Checkbox¶
Checkbox is a flexible test automation software. It’s the main tool used in Ubuntu Certification program.
You can use checkbox without any modification to check if your system is behaving correctly or you can develop your own set of tests to check your needs. See Checkbox tutorials for details.
Installation¶
Checkbox can be installed from a PPA (recommended) or pypi on Ubuntu Precise (12.04) or newer.
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:hardware-certification/public && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install checkbox-ng
Table of contents¶
Using Checkbox¶
Contents
Getting Started¶
You’ve got Checkbox installed, right? Installation
To run command line version of Checkbox, in your terminal run checkbox-cli
.
You should be greeted with test plan selection screen:
With a test plan selected, you can choose the individual tests to run:
When the tests are run, the results are saved to files and the program prompts to submit them to Launchpad.
Checkbox Command Line¶
When checkbox is run without any arguments, i.e.:
$ checkbox-cli
Interactive session is started with the default options.
checkbox-cli startprovider¶
startprovider
subcommand creates a new provider, e.g.:
$ checkbox-cli startprovider com.acme:example
The command will also add example units to that provider, to create an empty
provider, use --empty
option, e.g.:
$ checkbox-cli startprovider --empty com.acme:another-example
checkbox-cli list¶
list
command prints out all units of the following type.
Currently there are following types you can list:
- job
- test plan
- category
- file
- template
- file
- manifest entry
- packaging meta-data
- exporter
- all-jobs (this special type list both, jobs and templates generating jobs and has a different output formatting)
Example:
$ checkbox-cli list job
$ checkbox-cli list "test plan"
$ checkbox-cli list all-jobs
Note
For multi-word types like ‘test plan’ remember to escape the spaces in between, or enquote the type name.
Output Formatting¶
For the ‘all-jobs’ group, the output may be formatted to suit your needs. Use
--format
option when listing all-jobs
. The string will be interpolated
using properties of the listed jobs. Invoke
checkbox-cli list all-jobs --format ?
to see available properties. If the job definition doesn’t have the specified
property, <missing $property_name>
will be printed in its place instead.
Additional property - unit_type
is provided to the formatter when listing
all jobs. It is set to ‘job’ for normal jobs and ‘template job’ for jobs
generated with a template unit.
Example:
$ checkbox-cli list all-jobs -f "{id}\n\t{tr_summary}\n"
$ checkbox-cli list all-jobs -f "{id}\n"
$ checkbox-cli list all-jobs -f "{unit_type:12} | {id:50} | {summary}\n"
Note
\n
and \t
in the formatting string are interpreted and replaced
with new line and tab respectively.
When using own formatting, the jobs are not suffixed with a new line - you have to explicitly use it.
checkbox-cli list-bootstrapped¶
This special command list all the jobs that would be run on the device after the boostrapping phase, i.e. after all the resource jobs are run, and all of the templates were instantiated.
It requires an argument being the test plan for which the bootstrapping should execute.
Example:
$ checkbox-cli list-bootstrapped com.canonical.certification::default
Similarly to the checkbox-cli list all-jobs
command, the output of
checkbox-cli list-bootstrapped
can be formatted using the -f
parameter.
See checkbox-cli list
Output Formatting section for more information.
checkbox-cli tp-export¶
tp-export
exports a test plan as a spreadsheet document. Tests are grouped
by categories and ordered alphabetically with the full description (or the job
summary if there’s no description). I addition to the description, the
certification status (blocker/non-blocker) is exported.
The session is similar to list-bootstrapped
but all resource jobs are
returning fake objects and template-filters are disabled to ensure
instantiation of template units. By default only one resource object is
returned. The only exception is the graphics_card resource where two objects are
used to simulate hybrid graphics.
The command prints the full path to the document on exit/success.
Example:
$ checkbox-cli tp-export com.canonical.certification::client-cert-18-04
It can be used to automatically generate a test case guide using a pdf converter:
Example:
$ checkbox-cli tp-export com.canonical.certification::client-cert-18-04 | xargs -d '\n' libreoffice --headless --invisible --convert-to pdf
checkbox-cli launcher¶
launcher
command lets you customize checkbox experience.
See Checkbox launchers tutorial for more details.
Note
launcher
is implied when invoking checkbox-cli with a file as the only
argument. e.g.:
$ checkbox-cli my-launcher
is equivalent to:
$ checkbox-cli launcher my-launcher
checkbox-cli run¶
run
lets you run particular test plan or a set of jobs.
To just run one test plan, use the test plan’s id as an argument, e.g.:
$ checkbox-cli run com.canonical.certification::smoke
To run a hand-picked set of jobs, use regex pattern(s) as arguments. Jobs with id matching the expression will be run, e.g.:
$ checkbox-cli run com.acme:.*
Note
The command above runs all jobs which id begins with com.acme:
will be run
You can use multiple patterns to match against, e.g.:
$ checkbox-cli run .*true .*false
Note
The command above runs all jobs which id ends with ‘true’ or ‘false’
Looking Deeper¶
Providers¶
First, we installed some “provider” packages. Providers were designed to encapsulate test descriptions and their related tools and data. Providers are shipped in Debian packages, which allows us to express dependencies to ensure required external packages are installed, and we can also separate those dependencies; for instance, the provider used for server testing doesn’t actually contain the server-specific test definitions (we try to keep all the test definitions in the Checkbox provider), but it does depend on all the packages needed for server testing. Most users will want the resource and Checkbox providers which contain many premade tests, but this organization allows shipping the tiny core and a fully customized provider without extraneous dependencies.
A provider is described in a configuration file (stored in
/usr/share/plainbox-providers-1
). This file describes where to find all
the files from the provider. This file is usually managed automatically
(more on this later). A provider can ship jobs, binaries, data and test plans.
A job or test is the smallest unit or description that Checkbox knows about. It describes a single test (historically they’re called jobs). The simplest possible job is:
id: a-job
plugin: manual
_description: Ensure your computer is turned on. Is the computer turned on?
Jobs are shipped in a provider’s jobs directory. This ultra-simple example
has three fields: id
, plugin
, and description
. (A real job
should include a _summary
field, too.) The id
identifies the job
(of course) and the _description
provides a plain-text description of
the job. In the case of this example, the description is shown to the user,
who must respond because the plugin
type is manual
. plugin
types include (but are not limited to):
manual
– A test that requires the user to perform some action and report the results.shell
– An automated test that requires no user interaction; the test is passed or failed on the basis of the return value of the script or command.resource
– Job that identifies the resources that the system has. (e.g. discrete GPU, Wi-Fi module). This information can later be used by other jobs to control other jobs’ execution. (E.g. skip Wi-Fi tests if there’s no Wi-Fi chip).user-interact
– A test that asks the user to perform some action before the test is performed. The test then passes or fails automatically based on the output of the test. An example iskeys/media-control
, which runs a tool to detect keypresses, asks the user to press volume keys, and then exits automatically once the last key has been pressed or the user clicks the skip button in the tool.user-interact-verify
– This type of test is similar to theuser-interact
test, except that the test’s output is displayed for the user, who must then decide whether it has passed or failed. An example of this would be theusb/disk_detect
test, which asks the user to insert a USB key, click thetest
button, and then verify manually that the USB key was detected correctly.user-verify
– A test that the user manually performs or runs automatically and requires the user to verify the result as passed or failed. An example of this is the graphics maximum resolution test which probes the system to determine the maximum supported resolution and then asks the user to confirm that the resolution is correct.
