diff -r 058bb3dc685f -r 0b59724cb3f2 cubicweb/devtools/realdbtest.py
--- /dev/null	Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000
+++ b/cubicweb/devtools/realdbtest.py	Sat Jan 16 13:48:51 2016 +0100
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+# copyright 2003-2010 LOGILAB S.A. (Paris, FRANCE), all rights reserved.
+# contact http://www.logilab.fr/ -- mailto:contact@logilab.fr
+#
+# This file is part of CubicWeb.
+#
+# CubicWeb is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the
+# terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free
+# Software Foundation, either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option)
+# any later version.
+#
+# CubicWeb is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
+# ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS
+# FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more
+# details.
+#
+# You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along
+# with CubicWeb.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
+from cubicweb import toolsutils
+from cubicweb.devtools import DEFAULT_SOURCES, BaseApptestConfiguration
+
+class RealDatabaseConfiguration(BaseApptestConfiguration):
+    init_repository = False
+    sourcesdef =  DEFAULT_SOURCES.copy()
+
+    def sources(self):
+        """
+        By default, we run tests with the sqlite DB backend.
+        One may use its own configuration by just creating a
+        'sources' file in the test directory from wich tests are
+        launched.
+        """
+        self._sources = self.sourcesdef
+        return self._sources
+
+
+def buildconfig(dbuser, dbpassword, dbname, adminuser, adminpassword, dbhost=None):
+    """convenience function that builds a real-db configuration class"""
+    sourcesdef =  {'system': {'adapter' : 'native',
+                              'db-encoding' : 'UTF-8', #'ISO-8859-1',
+                              'db-user' : dbuser,
+                              'db-password' : dbpassword,
+                              'db-name' : dbname,
+                              'db-driver' : 'postgres',
+                              'db-host' : dbhost,
+                              },
+                   'admin' : {'login': adminuser,
+                              'password': adminpassword,
+                              },
+                   }
+    return type('MyRealDBConfig', (RealDatabaseConfiguration,),
+                {'sourcesdef': sourcesdef})
+
+
+def loadconfig(filename):
+    """convenience function that builds a real-db configuration class
+    from a file
+    """
+    return type('MyRealDBConfig', (RealDatabaseConfiguration,),
+                {'sourcesdef': toolsutils.read_config(filename)})