Re: [Lsf] [PATCH] xfstests-bld: Simplify determination of number of CPUs in build-all

[Eric Sandeen <sandeen@redhat.com>]

On 4/3/14, 11:35 AM, Theodore Ts'o wrote:

>>  - There's an undocumented way to write results outside the source
>> tree called RESULT_BASE.  It would be great if it were documented and
>> spelled consistently.

I'm not actually certain that it was intended to be used this way.
See 1686f9ab "xfstests: Introduce a results directory" 
which explains just where this variable came from and what it's
for...

So that's probably why it's undocumented; I don't think it was
envisioned as a configurable.  As for consistency... patch
sent for the typo.

If the functionality is needed, just make sure it works right if
you set it manually, update the user docs, & send a patch.

> There are a bunch of inconsistencies, which I've chalked up to
> historical accidents and a desire to not break compatibility with
> developers' test runners.  You mount the $SCRATCH_DIR on SCRATCH_MNT

$SCRATCH_DEV you mean. ;)  I don't think there's any real resistance
to fixing things that really need to be fixed, but this one
doesn't seem too critical.  OTOH, adding an alias from SCRATCH_MNT
to SCRATCH_DIR for consistency could surely be done if anyone cared
enough to send the patch.

> but you mount $TEST_DEV on $TEST_DIR, for example.  I've just learned
> to live with it....
> 
>>  - SCRATCH_MNT needs to be in /etc/fstab.  I think that this should be
>> changed or documented.  If the latter, then SCRATCH_DEV seems
>> redundant.

Hm, I've never needed SCRATCH_MNT in /etc/fstab... 

> The various test scripts do need to be able to find the device where
> the file system lives, and parsing /etc/fstab would be awkward.  So if
> your comment is that either the /etc/fstab entry shouldn't be
> required, or the xfstests runtime environment should be able to derive
> $SCRATCH_DEV automatically from $SCRATCH_MNT, or vice versa, instead

I guess I don't know why you'd expect to derive one from the other...

> of having the user specify both, I'd agree that would be nice, but
> that's why I put together scripts like the ones I have in xfstests-bld
> --- to make life easier.  :-)

All I've ever had to do is set up the 4 variables in local.config.example
(by copying to local.config & editing appropriately) and it all just works
AFAIK.

(No doubt docs could be improved, but we can do that by sending patches.)  :)

-Eric