Understanding Checkbox¶
Checkbox by itself doesn’t test anything. It uses unit definitions grouped in providers to actually run or do something.
To better understand how Checkbox works let’s concentrate on the relationship between the following entities:
- test command (program that is invoked as a test)
- job unit
- test plan
- provider
- launcher
Test Command¶
Automated and some interactive tests use external commands to help determine the outcome of the test. For instance the command:
ping 8.8.8.8 -c 1
Will check whether the device can ping a public DNS. The command returns 0 on success (ping came back), and 1 if the ping timed out.
Let’s turn this simple command into a Checkbox test.
Job Unit¶
The command from the above paragraph can now be used in a Job Unit:
id: ping-public-dns
_summary: Ping public DNS
plugin: shell
command: ping 8.8.8.8 -c 1
Notice how the command field is a straight copy-paste of the Test Command
RELATIONSHIP: Test Command is a part of a Job Unit
Note
Some test are fully manual and don’t run any commands.
Test Plan¶
When Checkbox is run from commandline without any parameters, i.e.:
$ checkbox-cli
It doesn’t present all the tests available in the system. Checkbox asks the user which Test Plan to use.
Note
For how to directly run hand-picked jobs see: checkbox-cli run.
Test Plans are units for grouping related jobs together. They also provide a mechanism for creating new jobs in runtime. The phase in which this is done is known as bootstrapping. Good example for when the bootstrapping is needed is testing multi-GPU system. No one knows upfront which GPU(s) will be present in the system so bootstrapping phase will instantiate appropriate job units from template units.
RELATIONSHIP: Test Plan includes a job that can be run.
RELATIONSHIP: Test Plan can “generate” a job (through bootstrapping) that can be run.
You can read more about templates here: Template Unit, and about test plans here: Test Plan Unit.
Provider¶
In order for Checkbox to see any jobs, test plans, and other units, those units need to be written to a .pxu file located in a unit subdirectory of a provider available in the system.
RELATIONSHIP: Units are placed in a Provider
See Checkbox tutorials for a tutorial on how to create a provider from scratch.
Launcher¶
Launchers can be used to make it easier to run Checkbox in a preset way.
- Those can for instance preset:
- which test plan to use
- whether the session should be interactive or automated
- which tests to exclude
- how and where to submit the results
There is a full launcher tutorial here: Checkbox launchers tutorial.
Checkbox tutorials¶
Creating an empty provider¶
Plainbox Providers are bundles containing information how to run tests.
To create an empty provider run:
$ plainbox startprovider --empty com.example:myprovider
plainbox
is the internal tool of checkbox. It’s used on rare occasions,
like creating a new provider. --empty
informs plainbox that you want to
start from scratch. com.example:myprovider
is the name of the provider.
Providers use IQN naming, it helps in tracking down ownership of the provider.
Plainbox Jobs are the things that describe how tests are run. Those Jobs are defined in .pxu files, in ‘units’ directory of the provider.
The provider we’ve just created doesn’t have that directory, let’s create it:
$ cd com.example\:myprovider
$ mkdir units
Adding a simple job to a provider¶
Jobs loosely follow RFC822 syntax. I.e. most content follow key:value
pattern.
Let’s add a simple job that runs a command.
Open any .pxu
file in units
directory of the provider
(if there isn’t any, just create one, like units.pxu
).
And add following content:
id: my-first-job
flags: simple
command: mycommand
id
is used for identification purposes
flags
enables extra features. In the case of simple
, it lets us not
specify all the typical fields - Checkbox will infer some values for us.
command
specifies which command to run. Here it’s mycommand
In order for jobs to be visible in Checkbox they have to be included in some
test plan. Let’s add a test plan definition to the same .pxu
file.:
unit: test plan
id: first-tp
name: My first test plan
include: my-first-job
Warning
Separated entities in the .pxu file has to be separated by at least one empty line.
Running jobs from a newly created provider¶
In order for Checkbox to see the provider we have to install it. To do so run:
$ sudo ./manage.py install
Now we’re ready to launch Checkbox! Start the command line version with:
$ checkbox-cli
Follow the instructions on the screen. The test will (probably) fail, because
of mycommand
missing in your system. Let’s change the job definition to do
something meaningful instead. Open units.pxu
, and change the line:
command: mycommand
to
command: [ `df -B 1G --output=avail $HOME |tail -n1` -gt 10 ]
Note
This command checks if there’s at least 10GB of free space in $HOME
This change won’t be available just yet, as we still have an old version of the provider installed in the system. Let’s remove the previous version, and install the new one.:
$ sudo rm -rf /usr/local/lib/plainbox-providers-1/com.example\:myprovider/
$ sudo ./manage.py install
This sudo operations (hopefully) look dangerous to you. See next part to see how to avoid that.
Developing provider without constantly reinstalling it¶
Instead of reinstalling the provider every time you change anything in it, you can make Checkbox read it directly from the place you’re changing it in.:
$ ./manage.py develop
Because now Checkbox may see two instances of the same provider, make sure you remove the previous one.
Note
./manage.py
develop doesn’t require sudo, as it makes all the
references in user’s home.
Improving job definition¶
When you run Checkbox you see the job displayed as ‘my-first-job’ which is the
id of the job, which is not very human-friendly. This is because of the
simple
flag. Let’s improve our Job definition. Open units.pxu
and
replace the job definition with:
id: my-first-job
_summary: 10GB available in $HOME
_description:
this test checks if there's at least 10gb of free space in user's home
directory
plugin: shell
estimated_duration: 0.01
command: [ `df -B 1G --output=avail $HOME |tail -n1` -gt 10 ]
New stuff:
_summary: 10GB available in $HOME
Summary is shown in Checkbox screens where jobs are selected. It’s a
human-friendly identification of the job. It should should be short (50 - 70
chars), as it’s printed in one line. _
means at the beginning means
the field is translatable.
_purpose:
this test checks if there's at least 10gb of free space in user's home
directory
Purpose as the name suggest should describe the purpose of the test.
plugin: shell
Plugin tells Checkbox what kind of job is it. shell
means it’s a automated
test that runs a command and uses it’s return code to determine jobs outcome.
estimated_duration: 0.01
Tells Checkbox how long the test is expected to run. This field is currently informative only.
Checkbox Remote¶
It is possible to run Checkbox tests on a device that you don’t or cannot have traditional control over (mouse/keyboard).
By using Checkbox Remote facilities you can use Checkbox on one device to control Checkbox running on a different device.
This is especially useful on headless devices.
Comparison with SSH¶
It’s easy to lose SSH connection with the SUT, and if the device doesn’t offer screen-like funcitonality then the Checkbox session has to be started over.
When a UI is drawn a lot of data is transmitted through the network. Checkbox Remote sends lean data only.
