Re: [PATCH v2] tests/docker: ensure container command is probed at most once

["Daniel P. Berrangé" <berrange@redhat.com>]

On Wed, Jul 15, 2026 at 09:07:18AM -0700, Pierrick Bouvier wrote:
> On 7/15/2026 3:42 AM, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> > The '--engine' arg accepts either 'podman' or 'docker', which is
> > not sufficiently granular to map directly to a command. This
> > means that  docker.py still has to then probe the exact command
> > to use.
> > 
> > Meanwhile the 'probe' command prints out the full command to use
> > but this cannot be passed back to docker.py to avoid probing
> > again, so the caching is only useful in the few case where we
> > run a container directly bypassing docker.py.
> > 
> > Address this by replacing --engine with --command for docker.py.
> > 
> > This in turn requires the --container-engine configure arg to be
> > replaced with --container-command.
> > 
> > With these changes the container command is probed at most once
> > during configure and never again, while running in an unconfigured
> > tree will still probe on demand.
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Daniel P. Berrangé <berrange@redhat.com>
> > ---
> > 
> > In v2:
> > 
> >  * Don't set container_command to "no" if 'probe' finds
> >    not viable binaries.
> > 
> >  configure                     | 25 +++++++------
> >  tests/docker/Makefile.include | 13 ++++---
> >  tests/docker/docker.py        | 67 ++++++++++++-----------------------
> >  3 files changed, 40 insertions(+), 65 deletions(-)


> 
> I still observe the same error when running make-tcg without
> podman/docker installed.
> bash: line 1: no: command not found
> 
> And I will suggest again to include in your series:
> https://lore.kernel.org/qemu-devel/20260710214343.2065491-27-pierrick.bouvier@oss.qualcomm.com/
> and detect if probe command worked or failed, and adapt behavior based
> on it. Existing behavior to compare to a string "no" is a very
> unfamiliar pattern for any command. `which` does not return no for instance.

That didn't do anything for me when I tested it, and this current
patch did fix the problem. Are you testing on top of a vanilla
git master, or did you have other patches that aren't merged
upstream.

When /usr/bin/podman was absent

 $ ./configure --target-list=s390x-linux-user
 ...
 $ grep CONTAINER build/config-host.mak 
 <no match>
 
 $ make run-tcg-tests-s390x-linux-user
  changing dir to build for make "run-tcg-tests-s390x-linux-user"...
  make[1]: Entering directory '/home/berrange/src/virt/qemu/build'
  ninja: no work to do.
  /home/berrange/src/virt/qemu/build/pyvenv/bin/meson introspect --targets --tests --benchmarks | /home/berrange/src/virt/qemu/build/pyvenv/bin/python3 -B scripts/mtest2make.py > Makefile.mtest
  make[1]: *** No rule to make target 'run-tcg-tests-s390x-linux-user'.  Stop.

configure has correctly skipped setup of the tcg cross
compiler targets.

When /usr/bin/podman was re-instaled it once again
worked


  $ ./configure --target-list=s390x-linux-user
  ...
  $ grep CONTAINER build/config-host.mak 
  CONTAINER_COMMAND=podman

  $ make run-tcg-tests-s390x-linux-user
  changing dir to build for make "run-tcg-tests-s390x-linux-user"...
  make[1]: Entering directory '/home/berrange/src/virt/qemu/build'
  ninja: no work to do.
  /home/berrange/src/virt/qemu/build/pyvenv/bin/meson introspect --targets --tests --benchmarks | /home/berrange/src/virt/qemu/build/pyvenv/bin/python3 -B scripts/mtest2make.py > Makefile.mtest
    BUILD   debian-s390x-cross
    BUILD   s390x-linux-user guest-tests
  tests/tcg/s390x-linux-user: -march=z14 detected
  tests/tcg/s390x-linux-user: -march=z15 detected
  ...tests running...

> You can test next patch using podman (which it seems you have):
> ```
> podman build \
> -f tests/docker/dockerfiles/debian-all-test-cross.docker -t all
> podman run -it --rm all -w $(pwd) -v $(pwd):$(pwd) all \
> bash -c "./configure && cd build && make all -j32 &&make check-tcg -j32"
> ```

I've run 'make check-tcg' and it correctly skips all tests when
podman is absent

  $ make check-tcg
  changing dir to build for make "check-tcg"...
  make[1]: Entering directory '/home/berrange/src/virt/qemu/build'
  make[1]: Nothing to be done for 'check-tcg'.
  make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/berrange/src/virt/qemu/build'


With regards,
Daniel
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