[U-Boot] [PATCH V2 1/7] test/py: Implement pytest infrastructure

[Stephen Warren <swarren@wwwdotorg.org>]

On 12/16/2015 08:11 AM, Michal Simek wrote:
> On 9.12.2015 17:32, Stephen Warren wrote:
>> On 12/02/2015 03:18 PM, Stephen Warren wrote:
>>> This tool aims to test U-Boot by executing U-Boot shell commands using
>>> the
>>> console interface. A single top-level script exists to execute or attach
>>> to the U-Boot console, run the entire script of tests against it, and
>>> summarize the results. Advantages of this approach are:
>>>
>>> - Testing is performed in the same way a user or script would interact
>>>     with U-Boot; there can be no disconnect.
>>> - There is no need to write or embed test-related code into U-Boot
>>> itself.
>>>     It is asserted that writing test-related code in Python is simpler and
>>>     more flexible that writing it all in C.
>>> - It is reasonably simple to interact with U-Boot in this way.
>>>
>>> A few simple tests are provided as examples. Soon, we should convert as
>>> many as possible of the other tests in test/* and test/cmd_ut.c too.
>>>
>>> In the future, I hope to publish (out-of-tree) the hook scripts, relay
>>> control utilities, and udev rules I will use for my own HW setup.
>>
>> I finally got permission to publish these. Examples are at:
>> https://github.com/swarren/uboot-test-hooks
>
> Interesting. What's the normal setup which you have for the board?
> I see from your description that you use numato usb relay - I expect one
> with more channels for reset.
> Then you are able to control boot mode. Is it also via the same relay?
> How do you power up the board?

In my current setup I leave the board on all the time (or rather, 
manually turn on the power when I'm about to run the tests). Automating 
control of the power source is a step I'll take later.

For Tegra, there are two important signals: reset and "force recovery". 
Each of these has a separate relay, so the system currently uses 2 
relays per target board. The numato relay board I own has 8 relays, 
although there are a number of different models.

On Tegra, when reset is pulsed:

- If force-recovery is connected, the SoC enters USB recovery mode. In 
this state, SW can be downloaded over USB into RAM and executed.

- If force-recovery is not connected, the SoC boots normally, from SW 
stored in flash (eMMC, SPI, ...)

The example scripts always use recovery mode to download U-Boot into RAM 
rather than writing it to flash first and then resetting. This saves 
wear cycles on the flash, but does mean the download happens in the 
"reset" rather than "flash" script, which may make the examples a bit 
different than for some other SoCs.

Finally, the example scripts support two boards; my home/laptop dev 
setup that uses a Numato relay board to control the signals to the board 
I use there, and my work desktop dev setup that uses our "PM342" debug 
board to controll the signals. The latter works logically the same as 
the numato relay board, except it contains electronic switches driven by 
an FTDI chip.