Nomenclature¶
Checkbox Slave - the Checkbox instance that runs on the System or Device under test and _executes_ the tests.
Checkbox Master - Checkbox instance that controls the execution of tests on the Slave, such as a laptop.
- Invocation:
- Slave:
checkbox-cli slave
- Master:
checkbox-cli master HOST [/PATH/TO/LAUNCHER]
HOST can be an IP or a hostname that your device can resolve.
LAUNCHER (optional) a launcher file to use that exists somewhere on the machine you are using as the Master.
- Example:
checkbox-cli master dut8.local /home/ubuntu/testplans/sutton-client
Custom port¶
By default Slave listens on port 18871. To change that --port
option can be
used. The same option used on Master specifies which port to connect to.
- Example:
checkbox-cli slave --port 10101
checkbox-cli master dut8.local --port 10101
Session control¶
While Master is connected, sending SIGINT (hitting ctrl+c) to the application invokes the interrupt screen:
First action is “Cancel the interruption”, which returns to the session (Does nothing). You can also press ESC on the Interruption screen to select that action.
Second action is “Disconnect the master”. It leaves the session on the Slave running, but the Master exits. You can also hit ctrl+c again to select that action (terminate the master). You can reconnect to the Slave and resume testing like the interruption never happened.
Third action is “Stop the Checkbox slave”. It stops the session and terminates the Checkbox process on the Slave. It also stops the master.
Fourth action is “Abandon the session”. It stops and _removes_ the session on the Slave and immediately starts another one. After the new session is started Master is greeted with test plan selection screen. This is a good moment to disconnect the master if you wish to run testing at a later time.
Remote session characteristics¶
Differences between remote session and a local one are:
- Unless session is explicitly abandoned, Checkbox Slave always resumes the last session.
- After testing is done, Slave starts another session
- Submission is done from the Master by default (use:
local_submission = No
in launcher or config to change that)- When Master reconnects mid interactive test, the test is restarted.
- Hitting ctrl+c in Master doesn’t interrupt the running test.
Checkbox Unit Types¶
Checkbox execution is governed by Units.
All units follow Plainbox RFC822 Specification.
Job Unit¶
A job unit is a smallest unit of testing that can be performed by Checkbox. All jobs have an unique name. There are many types of jobs, some are fully automated others are fully manual. Some jobs are only an implementation detail and a part of the internal architecture of Checkbox.
File format and location¶
Jobs are expressed as sections in text files that conform somewhat to the
rfc822
specification format. Our variant of the format is described in
rfc822. Each record defines a single job.
Job Fields¶
Following fields may be used by the job unit:
id
:- (mandatory) - A name for the job. Should be unique, an error will
be generated if there are duplicates. Should contain characters in
[a-z0-9/-].
This field used to be called
name
. That name is now deprecated. For backwards compatibility it is still recognized and used ifid
is missing. summary
:- (mandatory) - A human readable name for the job. This value is available for translation into other languages. It is used when listing jobs. It must be one line long, ideally it should be short (50-70 characters max).
plugin
:(mandatory) - For historical reasons it’s called “plugin” but it’s better thought of as describing the “type” of job. The allowed types are:
manual: jobs that require the user to perform an action and then decide on the test’s outcome. shell: jobs that run without user intervention and automatically set the test’s outcome. user-interact: jobs that require the user to perform an interaction, after which the outcome is automatically set. user-interact-verify: jobs that require the user to perform an interaction, run a command after which the user is asked to decide on the test’s outcome. This is essentially a manual job with a command. attachment: jobs whose command output will be attached to the test report or submission. resource: A job whose command output results in a set of rfc822 records, containing key/value pairs, and that can be used in other jobs’ requires
expressions.requires
:(optional). If specified, the job will only run if the conditions expressed in this field are met.
Conditions are of the form
<resource>.<key> <comparison-operator> 'value' (and|or) ...
. Comparison operators can be ==, != andin
. Values to compare to can be scalars or (in the case of thein
operator) arrays or tuples. Thenot in
operator is explicitly unsupported.Requirements can be logically chained with
or
andand
operators. They can also be placed in multiple lines, respecting the rfc822 multi-line syntax, in which case all requirements must be met for the job to run (and
ed).depends
:- (optional). If specified, the job will only run if all the listed jobs have run and passed. Multiple job names, separated by spaces, can be specified.
after
:(optional). If specified, the job will only run if all the listed jobs have run (regardless of the outcome). Multiple job names, separated by spaces, can be specified.
This feature is available since plainbox 0.24.
command
:(optional). A command can be provided, to be executed under specific circumstances. For
manual
,user-interact
anduser-verify
jobs, the command will be executed when the user presses a “test” button present in the user interface. Forshell
jobs, the command will be executed unconditionally as soon as the job is started. In both cases the exit code from the command (0 for success, !0 for failure) will be used to set the test’s outcome. Formanual
,user-interact
anduser-verify
jobs, the user can override the command’s outcome. The command will be run using the default system shell. If a specific shell is needed it should be instantiated in the command. A multi-line command or shell script can be used with the usual multi-line syntax.Note that a
shell
job without a command will do nothing.purpose
:- (optional). Purpose field is used in tests requiring human interaction as an information about what a given test is supposed to do. User interfaces should display content of this field prior to test execution. This field may be omitted if the summary field is supplied. Note that this field is applicable only for human interaction jobs.
steps
:- (optional). Steps field depicts actions that user should perform as a part of job execution. User interfaces should display the content of this field upon starting the test. Note that this field is applicable only for jobs requiring the user to perform some actions.
verification
:- (optional). Verification field is used to inform the user how they can resolve a given job outcome. Note that this field is applicable only for jobs the result of which is determined by the user.
user
:- (optional). If specified, the job will be run as the user specified here. This is most commonly used to run jobs as the superuser (root).
environ
:- (optional). If specified, the listed environment variables
(separated by spaces) will be taken from the invoking environment
(i.e. the one Checkbox is run under) and set to that value on the
job execution environment (i.e. the one the job will run under).
Note that only the variable names should be listed, not the
values, which will be taken from the existing environment. This
only makes sense for jobs that also have the
user
attribute. This key provides a mechanism to account for security policies insudo
andpkexec
, which provide a sanitized execution environment, with the downside that useful configuration specified in environment variables may be lost in the process.
estimated_duration
:(optional) This field contains metadata about how long the job is expected to run for, as a positive float value indicating the estimated job duration in seconds.
Since plainbox version 0.24 this field can be expressed in two formats. The old format, a floating point number of seconds is somewhat difficult to read for larger values. To avoid mistakes test designers can use the second format with separate sections for number of hours, minutes and seconds. The format, as regular expression, is
(\d+h)?[: ]*(\d+m?)[: ]*(\d+s)?
