diff --git a/spec/lib/popen_spec.rb b/spec/lib/popen_spec.rb
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..f5b3f94750cbc4b5b9bff79ef00acb85a50ea7b7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/spec/lib/popen_spec.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,29 @@
+require 'spec_helper'
+
+describe 'Gitlab::Popen', no_db: true do
+  let (:path) { Rails.root.join('tmp').to_s }
+
+  before do
+    @klass = Class.new(Object)
+    @klass.send(:include, Gitlab::Popen)
+  end
+
+  context 'zero status' do
+    before do
+      @output, @status = @klass.new.popen('ls', path)
+    end
+
+    it { @status.should be_zero }
+    it { @output.should include('pids') }
+  end
+
+  context 'non-zero status' do
+    before do
+      @output, @status = @klass.new.popen('cat NOTHING', path)
+    end
+
+    it { @status.should == 1 }
+    it { @output.should include('No such file or directory') }
+  end
+end
+
diff --git a/spec/support/db_cleaner.rb b/spec/support/db_cleaner.rb
index f1e072aa15f7f71974cb4633cf9fc1da4c42e39d..8c9c74f14bd1d0277dd61cc0fb58897a0886f558 100644
--- a/spec/support/db_cleaner.rb
+++ b/spec/support/db_cleaner.rb
@@ -9,10 +9,14 @@ RSpec.configure do |config|
       DatabaseCleaner.strategy = :transaction
     end
 
-    DatabaseCleaner.start
+    unless example.metadata[:no_db]
+      DatabaseCleaner.start
+    end
   end
 
   config.after do
-    DatabaseCleaner.clean
+    unless example.metadata[:no_db]
+      DatabaseCleaner.clean
+    end
   end
 end