diff --git a/tests/lib/all.sh b/tests/lib/all.sh
index 0fa22f6c..ba246f89 100644
--- a/tests/lib/all.sh
+++ b/tests/lib/all.sh
@@ -16,4 +16,5 @@
 
 . "$1/populate.sh"     || exit 7
 . "$1/installed-state.sh" || exit 8
+. "$1/totp.sh"         || exit 9
 
diff --git a/tests/lib/totp.sh b/tests/lib/totp.sh
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..4e419597
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/lib/totp.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+#
+# requires:
+#    mailinabox's python installed with pyotp module at
+#    /usr/local/lib/mailinabox/env
+#
+
+totp_current_token() {
+    # given a secret, get the current token
+    # token written to stdout
+    # error message to stderr
+    # return 0 if successful
+    # non-zero if an error occured
+    local secret="$1"
+    /usr/local/lib/mailinabox/env/bin/python -c "import pyotp; totp=pyotp.TOTP(r'$secret'); print(totp.now());"
+    if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
+        return 1
+    else
+        return 0
+    fi
+}
+
diff --git a/tests/suites/_mgmt-functions.sh b/tests/suites/_mgmt-functions.sh
index 466275cf..a384481e 100644
--- a/tests/suites/_mgmt-functions.sh
+++ b/tests/suites/_mgmt-functions.sh
@@ -195,9 +195,9 @@ mgmt_get_totp_token() {
 	local count=0
 	
 	while [ -z "$TOTP_TOKEN" -a $count -lt 10 ]; do
-		TOTP_TOKEN="$(/usr/local/lib/mailinabox/env/bin/python -c "import pyotp; totp=pyotp.TOTP(r'$secret'); print(totp.now());" 2>>"$TEST_OF")"
+		TOTP_TOKEN="$(totp_current_token "$secret" 2>>"$TEST_OF")"
 		if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
-			record "Failed: Could not generate a TOTP token !"
+			record "Failed: Could not get the TOTP token !"
 			return 1
 		fi