Howdy! So, I want to finally delete python/qemu/qmp from qemu.git, and this creates a small problem -- namely, iotests needs access to it in order to run the python-based tests.
What I think needs to happen is that we create a virtual environment that installs python/qemu/. The reason this cannot be done with PYTHONPATH alone anymore is because the qmp package itself won't be there anymore, we need an installer like `pip` to actually fetch it for us and put it somewhere. (i.e., we need to process the dependencies of python/qemu now and can't treat it as a pre-installed location.) Avocado tests are already creating a venv for the purposes of installing and running Avocado. We can amend e.g. "../../python" to tests/requirements.txt and the Avocado environment is A-OK good-to-go. The Makefile magic for avocado tests creates a venv-per-build. It seems to work well enough. One thing to note here is that the supported invocation for avocado tests is only through the Makefile, which handles creating and entering the venv to make the command seamless. iotests, however, manages its own execution environment with testenv.py, and we support running iotests from outside of the Makefile, for example by going to $build/tests/qemu-iotests and running ./check. Now ... I could update testenv.py to be smart enough to create and enter a python venv, and have even prototyped this. It seems to work pretty well! This approach seemed like the least invasive to how iotests are expected to be run and used. But a downside with this approach is that now avocado tests and iotests are each managing their own python venv. Worse, vm-tests and device-crash-test are still unhandled entirely. I'd like to find a solution where I create a unified python testing venv tied to the build shared by avocado, iotests, vm-tests and device-crash-test. I'm not completely sure how exactly I'll manage that right now, but I wanted to throw this out there in case there are some requirements I might be overlooking. I think vm-tests and avocado-tests can both have a venv created for them and activated before the test runs. device-crash-test I believe will need a script change in the gitlab ci yaml. iotests is somewhat unique in that it needs to run both by manual invocation and from makefile invocations. If I want a shared VM between all of these, I'll need to isolate the create-and-enter-venv logic somewhere where it can be shared both inside and outside of a Makefile. I'll see what I can cook up, but if you have any concerns or Cool Ideas, lemme know. I want to make sure this is as painless as I can think to make it. Thanks, --js
