sudhir kumar wrote:
On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 11:45 PM, Ryan Harper <ryanh@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
* Uri Lublin <uril@xxxxxxxxxx> [2009-03-04 02:59]:
- it seems like the definition and rules ought to be separate from the
last section which defines which tests to run (the fc8_quick area), so
adding something as simple as include support to kvm_config.py would
be sufficient to support a common definition file but different
testing rules.
An include support is one way to do it. We thought of a different way,
which is
to add rules from the control file. So the control file would pick the
test-list
it wants to run. Your suggestion is simpler but you need both a config file
and
a control file to change the test-list. We need to change only the control
file.
OK, well, I viewed almost all of the test config file as static. The
rules about guests, features, config variants, can change over time, but
not that often which is what I was wanting an include of that mostly
static data and then something else that picked which guests and tests
to run. It does make sense for the control file to pick the set of
tests, so I think we're in agreement, though I do think adding include
support is still a good idea, but much lower on the priority list.
- kvm_runtest_2 as mentioned doesn't mess with your host networking and
relies on -net user and redir, would be good to plumb through -net tap
support that can be configured instead of always using -net user
We want to add -net tap support, as that is what users usually use.
kvm_runtest does exactly that (a part of kvm_host.cfg). The drawbacks of
tap are
(among others):
- One must run tests as root, or play with sudo/chmod (True for /dev/kvm,
but
simpler)
- You have to a have a dhcpd around. kvm_runtest by default runs a local
dhcpd
to serve kvm guests (part of setup/cleanup tests).
- A bit more difficult to configure.
I don't want to have the test *setup* tap and all of the infrastructure
like dhcp, or dnsmasq... I just want to be able to configure whether a
guest is launched with -net tap or -net user. kvm_runtest_2 punts on
building and install kvm as well as the networking, which is a great
idea, I just want to be flexible enough to run kvm_runtest_2 with -net
tap as well as -net user.
I noticed the references to the setup isos for windows that presumbly
install cygwin telnetd/sshd, are those available? if the isos
themselves aren't, if the build instructions are, that would be very
useful.
You are right. We do have an installation iso images for telnetd/sshd.
I did not want to commit iso images. Also, I am not sure about licensing,
and I prefer that we would generate them on the user machine. We'll add the
build instructions to the wiki.
Agreed. Sounds like a plan.
- guest install wizard using md5sum region matching ... ouch. This is
quite fickle. I've seen different kvms generate different md5sum for
the same region a couple of times. I know distributing screenshots of
certain OSes is a grey area, but it would be nice to plumb through
screenshot comparison and make that configurable. FWIW, I'll probably
look at pulling the screenshot comparison bits from kvmtest and getting
that integrated in kvm_runtest_2.
Creating a step file is not as easy as it seems, exactly for that reason.
I agree here 100% as per my experience.
One has to pick a part of the screenshot that only available when input is
expected and that would be consistent. We were thinking of replacing the
md5sum with a tiny compressed image of the part of the image that was
picked.
It isn't just that step file creation isn't easy is that even with a
good stepfile with smart region boxes, md5sum can *still* fail because
KVM renders one pixel in the region differently than the system where the
original was created; this creates false positives failures.
I also have faced this issue. Even on the same system the step file
may fail. I saw few(though not frequent) situations where the same
md5sum passed in one time and failed in the other attempt.
Maybe we can do some type of graphic processing to the original bitmap
to reduce
its quality drastically, then do the md5sum. It won't be 100% process
but can deal with
most problems. Anyway I don't think we run into these issues here.
As a rule of the thumb I like to first use kickstart files instead of
step maker files
when possible. It will take the timing issue out of the equation. It is
very important
for running the same test over plain qemu and kvm. Windows also has its
version
of it (answer files) so even the 'gui' OS can be used with it.
We had two other implementation for guest-wizard, one which only compares
two/three consecutive screendumps (problems with e.g. clock ticking), and
Right, I like the idea of the region selection in stepmaker, it lets us
avoid areas which have VM specific info, like the device path or clock.
