[DEP 8] Re: Is it possible to run autopkgtest without a virtual machine ?
Charles Plessy writes ("[DEP 8] Re: Is it possible to run autopkgtest without a virtual machine ?"):
> For networking, how about a "needs-networking" restriction ?
I'm definitely in general in favour of expanding the set of
restrictions etc. We need to be sure that the semantics are clear
though.
Would that mean only that the machine needs to have a non-localhost
network interface, or also that it can access the global internet
somehow (and if so which protocols) ?
> For protecting the user from side effects of runnign the tests,
> there is the Restrictions field where one can declare that tests can
> break the system. Perhaps a milder restriction could be added, for
> tests that can disturb the system (such as restarting services,
> etc.), so that other tests can be considered safe for local
> execution. A large number of regression tests that I know are
> completely safe, like checking that 2 + 2 returns 4, with of course
> the limitation that running them exposes to the same possible bugs
> as for using the program in other contexts.
Again, yes.
Perhaps you could describe those of your package(s) and the test(s)
which would benefit from this ? That would make it easier to think
about what exactly the restrictions should be.
> I think that it would be a great feature to be able to run such
> tests locally with a simple command that can take advantage of
> autopkgtest.
Yes.
> This means also shipping them in a binary package, but
> we have already such packages containing exactly the test data that
> is needed.
No, this won't work because the tests might need stuff from the source
package; might need the source package to be built; and we shouldn't
clog the archive up with test suites; the build depends would need to
be installed anyway.
The right answer is simply for such an automatic tool to download the
source package.
Ian.
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