On Tue, Apr 04, 2017 at 03:13:44PM +0100, Alex Bennée wrote: > > Stefan Hajnoczi <stefa...@gmail.com> writes: > > > On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 07:01:38PM -0700, Ed Swierk wrote: > >> Parts of qemu's block code have changed a lot in recent months but are > >> not well exercised by current tests. > <snip> > > > > 4. How to automate tests with real Linux guests? This is a complex > > topic and probably what we should discuss in this email thread. > > > > The buildroot + busybox approach is good for a small set of sanity > > tests. There was a similar attempt here: > > https://github.com/stsquad/qemu-jeos > > > > Building from source becomes a challenge when other people want to add > > software to test other areas of QEMU. The process also requires > > attention to maintain the image over time (e.g. as host build > > environments change). > > > > There are image builder tools like virt-builder and mkosi for building > > bootable virtual machine images based on standard Linux distros: > > http://libguestfs.org/virt-builder.1.html > > https://github.com/systemd/mkosi > > > > This eliminates the build-from-source hassles and gives us a full Linux > > guest environment. Booting is very fast with mkosi so the advantage to > > custom building a minimal image is negligible. > > Does it entirely? If your building a ARM guest on x86 how do you ensure > the cross-compilers are correct for the kernel and userspace?
virt-builder and mkosi install binary distros like Debian or Fedora. They do not compile from source. virt-builder supports cross-arch image building so it's a good starting point for QEMU guest images. > > My suggestion is: > > > > Let's pick an image builder tool like virt-builder and keep a single > > build script per guest architecture (e.g. build-test-os-x86_64.sh). > > All tests for that architecture run against the same disk image. > > > > It's easy to add additional software to the disk image by modifying the > > build script. > > > > A Makefile ensures that the image file gets rebuilt if the build script > > has changed. > > I have experimented building LTP for foreign guests inside docker > images. I expect the docker build image could be extended to build full > kernel and file-systems in a known environment, possibly using > virt-builder to do it. My concern with building from source is that extending and maintaining the infrastructure does not scale. These efforts fizzle out like qemu-jeos because no one really has time to maintain them. Few people want to extend them because they are complex and brittle. Image builder tools skip the complexity of build-from-source. You start with something like a Dockerfile or virt-builder command-line. It's much easier for people to contribute and there is much less that can go wrong at image build time. Stefan
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