Megatest

<h1>The Megatest Users Manual</h1>
<span id="author">Matt Welland</span><br />
<span id="email"><tt>&lt;<a href="mailto:matt@kiatoa.com">matt@kiatoa.com</a>&gt;</tt></span><br />
<span id="revnumber">version 1.0,</span>
<span id="revdate">April 2012</span>
</div>
<div id="content">
<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_dedication">Dedication</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p>Dedicated to my wife Joanna who has kindly supported my working on various projects over the years.</p></div>
<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_thanks">Thanks</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p>Thank you the many people I&#8217;ve worked over the years who have
shared their knowledge and insights with me.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Thanks also to the creators of the various open source projects that
Megatest is built on. These include Linux, xemacs, chicken scheme,
fossil and asciidoc. Without these projects something like Megatest
would be difficult or impossible to do.</p></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_preface">Preface</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p>This book is organised as three sub-books; getting started, writing tests and reference.</p></div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_why_megatest">Why Megatest?</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The Megatest project was started for two reasons, the first was an
immediate and pressing need for a generalized tool to manage a suite
of regression tests and the second was the fact that I had written or
maintained several such tools at different companies over the years
and it seemed a good thing to have a single open source tool, flexible
enough to meet the needs of any team doing continuous integrating and
or running a complex suite of tests for release qualification.</p></div>
of regression tests and the second was the fact that the author had
written or maintained several such tools at different companies over
the years and it seemed a good thing to have a single open source
tool, flexible enough to meet the needs of any team doing continuous
integrating and or running a complex suite of tests for release
qualification.</p></div>
</div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_megatest_design_philosophy">Megatest Design Philosophy</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Megatest is intended to provide the minimum needed resources to make
writing a suite of tests and implementing continuous build for
software, design engineering or process control (via owlfs for
writing a suite of tests and tasks for implementing continuous build
for software, design engineering or process control (via owlfs for
example) without being specialized for any specific problem
space. Megatest in of itself does not know what constitutes a PASS or
FAIL of a test. In most cases megatest is best used in conjunction
with logpro or a similar tool to parse, analyze and decide on the test
outcome.</p></div>
</div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_megatest_architecture">Megatest Architecture</h3>
<div class="paragraph"><p>All data to specify the tests and configure the system is stored in
plain text files. All system state is stored in an sqlite3
database. Tests are launched using the launching system available for
the distributed compute platform in use. A template script is provided
which can launch jobs on local and remote Linux hosts. Currently
megatest uses the network filesystem to call home to your master
sqlite3 database.</p></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<h1 id="_road_map">Road Map</h1>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Note: This road-map is tentative and subject to change without notice.</p></div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_ww32">ww32</h3>
<div class="olist arabic"><ol class="arabic">
<li>
<p>
Rerun step and or subsequent steps from gui
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Refresh test area files from gui
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Clean and re-run button
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Clean up STATE and STATUS handling.
</p>
<div class="olist loweralpha"><ol class="loweralpha">
<li>
<p>
Dashboard and Test control panel are reverse order - choose and fix
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Move seldom used states and status to drop down selector
</p>
</li>
</ol></div>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Access test control panel when clicking on Run Summary tests
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Feature: -generate-index-tree
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Change specifing of state and status to use STATE1/STATUS1,STATE2/STATUS2
</p>
</li>
</ol></div>
</div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_ww33">ww33</h3>
<div class="olist arabic"><ol class="arabic">
<li>
<p>
http api available for use with Perl, Ruby etc. scripts
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
megatest.config setup entries for:
</p>
<div class="olist loweralpha"><ol class="loweralpha">
<li>
<p>
run launching (e.g. /bin/sh %CMD% &gt; /dev/null)
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
browser "konqueror %FNAME%
</p>
</li>
</ol></div>
</li>
</ol></div>
</div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_ww34">ww34</h3>
<div class="olist arabic"><ol class="arabic">
<li>
<p>
Mark dependent tests for clean/rerun -rerun-downstream
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
On run start check for defunct tests in RUNNING, LAUNCHED or REMOTEHOSTSTART and correct or notify
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Fix: refresh of gui sometimes fails on last item (race condition?)
</p>
</li>
</ol></div>
</div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_ww35">ww35</h3>
<div class="olist arabic"><ol class="arabic">
<li>
<p>
refdb: Add export of csv, json and sexp
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Convert to using call-with-environment-variables where possible. Should allow handling of parallel runs in same process.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Re-work text interface wizards. Several bugs on record. Possibly convert to gui based.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Add to testconfig requirements section; launchlimiter scriptname, calls scriptname to check if ok to launch test
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Refactor Run Summary view, currently very clumsy
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Add option to show steps in Run Summary view
</p>
</li>
</ol></div>
</div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_ww36">ww36</h3>
<div class="olist arabic"><ol class="arabic">
<li>
<p>
Refactor guis for resizeablity
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Add filters to Run Summary view and Run Control view
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Add to megatest.config or testconfig; rerunok STATE/STATUS,STATE/STATUS&#8230;
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Launch gates for diskspace; /path/one&gt;1G,/path/two&gt;200M,/tmp&gt;5G,#{scheme <strong>toppath</strong>}&gt;1G
</p>
</li>
</ol></div>
</div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_bin_list">Bin List</h3>
<div class="olist arabic"><ol class="arabic">
<li>
<p>
Quality improvements
</p>
<div class="olist loweralpha"><ol class="loweralpha">
<li>
<p>
Server stutters occasionally
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Large number of items or tests still has some issues.
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Code refactoring
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Replace remote process with true API using json (supports Web app also)
</p>
</li>
</ol></div>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Streamline the gui
</p>
<div class="olist loweralpha"><ol class="loweralpha">
<li>
<p>
Everything resizable
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Less clutter
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Tool tips
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Filters on Run Summary, Summary and Run Control panel
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Built in log viewer (partially implemented)
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Refactor the test control panel
</p>
</li>
</ol></div>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Help and documentation
</p>
<div class="olist loweralpha"><ol class="loweralpha">
<li>
<p>
Complete the user manual (I’ve been working on this lately).
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Online help in the gui
</p>
</li>
</ol></div>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Streamlined install
</p>
<div class="olist loweralpha"><ol class="loweralpha">
<li>
<p>
Deployed version (download a location independent ready to run binary bundle)
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Install Makefile (in progress, needed for Mike to install on VMs)
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Added option to compile IUP (needed for VMs)
</p>
</li>
</ol></div>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Server side run launching
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Support for re-running, cleaning etc. of individual steps (ezsteps makes this very easy to implement).
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Launch process needs built in daemonizing (easy to do, just need to test it thoroughly).
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Wizards for creating tests, regression areas (current ones are text only and limited).
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Fully functional built in web service (currently you can browse runs but it is very simplistic).
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Wildcards in runconfigs: e.g. [p1271/9/%/%]
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Gui panels for editing megatest.config and runconfigs.config
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Fully isolated tests (no use of NFS to see regression area files)
</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>
Windows version
</p>
</li>
</ol></div>
</div>
<h1 id="_getting_started">Getting Started</h1>
<div class="openblock">
<div class="title">Getting started with Megatest</div>
<div class="content">
<div class="paragraph"><p>How to install Megatest and set it up for running your regressions and continuous integration process.</p></div>
</div></div>

