Re: [PATCH v2 9/9] Avocado tests: allow for parallel execution of tests

[Thomas Huth <thuth@redhat.com>]

On 06/08/2024 19.31, Cleber Rosa wrote:
> The updated Avocado version allows for the execution of tests in
> parallel.
> 
> While on a CI environment it may not be a good idea to increase the
> parallelization level in a single runner, developers may leverage that
> on specific CI runners or on their development environments.
> 
> This also multiplies the timeout for each test accordingly.  The
> reason is that more concurrency can lead to less resources, and less
> resources can lead to some specific tests taking longer to complete
> and then time out.  The timeout factor being used here is very
> conservative (being equal to the amount of parallel tasks).  The worst
> this possibly oversized timeout value can do is making users wait a
> bit longer for the job to finish if a test hangs.
> 
> Overall, users can expect a much quicker turnaround on most systems
> with a value such as 8 on a 12 core machine.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Cleber Rosa <crosa@redhat.com>
> ---
...
> diff --git a/tests/Makefile.include b/tests/Makefile.include
> index 537804d101..545b5155f9 100644
> --- a/tests/Makefile.include
> +++ b/tests/Makefile.include
> @@ -94,6 +94,9 @@ TESTS_RESULTS_DIR=$(BUILD_DIR)/tests/results
>   ifndef AVOCADO_TESTS
>   	AVOCADO_TESTS=tests/avocado
>   endif
> +ifndef AVOCADO_PARALLEL
> +	AVOCADO_PARALLEL=1
> +endif
>   # Controls the output generated by Avocado when running tests.
>   # Any number of command separated loggers are accepted.  For more
>   # information please refer to "avocado --help".
> @@ -141,7 +144,8 @@ check-avocado: check-venv $(TESTS_RESULTS_DIR) get-vm-images
>               --show=$(AVOCADO_SHOW) run --job-results-dir=$(TESTS_RESULTS_DIR) \
>               $(if $(AVOCADO_TAGS),, --filter-by-tags-include-empty \
>   			--filter-by-tags-include-empty-key) \
> -            $(AVOCADO_CMDLINE_TAGS) --max-parallel-tasks=1 \
> +            $(AVOCADO_CMDLINE_TAGS) --max-parallel-tasks=$(AVOCADO_PARALLEL) \
> +			-p timeout_factor=$(AVOCADO_PARALLEL) \
>               $(if $(GITLAB_CI),,--failfast) $(AVOCADO_TESTS), \
>               "AVOCADO", "tests/avocado")

I think it was nicer in the previous attempt to bump the avocado version:

https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/commit/ec5ffa0056389c3c10ea2de1e783

This re-used the "-j" option from "make", so you could do "make -j$(nproc) 
check-avocado" just like with the other "check" targets.

  Thomas