Smoke testing
Smoke testing also known as build verification testing is done to determine whether the most crucial functions of a program work, without bothering about the finer details. Smoke testing is a "shallow and wide" approach to the application, run to ascertain if the build is stable and it can be considered for further testing.
The primary purpose of a smoke test is to verify that the system's basic functions/features do what they are intended to do after the software system build is installed in the system test environment. A secondary purpose of the smoke test, one that helps to achieve its primary goal, is to set up and configure environment variables and data. An automated build smoke test should accomplish both of these activities. [Source]
Two useful resources on Smoke Testing:
Sanity and Smoke Testing, Typical characteristics of Smoke Testing, Advantages of Smoke Testing.
Sanity & Smoke Testing
How to conduct smoke and sanity tests?
Conducting Smoke & Sanity Tests
Also See:
Sanity Testing