[Qemu-devel] Idea: Qemu as test coverage tool for kernels

[Qemu-devel] Idea: Qemu as test coverage tool for kernels

[Blue Swirl]

Hi,

Qemu's system emulators could be modified to output information about the 
code areas which have been executed by the virtual CPU. The output could 
then be used in standard test coverage tools. The benefit would be the 
ability to get kernel-level coverage data.

Are there any other tools for this purpose? I guess this would not be too 
difficult to do.

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Re: [Qemu-devel] Idea: Qemu as test coverage tool for kernels

[Mulyadi Santosa]

Hi...

On Saturday 28 January 2006 19:26, Blue Swirl wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Qemu's system emulators could be modified to output information about
> the code areas which have been executed by the virtual CPU. The
> output could then be used in standard test coverage tools. The
> benefit would be the ability to get kernel-level coverage data.

Why not just use Oprofile (oprofile.sf.net) or standard "readprofile" 
tool for this?

I am not against your idea, but I just want to avoid reinventing the 
wheel

regards

Mulyadi

Re: [Qemu-devel] Idea: Qemu as test coverage tool for kernels

[Blue Swirl]

>Why not just use Oprofile (oprofile.sf.net) or standard "readprofile"
>tool for this?

I didn't know about that, but after a quick look I'd say Oprofile is doing 
performance profiling (which could be done using Qemu as well), not test 
coverage analysis. Also, the kernel in question needs to be patched.

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Re: [Qemu-devel] Idea: Qemu as test coverage tool for kernels

[Kyle Hayes]

On Saturday 28 January 2006 04:26, Blue Swirl wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Qemu's system emulators could be modified to output information about
> the code areas which have been executed by the virtual CPU. The output
> could then be used in standard test coverage tools. The benefit would be
> the ability to get kernel-level coverage data.

You might want to look a valgrind.  The KDE project uses it heavily for 
memory leak and other types of problem detection.  It is a sort of 
intermediate step between an interpreter and Qemu.  I'm not sure where it 
lives, but Google should find it.

Best,
Kyle

Re: [Qemu-devel] Idea: Qemu as test coverage tool for kernels

[Daniel Veillard]

On Sun, Jan 29, 2006 at 10:08:26PM -0800, Kyle Hayes wrote:
> On Saturday 28 January 2006 04:26, Blue Swirl wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Qemu's system emulators could be modified to output information about
> > the code areas which have been executed by the virtual CPU. The output
> > could then be used in standard test coverage tools. The benefit would be
> > the ability to get kernel-level coverage data.
> 
> You might want to look a valgrind.  The KDE project uses it heavily for 
> memory leak and other types of problem detection.  It is a sort of 
> intermediate step between an interpreter and Qemu.  I'm not sure where it 
> lives, but Google should find it.

  Another option might be SystemTap, by activating and counting all probes
and then generating coverage maps from the output, might be simpler to
actually set-up, though I have no idea of the resulting impedance of activating
all probes in a running kernel:
    http://sourceware.org/systemtap/
    http://www.redhat.com/magazine/011sep05/features/systemtap/

Daniel

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