<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_the_second_chapter">The Second Chapter</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p>An example link to anchor at start of the <a href="#X1">first sub-section</a>.</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>An example link to a bibliography entry <a href="#taoup">[taoup]</a>.</p></div>
</div>
</div>
<h1 id="_reference">Reference</h1>
<h1 id="_writing_tests">Writing Tests</h1>
<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_the_first_chapter_of_the_second_part">The First Chapter of the Second Part</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p>Chapters grouped into book parts are at level 1 and can contain
sub-sections.</p></div>
</div>
</div>
<h1 id="_reference">Reference</h1>
<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_the_first_chapter_of_the_second_part_2">The First Chapter of the Second Part</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p>Chapters grouped into book parts are at level 1 and can contain
sub-sections.</p></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_the_testconfig_file">The testconfig File</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_setup_section">Setup section</h3>
<div class="sect3">
<h4 id="_header">Header</h4>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content">
<pre><tt>[setup]</tt></pre>
</div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The runscript method is a brute force way to run scripts where the
user is responsible for setting STATE and STATUS</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content">
<pre><tt>runscript main.csh</tt></pre>
</div></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect2">
<h3 id="_requirements_section">Requirements section</h3>
<div class="sect3">
<h4 id="_header_2">Header</h4>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content">
<pre><tt>[requirements]</tt></pre>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="sect3">
<h4 id="_wait_on_other_tests">Wait on Other Tests</h4>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content">
<pre><tt># A normal waiton waits for the prior tests to be COMPLETED
# and PASS, CHECK or WAIVED
waiton test1 test2</tt></pre>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="sect3">
<h4 id="_mode">Mode</h4>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The default (i.e. if mode is not specified) is normal. All pre-dependent tests
must be COMPLETED and PASS, CHECK or WAIVED before the test will start</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content">
<pre><tt>mode   normal</tt></pre>
</div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>The toplevel mode requires only that the prior tests are COMPLETED.</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content">
<pre><tt>mode toplevel</tt></pre>
</div></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>A item based waiton will start items in a test when the
same-named item is COMPLETED and PASS, CHECK or WAIVED
in the prior test</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content">
<pre><tt>mode itemmatch</tt></pre>
</div></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content">
<pre><tt># testconfig
[requirements]

