[LFS/MM TOPIC][LFS/MM ATTEND]: - Storage Stack and Driver Testing methodology.

[Johannes Thumshirn]

On Tue, Jan 10, 2017 at 10:40:53PM +0000, Chaitanya Kulkarni wrote:
> Resending it at as a plain text.
> 
> From: Chaitanya Kulkarni
> Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2017 2:37 PM
> To: lsf-pc at lists.linux-foundation.org
> Cc: linux-fsdevel at vger.kernel.org; linux-block at vger.kernel.org; linux-nvme at lists.infradead.org; linux-scsi at vger.kernel.org; linux-ide at vger.kernel.org
> Subject: [LFS/MM TOPIC][LFS/MM ATTEND]: - Storage Stack and Driver Testing methodology.
>   
> 
> Hi Folks,
> 
> I would like to propose a general discussion on Storage stack and device driver testing.
> 
> Purpose:-
> -------------
> The main objective of this discussion is to address the need for 
> a Unified Test Automation Framework which can be used by different subsystems
> in the kernel in order to improve the overall development and stability
> of the storage stack.
> 
> For Example:- 
> From my previous experience, I've worked on the NVMe driver testing last year and we
> have developed simple unit test framework
>  (https://github.com/linux-nvme/nvme-cli/tree/master/tests). 
> In current implementation Upstream NVMe Driver supports following subsystems:-
> 1. PCI Host.
> 2. RDMA Target.
> 3. Fiber Channel Target (in progress).
> Today due to lack of centralized automated test framework NVMe Driver testing is 
> scattered and performed using the combination of various utilities like nvme-cli/tests, 
> nvmet-cli, shell scripts (git://git.infradead.org/nvme-fabrics.git nvmf-selftests) etc.
> 
> In order to improve overall driver stability with various subsystems, it will be beneficial
> to have a Unified Test Automation Framework (UTAF) which will centralize overall
> testing. 
> 
> This topic will allow developers from various subsystem engage in the discussion about 
> how to collaborate efficiently instead of having discussions on lengthy email threads.
> 
> Participants:-
> ------------------
> I'd like to invite developers from different subsystems to discuss an approach towards 
> a unified testing methodology for storage stack and device drivers belongs to 
> different subsystems.
> 
> Topics for Discussion:-
> ------------------------------
> As a part of discussion following are some of the key points which we can focus on:-
> 1. What are the common components of the kernel used by the various subsystems?
> 2. What are the potential target drivers which can benefit from this approach? 
>   (e.g. NVMe, NVMe Over Fabric, Open Channel Solid State Drives etc.)
> 3. What are the desired features that can be implemented in this Framework?
>   (code coverage, unit tests, stress testings, regression, generating Coccinelle reports etc.) 
> 4. Desirable Report generation mechanism?
> 5. Basic performance validation?
> 6. Whether QEMU can be used to emulate some of the H/W functionality to create a test 
>   platform? (Optional subsystem specific)

Well, something I was thinking about but didn't find enough time to actually
implement is making a xfstestes like test suite written using sg3_utils for
SCSI. This idea could very well be extented to NVMe, AHCI, blk, etc...

Byte,
	Johannes
-- 
Johannes Thumshirn                                          Storage
jthumshirn at suse.de                                +49 911 74053 689
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