[LTP] LTP - Include upstart whitebox / blackbox testing API's?

[Subrata Modak]

On Thu, 2008-10-23 at 14:26 -0700, Garrett Cooper wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 5:44 AM, Subrata Modak
> <subrata at linux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> > Garrett,
> >
> > Is there any headway with upstart developers regarding this initiative.
> > I dug out this mail from my mailbox to find this. Let me know if we can
> > resume this discussion once again.
> >
> > Regards--
> > Subrata
> >
> > On Fri, 2008-06-27 at 19:06 +0530, Subrata Modak wrote:
> >> On Thu, 2008-06-26 at 05:26 -0700, Garrett Cooper wrote:
> >> > Hello LTP gurus (and upstart gurus),
> >> >       As I mentioned before on the upstart-devel list, one of the
> >> > goals of the groups that I'm working with is to bring upstart -- the
> >> > init replacement -- to Cisco's Linux based platform for process
> >> > monitoring and management. As part of that we (my teammates and I)
> >> > were thinking of including whitebox and blackbox tests with LTP (Linux
> >> > test project) to try and unify testing of critical Linux components,
> >> > and also provide deterministic output also with greater visibility in
> >> > the testing community.
> >> >       LTP has a number of whitebox and blackbox tests in place [3],
> >> > most of the whitebox tests being C API's and the blackbox tests being
> >> > shell invocations of Unix commands, as well as a well-defined set of
> >> > test reporting API's and functions already in place.
> >>
> >> Ah!. That reminds me of the testcases for commands in LTP:
> >>
> >> http://ltp.cvs.sourceforge.net/ltp/ltp/testcases/commands/
> >>
> >> I have been merging lots of patches and we were totally engaged with our
> >> white box test cases, that we completely forgot about those black box
> >> test cases, which are of immense help for:
> >>
> >> 1) Increasing code coverage for the kernel,
> >> 2) Testing the actual/mostly-used interfaces to the Linux OS.
> >>
> >> Thanks Garrett for reminding this valuable testcases piece. And the
> >> important point here to make is:
> >>
> >> Writing white box test cases requires fair knowledge of Kernel
> >> Internals, whereas the Blackbox test cases just requires user knowledge
> >> of the OS. With guidance from the Man Pages information, a huge
> >> community of administrators and normal users can write these black box
> >> tests. And they are a huge group of people to count. I need to look into
> >> this seriously from now.
> >>
> >> >       So, my question is two-fold:
> >> >       1. Would the upstart project be willing to work with LTP (via my
> >> > team as a proxy in the beginning) to enter some unit test code and
> >> > other test cases into LTP's test framework / overall testsuite, and
> >> > improve acceptance in the Linux testing community?
> >>
> >> I would be providing you the support with testing on the architectures i
> >> have at my disposal and speedy patch merge to LTP. We definitely need to
> >> do something to increase the code coverage.
> >>
> >> >       2. Would either group be willing to work with my team to help
> >> > maintain these testcases and develop new ones?
> >>
> >> Of course, i will.
> >>
> >> > Thanks,
> >> > -Garrett
> >> >
> >> > PS. Sorry for the cross-posting ; I try not to do this, but
> >> > considering that both groups can benefit from the discussion I wanted
> >> > to involve both.
> >>
> >> Nothing to worry about. When it comes to making Linux better, we need
> >> collaboration on various fronts. The livest example being the work done
> >> by Masatake Yamato from Red Hat in porting Crackerjack´s
> >> (https://sourceforge.net/projects/crackerjack) regression tests to LTP
> >> format. Thanks Garrett for taking this initiative. We need to
> >> collaborate much more with others as well.
> >>
> >> Regards--
> >> Subrata
> >>
> >> >
> >> > 1. LTP -- Linux test project: http://ltp.sourceforge.net/
> >> > 2. Upstart -- init(1) replacement: http://upstart.ubuntu.com/
> >> > 3. LTP cvsweb -- http://ltp.cvs.sourceforge.net/ltp/ltp/ (see docs for
> >> > relevant documentation items, lib/ltp for test lib API's, and
> >> > testcases/commands for existing Linux command blackbox tests).
> 
> I haven't followed this up, but to be honest our group using upstart
> has started using Python nose to write testcases for blackbox level
> testing, and it's proven to be largely successful in finding basic
> issues within the provided spec by the upstart folks.
> 
> I don't know if the test code can be easily committed back because it
> has Cisco IP -- I'll talk to Sarvi (tech lead) and Corey (the manager)
> about that.

It would be great in such a case.

> 
> As for whitebox testing, we should definitely follow up the intiative
> for using tst_res.
> 

Yes. And as you said, keep the momentum going for having the tst_*
functions under varied programming language. Let it take itś own course
and time, but, we should keep up the gear.

Regards--
Subrata

> -Garrett