. The regular expression expresses an optional number of hours, followed by theh
character, followed by any number of spaces or:
characters, followed by an optional number of minutes, followed by them
character, again followed by any number of spaces or:
characters, followed by the number of seconds, ultimately followed by thes
character.The values can no longer be fractional (you cannot say
2.5m
you need to say2m 30s
). We feel that sub-second granularity does is too unpredictable to be useful so that will not be supported in the future.flags
:(optional) This fields contains list of flags separated by spaces or commas that might induce plainbox to run the job in particular way. Currently, following flags are inspected by plainbox:
reset-locale
:- This flag makes Checkbox reset locale before running the job.
win32
:- This flag makes plainbox run jobs’ commands in windows-specific manner. Attach this flag to jobs that are run on Windows OS.
noreturn
:- This flag makes plainbox suspend execution after job’s command is run.
This prevents scenario where plainbox continued to operate (writing
session data to disk and so on), while other process kills it (leaving
plainbox session in unwanted/undefined state).
Attach this flag to jobs that cause killing of plainbox process during
their operation. E.g. run shutdown, reboot, etc.
This flag also makes Checkbox to leave a
__checkbox_respawn
file in the$PLAINBOX_SESSION_SHARE
directory which can be used by the test to automatically resume session. (For instance after a reboot).
explicit-fail
:- Use this flag to make entering comment mandatory, when the user manually fails the job.
has-leftovers
:- This flag makes plainbox silently ignore (and not log) any files left over by the execution of the command associated with a job. This flag is useful for jobs that don’t bother with maintenance of temporary directories and just want to rely on the one already created by plainbox.
simple
:This flag makes plainbox disable certain validation advice and have some sensible defaults for automated test cases. This simplification is meant to cut the boiler plate on jobs that are closer to unit tests than elaborate manual interactions.
In practice the following changes are in effect when this flag is set:
- the plugin field defaults to shell
- the description field is entirely optional
- the estimated_duration field is entirely optional
- the preserve-locale flag is entirely optional
A minimal job using the simple flag looks as follows:
id: foo command: echo "Jobs are simple!" flags: simple
preserve-cwd
:- This flag makes plainbox run the job command in the current working directory without creating a temp folder (and running the command from this temp folder). Sometimes needed on snappy (See http://pad.lv/1618197)
fail-on-resource
:- This flag makes plainbox fail the job if one of the resource requirements evaluates to False.
also-after-suspend
: Seesiblings
below.
also-after-suspend-manual
: Seesiblings
below.Additional flags may be present in job definition; they are ignored.
cachable
:- Saves the output of a resource job in the system, so the next time the session is started recorded output is used making the session bootstrap faster.
This flag has no effect on jobs other than resource.
siblings
:(optional) This field creates copies of the current job definition but using a dictionary of overridden fields. The intend is to reduce the amount of job definitions when only a few changes are required to make a job. For example we often run the same test after suspend. In that case only a new id, a new job dependency (e.g suspend/advanced) and an updated summary are required. Other possible uses of this feature are tests creation for a fixed/limited list of external ports (USB port 1, USB port 2). Useful when such enumerations cannot be computed from a resource job. This field is interpreted as a JSON blob, an array of dictionaries.
A minimal job using the siblings field looks as follows:
id: foo _summary: foo foo foo command: echo "Hello world" flags: simple _siblings: [ { "id": "foo-after-suspend", "_summary": "foo foo foo after suspend", "depends": suspend/advanced} ]
Another example creating two more jobs in order to cover a total of 3 external USB ports:
id: usb_test_port1 _summary: usb stress test_(port 1) command: usb_stress.py flags: simple _siblings: [ { "id": "usb_test_port2", "_summary": "usb stress test_(port 2)"}, { "id": "usb_test_port3", "_summary": "usb stress test_(port 3)"}, ]
For convenience two flags can be set (
also-after-suspend
andalso-after-suspend-manual
) to create siblings with predefined settings to add “after suspend” jobs.Given the base job:
id:foo _summary: bar flags: also-after-suspend also-after-suspend-manual [...]
The
also-after-suspend
flag is a shortcut to create the following job:id: after-suspend-foo _summary: bar after suspend (S3) depends: com.canonical.certification::suspend/suspend_advanced_auto
also-after-suspend-manual
is a shortcut to create the following job:id: after-suspend-manual-foo _summary: bar after suspend (S3) depends: com.canonical.certification::suspend/suspend_advanced
Warning
The curly braces used in this field have to be escaped when used in a template job (python format, Jinja2 templates do not have this issue). The syntax for templates is:
_siblings: [
{{ "id": "bar-after-suspend_{interface}",
"_summary": "bar after suspend",
"depends": suspend/advanced}}
]
imports
:(optional) This field lists all the resource jobs that will have to be imported from other namespaces. This enables jobs to use resources from other namespaces. You can use the “as …” syntax to import jobs that have dashes, slashes or other characters that would make them invalid as identifiers and give them a correct identifier name. E.g.:
imports: from com.canonical.certification import cpuinfo requires: 'armhf' in cpuinfo.platform imports: from com.canonical.certification import cpu-01-info as cpu01 requires: 'avx2' in cpu01.other
The syntax of each imports line is:
IMPORT_STMT :: "from" <NAMESPACE> "import" <PARTIAL_ID> | "from" <NAMESPACE> "import" <PARTIAL_ID> AS <IDENTIFIER>
Test Plan Unit¶
The test plan unit is a facility that describes a sequence of job definitions that should be executed together.
Jobs definitions are _selected_ by either listing their identifier or a regular expression that matches their identifier. Selected jobs are executed in the sequence they appear in the list, unless they need to be reordered to satisfy dependencies which always take priority.
Test plans can contain additional meta-data which can be used in a graphical user interface. You can assign a translatable name and description to each test plan.
Test plans are also typical units so they can be defined with the familiar RFC822-like syntax that is also used for job definitions. They can also be multiple test plan definitions per file, just like with all the other units, including job definitions.
Test Plan Fields¶
The following fields can be used in a test plan. Note that not all fields need to be used or even should be used. Please remember that Checkbox needs to maintain backwards compatibility so some of the test plans it defines may have non-typical constructs required to ensure proper behavior. You don’t have to copy such constructs when working on a new test plan from scratch
id
:Each test plan needs to have a unique identifier. This is exactly the same as with other units that have an identifier (like job definitions and categories).
This field is not used for display purposes but you may need to refer to it on command line so keeping it descriptive is useful
name
:A human-readable name of the test plan. The name should be relatively short as it may be used to display a list of test plans to the test operator.
Remember that the user or the test operator may not always be familiar with the scope of testing that you are focusing on. Also consider that multiple test providers may be always installed at the same time. The translated version of the name (and icon, see below) is the only thing that needs to allow the test operator to pick the right test plan.
- Please use short and concrete names like:
- “Storage Device Certification Tests”
- “Ubuntu Core Application’s Clock Acceptance Tests”
- “Default Ubuntu Hardware Certification Tests”.
The field has a soft limit of eighty characters. It cannot have multiple lines. This field should be marked as translatable by prepending the underscore character (_) in front. This field is mandatory.
description
:A human-readable description of this test plan. Here you can include as many or few details as you’d like. Some applications may offer a way of viewing this data. In general it is recommended to include a description of what is being tested so that users can make an informed decision but please in mind that the
name
field alone must be sufficient to discriminate between distinct test plans so you don’t have to duplicate that information in the description.If your tests will require any special set-up (procuring external hardware, setting some devices or software in special test mode) it is recommended to include this information here.
