Packaging the runtime test suite
Hi debian-lsb,
I've been thinking that it would be useful to package the lsb runtime test
suiteto make it easier for package maintainers(and others) to run them when
lsb bugs are reported in their packages. I've been talking with the upstream
maintainer and there are a few issues to doing so that I'm including below in
case someone decides to look at it before I get to it. IRC log, posted with
permission, chris is Chris Yeoh.
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<taggart> I was thinking that it would be useful for package maintainers to be
able to easily run the tests themselves
<taggart> and so...
<chris> you want to package lsb-runtime-test? ;-)
<taggart> I'm thinking about packaging the test suite for debian
<taggart> and not just a binary package, but a source one
<taggart> so it can be built on all archs
<chris> yup, it'd be good to have it fixed so it can do that
<chris> now that 1.3 is out of the way, I think its okay to hack away
<taggart> ok
<taggart> you mentioned that it's pretty tricky right now
<chris> So just off the top of the head, the things that need to be fixed, or
at least looked at:
<taggart> should I look at the rpm spec file for hints?
<chris> (be careful, you might go blind)
<taggart> heh
<chris> 1. It expects to build/install in /home/tet
<chris> I did some work a while back to make the build position relocatable,
theoretically it should still work
<chris> but I haven't tested this feature, in, well, literally years :-)
<taggart> ok good
<taggart> we'll see what breaks when I change it
<chris> However, a bigger problem is that it does need to build in the same
place that it will eventually install
<chris> as it hard codes paths in various places. fixing this problem would
mean lots of hacking away at TET/VSXgen which I wouldn't recommend
<taggart> yuk
<chris> I guess thats more of an autobuilder problem than a install problem.
<chris> not sure how much of an issue that really will be
<chris> 2. the build system is kind of scripts upon scripts
<chris> upon scripts....
<chris> at various places you need root access, and it does an "su -"
<chris> it creates setuid binaries at various places, and then uses those
binaries, so I'm not sure that fakeroot can work around this
<chris> though the setuid binary I think only makes other things setuid (but
this part is an integral part of TET which we can't change)
<chris> I kind of work around these issues during the build by using an expect
script on top, but this needs to know the root password - in the case of the
script I just ask for it once at the top and remember it for the life of the
script
<chris> sudo is potentially a better soln, but it either has config or timeout
issues (has to handle building on really slow machines).
<chris> 3. The build/install phase is not cleanly separated
<chris> This is a bit of a hangover from the traditional way of installing TET
<chris> eg build TET, install TET, build VSXgen (using bits of TET), install
VSXgen + extra info (eg locales), build test suites, execute test suites
<chris> note that since some of the tests (which we don't use in the end at
the moment) when built are the actual test itself
<chris> eg. header file tests
<chris> running them, just shows the results from the build
<chris> so currently the build process would have a side effect on the
autobuilder machine itself
<chris> need to look into this to see what actually needs to be installed for
the build of the test suites to occur
<chris> maybe some splitting up of support packages would need to be done.
<taggart> I won't be looking at this right away as I'm probably going to work
on lsbdev stuff first
<taggart> but it might be an interesting thing to work on
<taggart> debian policy says that you have to be able to build as a mortal
<taggart> install is ok as root, but build has to be anybody
<chris> taggart: I'd definitely prefer to be able to build it that way, just
haven't managed to work out how.
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--
Matt Taggart
taggart@debian.org
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