commented Mar 1, 2017 at 11:06
  • Voting to close this, as it is better suited for other SE sites.
    – Evgeny Zislis
    Commented Mar 1, 2017 at 11:19
  • Yes, it can fall under different categories. I think the best approach would be to send general SQA questions to SQA, and questions where domain knowledge is needed to the relevant SE.
    – Rsf
    Commented Mar 1, 2017 at 11:22

2 Answers 2

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I will make my answer, based on the knowledge for security testing, but IMHO this can be generalized.

  • Black box testing - when the tester know nothing about the system, components, liaisons, connections, etc. This can be helpful more like UI/UX testing, functional testing. Example: you do not work for Microsoft and also you do not have the source code and need to test MS Office

  • Gray box testing - when the tester have some knowledge about how the system work, some information about internals.

  • White box testing - when the tester have or can get all the information about internals, connections, principles of work of the tested product. Example: testing Linux kernel.

For reference:

Black box testing (Wikipedia)

White box testing (Wikipedia)

Gray box testing (Wikipedia)

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As answered by Romeo Ninov in Black Box testing, tester is unaware about the application internal structure.

This method is named so because the software program, in the eyes of the tester, is like a black box; inside which one cannot see. This method attempts to find errors in the following categories:

  • Incorrect or missing functions
  • Interface errors
  • Errors in data structures or external database access
  • Behavior or performance errors
  • Initialization and termination errors

Refrence:

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