The field has no size limit. It can contain newline characters. This field should be marked as translatable by prepending the underscore character (_) in front. This field is optional.
include
:A multi-line list of job identifiers or patterns matching such identifiers that should be included for execution.
This is the most important field in any test plan. It basically decides on which job definitions are selected by (included by) the test plan. Separate entries need to be placed on separate lines. White space does not separate entries as the id field may (sic!) actually include spaces.
You have two options for selecting tests:
- You can simply list the identifier (either partial or fully qualified) of the job you want to include in the test plan directly. This is very common and most test plans used by Checkbox actually look like that.
- You can use regular expressions to select many tests at the same time. This is the only way to select generated jobs (created by template units). Please remember that the dot character has a special meaning so unless you actually want to match any character escape the dot with the backslash character (\).
Regardless of if you use patterns or literal job identifiers you can use their fully qualified name (the one that includes the namespace they reside in) or an abbreviated form. The abbreviated form is applicable for job definitions that reside in the same namespace (but not necessarily the same provider) as the provider that is defining the test plan.
Plainbox will catch incorrect references to unknown jobs so you should be relatively safe. Have a look at the examples section below for examples on how you can refer to jobs from other providers (you simply use their fully qualified name for that)
mandatory_include
:A multi-line list of job identifiers or patterns matching such identifiers that should always be executed.
This optional field can be used to specify the jobs that should always run. This is particularly useful for specifying jobs that gather vital info about the tested system, as it renders impossible to generate a report with no information about system under test.
For example, session results meant to be sent to the Ubuntu certification website must include the special job: miscellanea/submission-resources
Example:
- mandatory_include:
- miscellanea/submission-resources
Note that mandatory jobs will always be run first (along with their dependent jobs)
bootstrap_include
:A multi-line list of job identifiers that should be run first, before the main body of testing begins. The job that should be included in the bootstrapping sections are the ones generating or helping to generate other jobs.
Example:
- bootstrap_include:
- graphics/generator_driver_version
Note that each entry in the bootstrap_include section must be a valid job identifier and cannot be a regular expression pattern. Also note that only resource jobs are allowed in this section.
exclude
:A multi-line list of job identifiers or patterns matching such identifiers that should be excluded from execution.
This optional field can be used to prevent some jobs from being selected for execution. It follows the similarly named
-x
command line option to theplainbox run
command.This field may be used when a general (broad) selection is somehow made by the
include
field and it must be trimmed down (for example, to prevent a specific dangerous job from running). It has the same syntax as theinclude
.When a job is both included and excluded, exclusion always takes priority.
category-overrides
:A multi-line list of category override statements.
This optional field can be used to alter the natural job definition category association. Currently Plainbox allows each job definition to associate itself with at most one category (see plainbox-category-units(7) and plainbox-job-units(7) for details). This is sub-optimal as some tests can be easily assigned equally well to two categories at the same time.
For that reason, it may be necessary, in a particular test plan, to override the natural category association with one that more correctly reflects the purpose of a specific job definition in the context of a specific test plan.
For example let’s consider a job definition that tests if a specific piece of hardware works correctly after a suspend-resume cycle. Let’s assume that the job definition has a natural association with the category describing such hardware devices. In one test plan, this test will be associated with the hardware-specific category (using the natural association). In a special suspend-resume test plan the same job definition can be associated with a special suspend-resume category.
The actual rules as to when to use category overrides and how to assign a natural category to a specific test is not documented here. We believe that each project should come up with a workflow and semantics that best match its users.
The syntax of this field is a list of statements defined on separate lines. Each override statement has the following form:
apply CATEGORY-IDENTIFIER to JOB-DEFINITION-PATTERN
Both ‘apply’ and ‘to’ are literal strings. CATEGORY-IDENTIFIER is the identifier of a category unit. The JOB-DEFINITION-PATTERN has the same syntax as the
include
field does. That is, it can be either a simple string or a regular expression that is being compared to identifiers of all the known job definitions. The pattern can be either partially or fully qualified. That is, it may or may not include the namespace component of the job definition identifier.Overrides are applied in order and the last applied override is the effective override in a given test plan. For example, given the following two overrides:
apply cat-1 to .* apply cat-2 to foo
The job definition with the partial identifier
foo
will be associated with thecat-2
category.
estimated_duration
:An approximate time to execute this test plan, in seconds.
Since plainbox version 0.24 this field can be expressed in two formats. The old format, a floating point number of seconds is somewhat difficult to read for larger values. To avoid mistakes test designers can use the second format with separate sections for number of hours, minutes and seconds. The format, as regular expression, is
(\d+h)?[: ]*(\d+m?)[: ]*(\d+s)?
. The regular expression expresses an optional number of hours, followed by theh
character, followed by any number of spaces or:
characters, followed by an optional number of minutes, followed by them
character, again followed by any number of spaces or:
characters, followed by the number of seconds, ultimately followed by thes
character.The values can no longer be fractional (you cannot say
2.5m
you need to say2m 30s
). We feel that sub-second granularity does is too unpredictable to be useful so that will not be supported in the future.This field is optional. If it is missing it is automatically computed by the identical field that may be specified on particular job definitions.
Since sometimes it is easier to think in terms of test plans (they are typically executed more often than a specific job definition) this estimate may be more accurate as it doesn’t include the accumulated sum of mis-estimates from all of the job definitions selected by a particular test plan.
Examples¶
A simple test plan that selects several jobs:
id: foo-bar-and-froz
_name: Tests Foo, Bar and Froz
_description:
This example test plan selects the following three jobs:
- Foo
- Bar
- Froz
include:
foo
bar
froz
A test plan that uses jobs from another provider’s namespace in addition to some of its own definitions:
id: extended-tests
_name: Extended Storage Tests (By Corp Inc.)
_description:
This test plan runs an extended set of storage tests, customized
by the Corp Inc. corporation. In addition to the standard Ubuntu
set of storage tests, this test plan includes the following tests::
- Multipath I/O Tests
- Degraded Array Recovery Tests
include:
com.canonical.certification:disk/.*
multipath-io
degrade-array-recovery
A test plan that generates jobs using bootstrap_include section:
unit: test plan
id: test-plan-with-bootstrapping
_name: Tests with a bootstrapping stage
_description:
This test plan uses bootstrapping_include field to generate additional
jobs depending on the output of the generator job.
include: .*
bootstrap_include:
generator
unit: job
id: generator
plugin: resource
_description: Job that generates Foo and Bar resources
command:
echo "my_resource: Foo"
echo
echo "my_resource: Bar"
unit: template
template-unit: job
template-resource: generator
plugin: shell
estimated_duration: 1
id: generated_job_{my_resource}
command: echo {my_resource}
_description: Job instantiated from template that echoes {my_resource}
A test plan that marks some jobs as mandatory:
unit: test plan
id: test-plan-with-mandatory-jobs
_name: Test plan with mandatory jobs
_description:
This test plan runs some jobs regardless of user selection.
include:
Foo
mandatory_include:
Bar
unit: job
id: Foo
_name: Foo job
_description: Job that might be deselected by the user
plugin: shell
command: echo Foo job
unit: job
id: Bar
_name: Bar job (mandatory)
_description: Job that should *always* run
plugin: shell
command: echo Bar job
Category Unit¶
The category unit is a normalized implementation of a “test category” concept. Using category units one can define logical groups of tests that deal with some specific testing area (for example, suspend-resume or USB support).