I'd like to keep the current stepmaker and region code, what I'd like to
see instead of just md5sum compare of the cropped region, to be able to
plug in different comparisons. If a user does have screens from
stepmaker available, guest_wizard could attempt to do screen compare
like we do in kvmtests with match percentages. If no screens are
available, fallback on md5 or some other comparison algorithm.
That sounds better. Yet none of my step files worked in one go. I
remember running my test and stepmaker parallelly and continue taking
screenshots untill one passes and putting that md5sum in the step
file. So at the end I was fully meshed up with respect to the cropped
images and I had no idea which cropped image corresponded to which
md5sum.
Though the RHEL5.3 step files that I generated in the text mode
installation were quite strong.
one similar to kvmtest. The kvmtest way is to let the user create his/her
own screendumps to be used later. I did not want to add so many screendumps
images to the repository. Step-Maker keeps the images it uses, so we can
compare them upon failure. Step-Editor lets the user to change a single
barrier_2 step (or more) by looking at the original image and picking a
different area.
Agreed, I don't want to commit screens to the repo either, I just want
to be able to use screens if a user has them available.
I have two questions with respect to stepfiles.
1. The timeouts: Timeouts may fall short if a step file generated on a
high end machine is to be used on a very low config machine or
installing N virtual machines (say N ~ 50,100 etc) in parallel.
2. If there are changes in KVM display in future the md5sum will fail.
So are we prepared for that?
- a lot of the ssh and scp work to copy autotest client into a guest
is already handled by autoserv
That is true, but we want to be able to run it as client test too. That way
a user does not have to install the server to run kvm tests on his/her
machine.
While true, we should try to use the existing server code for autotest
install.
- vm.py has a lot of infrastructure that should be integrated into
autotest/server/kvm.py or possibly client-side common code to support
the next comment
In the long term, there should be a client-server shared directory that
deals with kvm guests (letting the host-client be the server for kvm-guests
clients)
I believe client/common_lib is imported into server-side as common code,
so moving kvm infrastructure bits there will allow server-side and any
other client test to manipulate VM/KVM objects.
- kvm_tests.py defines new tests as functions, each of these tests
should be a separate client tests which sounds like a pain, but
should allow for easier test composition and hopefully make it easier
to add new tests that look like any other client side test with just
the implementation.py and control file
- this model moves toward eliminating kvm_runtest_2 and having a
server-side generate a set of tests to run and spawning those on a
target system.
I am not sure that I follow. Why implementing a test as a function is a
pain ?
Test as a function of course isn't a pain. What I meant was that if
I've already have to guests and I just want to do a migration test, it
would be nice to just be able to:
% cd client/tests/kvm/migration
% $AUTOTEST_BIN ./control
I'd like to move away from tests eval-ing and exec-ing other tests; it
just feels a little hacky and stands out versus other autotest client
tests.
We can probably table the discussion until we push patches at autotest
and see what that community thinks of kvm_runtest_2 at that time.
The plan is to keep kvm_runtest_2 in the client side, but move the
configuration file + parser to the server (if one wants to dispatch test
from the server). The server can dispatch the client test (using
kvm_runtest_2 "test" + dictionary + tag). We have dependencies and we can
spread unrelated kvm tests among similar hosts (e.g install guest OS and
run tests for Fedora-10 64 bit on one machine, and install guest OS and run
tests for Windows-XP 32 bit on another).
Yeah, that sounds reasonable.
We may have to add hosts into the configuration file, or add it while
running (from the control file ?). We sure do not want to go back to the
way kvm_runtest works (playing with symbolic links so that autotest would
find and run the test), and we do not want too many kvm_test_NAME
directories under client/tests/ .
Agree with no symbolic links. If we move common kvm utils and objects
to client/common_lib that avoids any of that hackery.
On the dir structure, I agree we don't have to pollute client/tests with
a ton of kvm_* tests. I'll look around upstream autotest and see if
there is an other client side tests to use an example.
I do still like the idea of having a client-side test that can just
run on a developer/user's system to produce results without having to
configure all of the autotest server-side bits.
Me too :-)
Thanks for all the comments and suggestions,
Sure
--
Ryan Harper
Software Engineer; Linux Technology Center
IBM Corp., Austin, Tx
ryanh@xxxxxxxxxx
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