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