Job definitions can be associated with at most one category. Categories can be used by particular applications to facilitate test selection.
Category Fields¶
There are two fields that are used by the category unit:
id
:This field defines the partial identifier of the category. It is similar to the id field on the job definition units.
This field is mandatory.
name
:This field defines a human readable name of the category. It may be used in application user interfaces for displaying a group of tests.
This field is translatable. This field is mandatory.
Rationale¶
The unit is a separate entity so that it can be shipped separately of job definitions and so that it can gain a localizable name that can still be referred to uniquely by any job definition.
In the future it is likely that the unit will be extended with additional fields, for example to define an icon.
Note¶
Association between job definitions and categories can be overridden by a particular test plan. Please refer to the test plan unit documentation for details.
Examples¶
Given the following definition of a category unit:
unit: category
id: audio
_name: Audio tests
And the following definition of a job unit:
id: audio/speaker-headphone-plug-detection
category_id: audio
plugin: manual
_description: Plug in your headphones and ensure the system detected them
The job definition will be a part of the audio category.
Resource Job Units¶
Resources¶
Resources are a mechanism that allows to constrain certain job to execute only on devices with appropriate hardware or software dependencies. This mechanism allows some types of jobs to publish resource objects to an abstract namespace and to a way to evaluate a resource program to determine if a job can be started.
Resources also serve as a ‘generator’ for template units. See Template Unit
Resource Jobs¶
Resource Jobs are jobs with a plugin set to resource:
plugin: resource
Command that they run should print resource information in a predefined manner. This command may be considered a Resource Program
Resource programs¶
Resource programs are multi-line statements that can be embedded in job definitions. By far, the most common use case is to check if a required package is installed, and thus, the job can use it as a part of a test. A check like this looks like this:
package.name == "fwts"
This resource program codifies that the job needs the fwts
package to run.
There is a companion job with the same name that interrogates the local package
database and publishes a set of resource objects. Each such object is a
collection of arbitrary key-value pairs. The package
job simply publishes
the name
and version
of each installed package but the mechanism is
generic and applies to all resources.
As stated, resource programs can be multi-line, a real world example of that is presented below:
device.category == 'CDROM'
optical_drive.cd == 'writable'
This example is much like the one above, referring to some resources, here
coming from jobs device
and optical_drive
. What is important to point
out is that, as a rule of a thumb, multi line programs have an implicit and
operator between each line. This program would only evaluate to True if there
is a writable CD-ROM available.
Each resource program is composed of resource expressions. Each line maps directly onto one expression so the example program above uses two resource expressions.
Resource expressions¶
Resource expressions are evaluated like normal python programs. They use all of the same syntax, semantics and behavior. None of the operators are overridden to do anything unexpected. The evaluator tries to follow the principle of least surprise but this is not always possible.
Resource expressions cannot execute arbitrary python code. In general almost everything is disallowed, except as noted below:
- Expressions can use any literals (strings, numbers, True, False, lists and tuples)
- Expressions can use boolean operators (
and
,or
,not
) - Expressions can use all comparison operators
- Expressions can use all binary and unary operators
- Expressions can use the set membership operator (
in
) - Expressions can use read-only attribute access
Anything else is rejected as an invalid resource expression.
In addition to that, each resource expression must use at least one variable,
which must be used like an object with attributes. The name of that variable
must correspond to the name of the job that generates resources. You can use
the imports
field (at a job definition level) to rename a resource job to
be compatible with the identifier syntax. It can also be used to refer to
resources from another namespace.
In the examples elsewhere in this page the package
resources are generated
by the package
job. Plainbox uses this to know which resources to try but
also to implicitly to express dependencies so that the package
job does not
have to be explicitly selected and marked for execution prior to the job that
in fact depends on it. This is all done automatically.
Example¶
The job definition below generates a RTC resource:
id: rtc
estimated_duration: 0.02
plugin: resource
command:
if [ -e /sys/class/rtc ]
then
echo "state: supported"
else
echo "state: unsupported"
fi
_description: Creates resource info for RTC
Next let’s define a Job that uses that resource.
plugin: shell
category_id: com.canonical.plainbox::power-management
id: power-management/rtc
requires:
rtc.state == 'supported'
package.name == 'util-linux'
cpuinfo.other != 'emulated by qemu'
user: root
command: hwclock -r
estimated_duration: 0.02
_summary: Test that RTC functions properly (if present)
_description:
Verify that the Real-time clock (RTC) device functions properly, if present.
Now the power-management/rtc job will only be run on systems where
/sys/class/rtc
directory exists (which is true for systems supporting RTC)
Evaluation¶
- First Plainbox looks at the resource program and splits it into lines. Each non-empty line is parsed and converted to a resource expression.
- unexpected Each resource expression is repeatedly evaluated, once for
each resource from the group determined by the variable name. All exceptions
are silently ignored and treated as if the iteration had evaluated to False.
The whole resource expression evaluates to
True
if any of the iterations evaluated toTrue
. In other words, there is an implicitany()
around each resource expression, iterating over all resources. - unexpected The resource program evaluates to
True
only if all resource expressions evaluated toTrue
. In other words, there is an implicitand
between each line.
Limitations¶
The design of resource programs has the following shortcomings. The list is non-exhaustive, it only contains issues that we came across found not to work in practice.
Joins are not optimized¶
Starting with plainbox 0.24, a resource expression can use more than one resource object (resource job) at the same time. This allows the use of joins as the whole expression is evaluated over the cartesian product of all the resource records. This operation is not optimized, you can think of it as a JOIN that is performed on a database without any indices.
Let’s look at a practical example:
package.name == desired_package.name
Here, two resource jobs would run. The classic package resource (that
produces, typically, a great number of resource records, one for each package
installed on the system) and a hypothetical desired_package resource (for
this example let’s pretend that it is a simple constant resource that just
contains one object). Here, this operation is not any worse than before because
size(desired_package) * size(package)
is not any larger. If, however,
desired_package was on the same order as package (approximately a thousand
resource objects). Then the computational cost of evaluating that expression
would be quadratic.
In general, the cost, assuming all resources have the same order, is exponential with the number of distinct resource jobs referenced by the expression.
Exactly one resource bound to a variable at once¶
It’s not possible to refer to two different resources, from the same resource group, in one resource expression. In other terms, the variable always points to one object, it is not a collection of objects.
For example, let’s consider this program:
package.name == 'xorg' and package.name == 'procps'
Seemingly the intent was to ensure that both xorg
and procps
are
installed. The reason why this does not work is that at each iteration of the
the expression evaluator, the name package
refers to exactly one resource
object. In other words, that expression is equivalent to this one:
A == True and A == False
This type of error is not captured by our limited semantic analyzer. It will silently evaluate to False and inhibit the job from being stated.
