Add a README file that describes the purpose of the various test files and gives guidance to developers on where and how to make changes.
Cc: Daniel P. BerrangÃ" <berra...@redhat.com> Cc: Paolo Bonzini <pbonz...@redhat.com> Cc: Maydell Peter <peter.mayd...@linaro.org> Cc: John Snow <js...@redhat.com> Cc: Thomas Huth <th...@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Ani Sinha <a...@anisinha.ca> --- tests/avocado/acpi-bits/README | 90 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 90 insertions(+) create mode 100644 tests/avocado/acpi-bits/README diff --git a/tests/avocado/acpi-bits/README b/tests/avocado/acpi-bits/README new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..91e8fd235f --- /dev/null +++ b/tests/avocado/acpi-bits/README @@ -0,0 +1,90 @@ +============================================================================= +ACPI/SMBIOS PYTESTS USING BIOSBITS +============================================================================= + +Biosbits is a software written by Josh Triplett that can be downloaded by +visiting https://biosbits.org/. The github codebase can be found here: +https://github.com/biosbits/bits/tree/master. It is a software that executes +the bios components such as acpi and smbios tables directly through acpica +bios interpreter (a freely available C based library written by Intel, +downloadable from https://acpica.org/ and is included with biosbits) without an +operating system getting involved in between. +There are several advantages to directly testing the bios in a real physical +machine or VM as opposed to indirectly discovering bios issues through the +operating system. For one thing, the OSes tend to hide bios problems from the +end user. The other is that we have more control of what we wanted to test +and how by directly using acpica interpreter on top of the bios on a running +system. More details on the inspiration for developing biosbits and its real +life uses can be found in (a) and (b). +This directory contains tests written in python that exercizes the QEMU +bios components using biosbits and reports test failures. +Under the directory tests/avocado/, acpi-bits.py is a QEMU avocado test that +drives all this. + +A brief description of the various test files follows. + +Under tests/avocado/ as the root we have: + +├── acpi-bits +│ ├── bits-config +│ │ └── bits-cfg.txt +│ ├── bits-tests +│ │ ├── smbios.py +│ │ ├── smilatency.py +│ │ ├── testacpi.py +│ │ └── testcpuid.py +│ └── README +├── acpi-bits.py + +tests/avocado: + - acpi-bits.py: This is the main python avocado test script that generates a + biosbits iso. It then spawns a QEMU VM with it, collects the logs and reports + test failures. This is the script one would be interested in if they wanted + to add or change some component of the log parsing, add a new command line to + how QEMU is spawned etc. Test writers typically would not need to modify + this script unless they wanted to enhance or change the log parsing for + their tests. Following environment variables are used in this test: + - V=1 : This enables verbose mode for the test. It dumps the entire log + from bios bits and also more details in case failure happens. It is + useful for debugging the test failures or tests themselves. + +tests/avocado/acpi-bits: + - README: This text file. + +tests/avocado/acpi-bits/bits-config: + This location contains biosbits config files that determine how the software + runs the tests. + - bits-config.txt: this is the biosbits config file that determines what tests + or actions are performed by bits. The description of the config options are + provided in the file itself. + +tests/avocado/acpi-bits/bits-tests: + This directory contains biosbits python based tests that are run from within + the biosbits environment in the spawned VM. New additions of test cases can + be made in the appropriate test file. For example, new acpi tests can go + into testacpi.py and one would call testsuite.add_test() to register the new + test so that it gets executed as a part of the ACPI tests. + It might be occasionally necessary to disable some subtests or add a new + test that belongs to a test suite not already present in this directory. To + do this, please extract the bits source from the zip file mentioned above. + Copy the test suite/script that needs modification (addition of new tests + or disabling them) from boot/python location of the extracted directory + into this directory. + + step (a): copy unmodified test script to this directory. + step (b): update meson.build and add this file to the list. + Commit (a) and (b) together in the same commit. + + step (c): perform modifications to the test. + Commit (c) in a separate commit. + + The test framework will then use your modified test script to run the test. + No further changes would be needed. Please check the logs to make sure that + appropriate changes have taken effect. + + +Author: Ani Sinha <a...@anisinha.ca> + +References: +(a) https://blog.linuxplumbersconf.org/2011/ocw/system/presentations/867/original/bits.pdf +(b) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36QIepyUuhg -- 2.34.1