1tdc - Linux Traffic Control (tc) unit testing suite
2
3Author: Lucas Bates - lucasb@mojatatu.com
4
5tdc is a Python script to load tc unit tests from a separate JSON file and
6execute them inside a network namespace dedicated to the task.
7
8
9REQUIREMENTS
10------------
11
12*  Minimum Python version of 3.4. Earlier 3.X versions may work but are not
13   guaranteed.
14
15*  The kernel must have network namespace support if using nsPlugin
16
17*  The kernel must have veth support available, as a veth pair is created
18   prior to running the tests when using nsPlugin.
19
20*  The kernel must have the appropriate infrastructure enabled to run all tdc
21   unit tests. See the config file in this directory for minimum required
22   features. As new tests will be added, config options list will be updated.
23
24*  All tc-related features being tested must be built in or available as
25   modules.  To check what is required in current setup run:
26   ./tdc.py -c
27
28   Note:
29   In the current release, tdc run will abort due to a failure in setup or
30   teardown commands - which includes not being able to run a test simply
31   because the kernel did not support a specific feature. (This will be
32   handled in a future version - the current workaround is to run the tests
33   on specific test categories that your kernel supports)
34
35
36BEFORE YOU RUN
37--------------
38
39The path to the tc executable that will be most commonly tested can be defined
40in the tdc_config.py file. Find the 'TC' entry in the NAMES dictionary and
41define the path.
42
43If you need to test a different tc executable on the fly, you can do so by
44using the -p option when running tdc:
45	./tdc.py -p /path/to/tc
46
47
48RUNNING TDC
49-----------
50
51To use tdc, root privileges are required.  This is because the
52commands being tested must be run as root.  The code that enforces
53execution by root uid has been moved into a plugin (see PLUGIN
54ARCHITECTURE, below).
55
56Tests that use a network device should have nsPlugin.py listed as a
57requirement for that test. nsPlugin executes all commands within a
58network namespace and creates a veth pair which may be used in those test
59cases. To disable execution within the namespace, pass the -N option
60to tdc when starting a test run; the veth pair will still be created
61by the plugin.
62
63Running tdc without any arguments will run all tests. Refer to the section
64on command line arguments for more information, or run:
65	./tdc.py -h
66
67tdc will list the test names as they are being run, and print a summary in
68TAP (Test Anything Protocol) format when they are done. If tests fail,
69output captured from the failing test will be printed immediately following
70the failed test in the TAP output.
71
72
73OVERVIEW OF TDC EXECUTION
74-------------------------
75
76One run of tests is considered a "test suite" (this will be refined in the
77future).  A test suite has one or more test cases in it.
78
79A test case has four stages:
80
81  - setup
82  - execute
83  - verify
84  - teardown
85
86The setup and teardown stages can run zero or more commands.  The setup
87stage does some setup if the test needs it.  The teardown stage undoes
88the setup and returns the system to a "neutral" state so any other test
89can be run next.  These two stages require any commands run to return
90success, but do not otherwise verify the results.
91
92The execute and verify stages each run one command.  The execute stage
93tests the return code against one or more acceptable values.  The
94verify stage checks the return code for success, and also compares
95the stdout with a regular expression.
96
97Each of the commands in any stage will run in a shell instance.
98
99
100USER-DEFINED CONSTANTS
101----------------------
102
103The tdc_config.py file contains multiple values that can be altered to suit
104your needs. Any value in the NAMES dictionary can be altered without affecting
105the tests to be run. These values are used in the tc commands that will be
106executed as part of the test. More will be added as test cases require.
107
108Example:
109	$TC qdisc add dev $DEV1 ingress
110
111The NAMES values are used to substitute into the commands in the test cases.
112
113
114COMMAND LINE ARGUMENTS
115----------------------
116
117Run tdc.py -h to see the full list of available arguments.
118
119usage: tdc.py [-h] [-p PATH] [-D DIR [DIR ...]] [-f FILE [FILE ...]]
120              [-c [CATG [CATG ...]]] [-e ID [ID ...]] [-l] [-s] [-i] [-v] [-N]
121              [-d DEVICE] [-P] [-n] [-V]
122
123Linux TC unit tests
124
125optional arguments:
126  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
127  -p PATH, --path PATH  The full path to the tc executable to use
128  -v, --verbose         Show the commands that are being run
129  -N, --notap           Suppress tap results for command under test
130  -d DEVICE, --device DEVICE
131                        Execute the test case in flower category
132  -P, --pause           Pause execution just before post-suite stage
133
134selection:
135  select which test cases: files plus directories; filtered by categories
136  plus testids
137
138  -D DIR [DIR ...], --directory DIR [DIR ...]