To work around this, split the expression to two consecutive lines. As stated
in rule 3 in the list above, there is an implicit and
operator between all
expressions. A working example that expresses the same intent looks like this:
package.name == 'xorg'
package.name == 'procps'
Operator != is useless¶
This is strange at first but quickly becomes obvious once you recall rule 2
from the list above. That rule states that the expression is evaluated
repeatedly for each resource from a particular group and that any True
iteration marks the whole expression as True
).
Let’s look at a real-world example:
xinput.device_class == 'XITouchClass' and xinput.touch_mode != 'dependent'
So seemingly, the intent here was to have at least xinput
resource with a
device_class
attribute equal to XITouchClass
that has touch_mode
attribute equal to anything but dependent
.
Now let’s assume that we have exactly two resources in the xinput
group:
device_class: XITouchClass
touch_mode: dependent
device_class: XITouchClass
touch_mode: something else
Now, this expression will evaluate to True
, as the second resource fulfills
the requirements. Is this what the test designer had expected? That’s hard to
say. The problem here is that this expression can be understood as at least
one resource isn’t something or all resources weren’t something. Both
are equally valid desires and, depending on how the test is implemented, may or
many not work correctly in practice.
Currently there is no workaround. We are considering adding a new syntax that would allow to specify this explicitly. The proposal is documented below as “implicit any(), explicit all()”
Everything is a string¶
Resource programs are regular python programs evaluated in unusual ways but all of the variables that are exposed through the resource object are strings.
This has considerable impact on comparison, unless you are comparing to a string the comparison will always silently fail as python has dynamic but strict, not loose types (there is no implicit type conversion). To alleviate this problem several type names / conversion functions are allowed in requirement programs. Those are:
Template Unit¶
The template unit is a variant of Plainbox unit types. A template is a skeleton
for defining additional units, typically job definitions. A template is defined
as a typical RFC822-like Plainbox unit (like a typical job definition) with the
exception that all the fields starting with the string template-
are
reserved for the template itself while all the other fields are a definition of
all the eventual instances of the template.
Template-Specific Fields¶
There are four fields that are specific to the template unit:
template-unit
:Name of the unit type this template will generate. By default job definition units are generated (as if the field was specified with the value of
job
) eventually but other values may be used as well.This field is optional.
template-resource
:Name of the resource job (if it is a compatible resource identifier) to use to parametrize the template. This must either be a name of a resource job available in the namespace the template unit belongs to or a valid resource identifier matching the definition in the
template-imports
field.This field is mandatory.
template-imports
:A resource import statement. It can be used to refer to arbitrary resource job by its full identifier and (optionally) give it a short variable name.
The syntax of each imports line is:
IMPORT_STMT :: "from" <NAMESPACE> "import" <PARTIAL_ID> | "from" <NAMESPACE> "import" <PARTIAL_ID> AS <IDENTIFIER>
The short syntax exposes
PARTIAL_ID
as the variable name available within all the fields defined within the template unit. If it is not a valid variable name then the second form must be used.This field is sometimes optional. It becomes mandatory when the resource job definition is from another provider namespace or when it is not a valid resource identifier and needs to be aliased.
template-filter
:A resource program that limits the set of records from which template instances will be made. The syntax of this field is the same as the syntax of typical job definition unit’s
requires
field, that is, it is a python expression.When defined, the expression is evaluated once for each resource object and if it evaluates successfully to a True value then that particular resource object is used to instantiate a new unit.
This field is optional.
template-engine
:Name of the template engine to use, default is python string formatting (See PEP 3101). Currently the only other supported engine is jinja2.
This field is optional.
Instantiation¶
When a template is instantiated, a single record object is used to fill in the
parametric values to all the applicable fields. Each field is formatted using
the template-engine (default is python formatting language. Within each field
the record is exposed as the variable named by the template_resource
field.
Record data is exposed as attributes of that object.
The special parameter __index__
can be used to iterate over the devices
matching the template-filter
field.
Examples¶
Basic example¶
The following example contains a simplified template that instantiates to a simple storage test. The test is only instantiated for devices that are considered physical. In this example we don’t want to spam the user with a long list of loopback devices. This is implemented by exposing that data in the resource job itself:
id: device
plugin: resource
command:
echo 'path: /dev/sda'
echo 'has_media: yes'
echo 'physical: yes'
echo
echo 'path: /dev/cdrom'
echo 'has_media: no'
echo 'physical: yes'
echo
echo 'path: /dev/loop0'
echo 'has_media: yes'
echo 'physical: no'
The template defines a test-storage-XXX
test where XXX
is replaced by
the path of the device. Only devices which are physical according to some
definition are considered for testing. This means that the record related to
/dev/loop0
will be ignored and will not instantiate a test job for that
device. This feature can be coupled with the existing resource requirement to
let the user know that we did see their CD-ROM device but it was not tested as
there was no inserted media at the time:
unit: template
template-resource: device
template-filter: device.physical == 'yes'
requires: device.has_media == 'yes'
id: test-storage-{path}
plugin: shell
command: perform-testing-on --device {path}
Real life example¶
Here is a real life example of a template unit that generates a job for each hard drive available on the system:
unit: template
template-resource: device
template-filter: device.category == 'DISK'
plugin: shell
category_id: com.canonical.plainbox::disk
id: disk/stats_{name}
requires:
device.path == "{path}"
block_device.{name}_state != 'removable'
user: root
command: disk_stats_test {name}
_description: This test checks {name} disk stats, generates some activity and rechecks stats to verify they've changed. It also verifies that disks appear in the various files they're supposed to.
The template-resource
used here (device
) refers to a resource job using
the udev_resource
script to get information about the system. The
udev_resource
script returns a list of items with attributes such as
path
and name
, so we can use these directly in our template.
Simple Jinja templates example¶
Jinja2 can be used as the templating engine instead of python string formatting. This allows the author to access some powerful templating features including expressions.
First here is the previous disk stats example converted to jinja2:
unit: template
template-resource: device
template-filter: device.category == 'DISK'
template-engine: jinja2
plugin: shell
category_id: com.canonical.plainbox::disk
id: disk/stats_{{ name }}
requires:
device.path == "{{ path }}"
block_device.{{ name }}_state != 'removable'
user: root
command: disk_stats_test {{ name }}
_description: This test checks {{ name }} disk stats, generates some activity and rechecks stats to verify they've changed. It also verifies that disks appear in the various files they're supposed to.
Template engine additional features¶
Plainbox populates the template parameter dictionary with some extra keys to aid the author.
__index__
:- If a template unit can result in N content jobs then this variable is equal to how many jobs have been created so far.
Following parameters are only available for template-engine
: jinja2
:
__system_env__
:- When checkbox encounters a template to render it will populate this variable with the executing shell’s enviroment variables as
os.environ
__on_ubuntucore__
:- Helper function (boolean) checking if checkbox runs from on ubuntu core
__checkbox_env__
:- Dictionary containing the checkbox config environment section
Exporter Unit¶
The purpose of exporter units is to provide an easy way to customize the plainbox reports by delegating the customization bits to providers.
