Re: [RFC v4 08/17] kunit: test: add support for test abort

Brendan Higgins
2019-03-25T22:32:07Z

On Fri, Mar 22, 2019 at 12:11 AM Knut Omang <knut.omang@oracle.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 2019-03-21 at 18:41 -0700, Brendan Higgins wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 21, 2019 at 6:10 PM Frank Rowand <frowand.list@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > On 2/27/19 11:42 PM, Brendan Higgins wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Feb 19, 2019 at 10:44 PM Frank Rowand <frowand.list@gmail.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > > > On 2/19/19 7:39 PM, Brendan Higgins wrote:
> > > > > > On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 11:52 AM Frank Rowand <frowand.list@gmail.com>
> > > > > > wrote:
> > > > > > > On 2/14/19 1:37 PM, Brendan Higgins wrote:
< snip >
> > > > > > > kunit_abort() is what will be call as the result of an assert
> > > > > > > failure.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Yep. Does that need clarified somewhere.
> > > > > > > BUG(), which is a panic, which is crashing the system is not
> > > > > > > acceptable
> > > > > > > in the Linux kernel. You will just annoy Linus if you submit this.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Sorry, I thought this was an acceptable use case since, a) this should
> > > > > > never be compiled in a production kernel, b) we are in a pretty bad,
> > > > > > unpredictable state if we get here and keep going. I think you might
> > > > > > have said elsewhere that you think "a" is not valid? In any case, I
> > > > > > can replace this with a WARN, would that be acceptable?
> > > > >
> > > > > A WARN may or may not make sense, depending on the context. It may
> > > > > be sufficient to simply report a test failure (as in the old version
> > > > > of case (2) below.
> > > > >
> > > > > Answers to "a)" and "b)":
> > > > >
> > > > > a) it might be in a production kernel
> > > >
> > > > Sorry for a possibly stupid question, how might it be so? Why would
> > > > someone intentionally build unit tests into a production kernel?
> > >
> > > People do things. Just expect it.
> >
> > Huh, alright. I will take your word for it then.
>
> I have a better explanation: Production kernels have bugs, unfortunately.
> And sometimes those need to be investigated on systems than cannot be
> brought down or affected more than absolutely necessary, maybe via a third party
> doing the execution. A light weight, precise test (well tested ahead :) ) might
> be a way of proving or disproving assumptions that can lead to the development
> and application of a fix.

Sorry, you are not suggesting testing in production are you? To be
clear, I am not concerned about someone using testing, KUnit, or
whatever in a *production-like* environment: that's not what we are
talking about here. My assumption is that no one will deploy tests
into actual production.

>
> IMHO you're confusing "building into" with temporary applying, then removing
> again - like the difference between running a local user space program vs
> installing it under /usr and have it in everyone's PATH.

I don't really see the point of distinguishing between "building into"
and "temporary applying" in this case; that's part of my point. Maybe
it makes sense in whitebox end-to-end testing, but in the case of unit
testing, I don't think so.

>
> > > > > a') it is not acceptable in my development kernel either
>
> I think one of the fundamental properties of a good test framework is that it
> should not require changes to the code under test by itself.
>

Sure, but that has nothing to do with the environment the code/tests
are running in.

< snip >

Cheers