[LSF/MM/BPF ATTEND][LSF/MM/BPF TOPIC] : blktests: status, expansion plan for the storage stack test framework

[Shin'ichiro Kawasaki]

On Feb 11, 2026 / 20:35, Chaitanya Kulkarni wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
>    Since the discussion at the LSFMM 2017 [1], Omar Sandoval introduced 
> the new
>    framework "blktests" dedicated for Linux Kernel Block layer testing.

[...]

>    For the storage track at LSFMMBPF2026, I propose a session dedicated to
>    blktests to discuss expansion plan and CI integration progress.

My thank goes to the session attendees. Here I share my memorandom about what
was discussed there. If I overlook anything, amendments will be appreciated.

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blktests CI
===========

- Regular test runs for branches (nightly or -rcX)
  - It will be helpful to run blktests for -rcX releases and report.
  - Ted has resources to run blktests regularly, but it requires someone to
    look into the test results [*]

- Repeated test case run
  - fstests has the feature to repeat failed test cases 10(x) times.

- kdevops has the feature to find out the failure recreated by 1000x times
  repeat
   -> This will be a 2nd step topic and looks too early currently.

- Kernel config for CI runs
  - Please enable DEBUG_ATOMIC_SLEEP [**]
  - Can we specify kernel config for each patch author?
    -> It will require too much resource

- PatchWork for linux-nvme
  - Good for patch status tracking also
  - Should ask kernel.org

- e-mail reporting
  - e-mail address should be available at kernel.org
  - Do not report the "ALL PASS" case. It will be noisy.
    -> Will send out report only for failure cases.

blktests improvement ideas
==========================

- For easier config:
  - Ted has the config generation tool.
  -> I'm interested in it, and would like to take a look.

- VM integration
  - VM integration script will help new users to try out blktests
  - Haris thinks this is useful: he created own VM runner like virtme-ng
  -> Will introudce virtme-ng script


[*] I would like to volunteer to take the role to look into the results.
[**] I checked later and confirmed that DEBUG_ATOMIC_SLEEP is already enabled.
     Ref: current config:
      https://github.com/linux-blktests/blktests-ci/blob/be781155bacf49bf318ee8859572fb7ca1f72aea/playbooks/roles/kernel-builder-k8s-job/templates/build-kernel.sh#L22

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I also had good talks in hallways, and got two new ideas to improve blktests:
1) "machine readable result reports" and 2) "command tracing" for easier test
case debug. I plan to work on them.

Thanks again for all of the discussion!