139                        Collect tests from the specified directory(ies)
140                        (default [tc-tests])
141  -f FILE [FILE ...], --file FILE [FILE ...]
142                        Run tests from the specified file(s)
143  -c [CATG [CATG ...]], --category [CATG [CATG ...]]
144                        Run tests only from the specified category/ies, or if
145                        no category/ies is/are specified, list known
146                        categories.
147  -e ID [ID ...], --execute ID [ID ...]
148                        Execute the specified test cases with specified IDs
149
150action:
151  select action to perform on selected test cases
152
153  -l, --list            List all test cases, or those only within the
154                        specified category
155  -s, --show            Display the selected test cases
156  -i, --id              Generate ID numbers for new test cases
157
158netns:
159  options for nsPlugin (run commands in net namespace)
160
161  -N, --no-namespace
162                        Do not run commands in a network namespace.
163
164valgrind:
165  options for valgrindPlugin (run command under test under Valgrind)
166
167  -V, --valgrind        Run commands under valgrind
168
169
170PLUGIN ARCHITECTURE
171-------------------
172
173There is now a plugin architecture, and some of the functionality that
174was in the tdc.py script has been moved into the plugins.
175
176The plugins are in the directory plugin-lib.  The are executed from
177directory plugins.  Put symbolic links from plugins to plugin-lib,
178and name them according to the order you want them to run. This is not
179necessary if a test case being run requires a specific plugin to work.
180
181Example:
182
183bjb@bee:~/work/tc-testing$ ls -l plugins
184total 4
185lrwxrwxrwx  1 bjb  bjb    27 Oct  4 16:12 10-rootPlugin.py -> ../plugin-lib/rootPlugin.py
186lrwxrwxrwx  1 bjb  bjb    25 Oct 12 17:55 20-nsPlugin.py -> ../plugin-lib/nsPlugin.py
187-rwxr-xr-x  1 bjb  bjb     0 Sep 29 15:56 __init__.py
188
189The plugins are a subclass of TdcPlugin, defined in TdcPlugin.py and
190must be called "SubPlugin" so tdc can find them.  They are
191distinguished from each other in the python program by their module
192name.
193
194This base class supplies "hooks" to run extra functions.  These hooks are as follows:
195
196pre- and post-suite
197pre- and post-case
198pre- and post-execute stage
199adjust-command (runs in all stages and receives the stage name)
200
201The pre-suite hook receives the number of tests and an array of test ids.
202This allows you to dump out the list of skipped tests in the event of a
203failure during setup or teardown stage.
204
205The pre-case hook receives the ordinal number and test id of the current test.
206
207The adjust-command hook receives the stage id (see list below) and the
208full command to be executed.  This allows for last-minute adjustment
209of the command.
210
211The stages are identified by the following strings:
212
213  - pre  (pre-suite)
214  - setup
215  - command
216  - verify
217  - teardown
218  - post (post-suite)
219
220
221To write a plugin, you need to inherit from TdcPlugin in
222TdcPlugin.py.  To use the plugin, you have to put the
223implementation file in plugin-lib, and add a symbolic link to it from
224plugins.  It will be detected at run time and invoked at the
225appropriate times.  There are a few examples in the plugin-lib
226directory:
227
228  - rootPlugin.py:
229      implements the enforcement of running as root
230  - nsPlugin.py:
231      sets up a network namespace and runs all commands in that namespace,
232      while also setting up dummy devices to be used in testing.
233  - valgrindPlugin.py
234      runs each command in the execute stage under valgrind,
235      and checks for leaks.
236      This plugin will output an extra test for each test in the test file,
237      one is the existing output as to whether the test passed or failed,
238      and the other is a test whether the command leaked memory or not.
239      (This one is a preliminary version, it may not work quite right yet,
240      but the overall template is there and it should only need tweaks.)
241  - buildebpfPlugin.py:
242      builds all programs in $EBPFDIR.
243
244
245ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
246----------------
247
248Thanks to:
249
250Jamal Hadi Salim, for providing valuable test cases
251Keara Leibovitz, who wrote the CLI test driver that I used as a base for the
252   first version of the tc testing suite. This work was presented at
253   Netdev 1.2 Tokyo in October 2016.
254Samir Hussain, for providing help while I dove into Python for the first time
255    and being a second eye for this code.
256