# A normal waiton waits for the prior tests to be COMPLETED
# and PASS, CHECK or WAIVED
waiton test1 test2
<pre><tt># With a toplevel test you may wish to generate your list
# of tests to run dynamically
#
# waiton #{shell get-valid-tests-to-run.sh}</tt></pre>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="sect3">
<h4 id="_run_time_limit">Run time limit</h4>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content">
<pre><tt>runtimelim 1h 2m 3s  # this will automatically kill the test if it runs for more than 1h 2m and 3s</tt></pre>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="sect3">
<h4 id="_skip">Skip</h4>
</div>
<div class="sect3">
<h4 id="_header_3">Header</h4>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content">
<pre><tt>[skip]</tt></pre>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="sect3">
<h4 id="_skip_on_still_running_tests">Skip on Still-running Tests</h4>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content">
<pre><tt># NB// If the prevrunning line exists with *any* value the test will
# automatically SKIP if the same-named test is currently RUNNING

# A item based waiton will start items in a test when the
# same-named item is COMPLETED and PASS, CHECK or WAIVED
# in the prior test
prevrunning x</tt></pre>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="sect3">
<h4 id="_skip_if_a_file_exists">Skip if a File Exists</h4>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content">
<pre><tt>fileexists /path/to/a/file # skip if /path/to/a/file exists</tt></pre>
</div></div>
</div>
<div class="sect3">
<h4 id="_controlled_waiver_propagation">Controlled waiver propagation</h4>
<div class="paragraph"><p>If test is FAIL and previous test in run with same MT_TARGET is WAIVED then apply the following rules from the testconfig:
If a waiver check is specified in the testconfig apply the check and if it passes then set this FAIL to WAIVED</p></div>
<div class="paragraph"><p>Waiver check has two parts, 1) a list of waiver, rulename, filepatterns and 2) the rulename script spec (note that "diff" and "logpro" are predefined)</p></div>
<div class="listingblock">
<div class="content">
<pre><tt>###### EXAMPLE FROM testconfig #########
# matching file(s) will be diff'd with previous run and logpro applied
# if PASS or WARN result from logpro then WAIVER state is set
#
mode   normal | toplevel
[waivers]
# logpro_file    rulename      input_glob
waiver_1         logpro        lookittmp.log

[waiver_rules]
# With a toplevel test you may wish to generate your list

# of tests to run dynamically
#
# waiton #{shell get-valid-tests-to-run.sh}</tt></pre>
# This builtin rule is the default if there is no &lt;waivername&gt;.logpro file
# diff   diff %file1% %file2%

# This builtin rule is applied if a &lt;waivername&gt;.logpro file exists
# logpro diff %file1% %file2% | logpro %waivername%.logpro %waivername%.html</tt></pre>
</div></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="sect1">
<h2 id="_example_appendix">Appendix A: Example Appendix</h2>
<div class="sectionbody">
<div class="paragraph"><p>One or more optional appendixes go here at section level zero.</p></div>
<div class="sect2">

</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="footnotes"><hr /></div>
<div id="footer">
<div id="footer-text">
Version 1.0<br />
Last updated 2013-03-25 09:17:02 MST
Last updated 2013-07-30 09:23:34 MST
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