Each exporter unit expresses a binding between code (the entry point) and data. Data can be new options, different Jinja2 templates and/or new paths to load them.
File format and location¶
Exporter entry units are regular plainbox units and are contained and shipped with plainbox providers. In other words, they are just the same as job and test plan units, for example.
Fields¶
Following fields may be used by an exporter unit.
id
:- (mandatory) - Unique identifier of the exporter. This field is used to look up and store data so please keep it stable across the lifetime of your provider.
summary
:- (optional) - A human readable name for the exporter. This value is available for translation into other languages. It is used when listing exporters. It must be one line long, ideally it should be short (50-70 characters max).
entry_point
:- (mandatory) - This is a key for a pkg_resources entry point from the plainbox.exporters namespace. Allowed values are: jinja2, text, xlsx, json and rfc822.
file_extension
:- (mandatory) - Filename extension to use when the exporter stream is saved to a file.
options
:(optional) - comma/space/semicolon separated list of options for this exporter entry point. Only the following options are currently supported.
- text and rfc822:
- with-io-log
- squash-io-log
- flatten-io-log
- with-run-list
- with-job-list
- with-resource-map
- with-job-defs
- with-attachments
- with-comments
- with-job-via
- with-job-hash
- with-category-map
- with-certification-status
- json:
Same as for text and additionally:
- machine-json
- xlsx:
- with-sys-info
- with-summary
- with-job-description
- with-text-attachments
- with-unit-categories
- jinja2:
- No options available
data
:- (optional) - Extra data sent to the exporter code, to allow all kind of data types, the data field only accept valid JSON. For exporters using the jinja2 entry point, the template name and any additional paths to load files from must be defined in this field. See examples below.
Example¶
This is an example exporter definition:
unit: exporter
id: my_html
_summary: Generate my own version of the HTML report
entry_point: jinja2
file_extension: html
options:
with-foo
with-bar
data: {
"template": "my_template.html",
"extra_paths": [
"/usr/share/javascript/lib1/",
"/usr/share/javascript/lib2/",
"/usr/share/javascript/lib3/"]
}
The provider shipping such unit can be as follow:
├── data
│ ├── my_template.css
│ └── my_template.html
├── units
├── my_test_plans.pxu
└── exporters.pxu
Note that exporters.pxu is not strictly needed to store the exporter units, but keeping them in a dedicated file is a good practice.
How to use exporter units?¶
In order to call an exporter unit from provider foo, you just need to use in in the launcher.
Example of a launcher using custom exporter unit:
#!/usr/bin/env checkbox-cli
[launcher]
launcher_version = 1
[transport:local_file]
type = file
path = /tmp/submission.html
[exporter:my_html]
unit = com.foo.bar::my_html
[report:local_html]
transport = local_file
exporter = my_html
For more information about generating reports see Daemon-specific configuration
Manifest Entry Unit¶
A manifest entry unit describes a single entry in a manifest that describes the machine or device under test. The purpose of each entry is to define one specific fact. Plainbox uses such units to create a manifest that associates each entry with a value.
The values themselves can come from multiple sources, the simplest one is the test operator who can provide an answer. In more complex cases a specialized application might look up the type of the device using some identification method (such as DMI data) from a server, thus removing the extra interaction steps.
File format and location¶
Manifest entry units are regular plainbox units and are contained and shipped with plainbox providers. In other words, they are just the same as job and test plan units, for example.
Fields¶
Following fields may be used by a manifest entry unit.
id
:- (mandatory) - Unique identifier of the entry. This field is used to look up and store data so please keep it stable across the lifetime of your provider.
name
:(mandatory) - A human readable name of the entry. This should read as in a feature matrix of a device in a store (e.g., “802.11ac wireless capability”, or “Thunderbolt support”, “Number of hard drive bays”). This is not a sentence, don’t end it with a dot. Please capitalize the first letter. The name is used in various listings so it should be kept reasonably short.
The name is a translatable field so please prefix it with
_
as in_name: Example
.value-type
:- (mandatory) - Type of value for this entry. Currently two values are
allowed:
bool
for a yes/no value andnatural
for any natural number (negative numbers are rejected). value-units
:- (optional) - Units in which value is measured in. This is only used when
value-type
is equal tonatural
. For example a “Screen size” manifest entry could be measured in “inch” units. resource-key
:- (optional) - Name of the resource key used to store the manifest value when
representing the manifest as a resource record. This field defaults to the
so-called partial id which is just the
id:
field as spelled in the unit definition file (so without the name space of the provider) prompt
:- (optional) - Allows the manifest unit to customise the prompt presented
when collecting values from a user. When the
value-type
isbool
the default prompt is “Does this machine have this piece of hardware?”, when thevalue-type
isnatural
the default prompt is “Please enter the requested data”.
Example¶
This is an example manifest entry definition:
unit: manifest entry
id: has_thunderbolt
_name: Thunderbolt Support
value-type: bool
Naming Manifest Entries¶
To keep the code consistent there’s one naming scheme that should be followed.
Entries for boolean values must use the has_XXX
naming scheme. This will
allow us to avoid issues later on where multiple people develop manifest
entries and it’s all a bit weird what them mean has_thunderbolt
or
thunderbolt_supported
or tb
or whatever we come up with. It’s a
convention, please stick to it.
Using Manifest Entries in Jobs¶
Manifest data can be used to decide if a given test is applicable for a given
device under test or not. When used as a resource they behave in a standard
way, like all other resources. The only special thing is the unique name-space
of the resource job as it is provided by plainbox itself. The name of the
resource job is: com.canonical.plainbox
. In practice a simple job that
depends on data from the manifest can look like this:
unit: job
id: ...
plugin: ...
requires:
manifest.has_thunderbolt == 'True' and manifest.ns == 'com.canonical.checkbox'
imports: from com.canonical.plainbox import manifest
Note that the job uses the manifest
job from the
com.canonical.plainbox
name-space. It has to be imported using the
imports:
field as it is in a different name-space than the one the example
unit is defined in (which is arbitrary). Having that resource it can then check
for the has_thunderbolt
field manifest entry in the
com.canonical.checkbox
name-space. Note that the name-space of the
manifest
job is not related to the manifest.ns
value. Since any
provider can ship additional manifest entries and then all share the flat
name-space of resource attributes looking at the .ns
attribute is a way to
uniquely identify a given manifest entry.
Collecting Manifest Data¶
To interactively collect manifest data from a user please include this job
somewhere early in your test plan:
com.canonical.plainbox::collect-manifest
.
Supplying External Manifest¶
The manifest file is stored in
$HOME/.local/share/plainbox/machine-manifest.json
.
If the provisioning method ships a valid manifest file there it can be used for
fully automatic but manifest-based deployments.
Packaging Meta Data Unit¶
The packaging meta-data unit describes system-level dependencies of a provider in a machine readable way. Dependencies can be specified separately for different distributions. Dependencies can also be specified for a common base distribution (e.g. for Debian rather than Ubuntu). The use of packaging meta-data units can greatly simplify management of dependencies of binary packages as it brings those decisions closer to the changes to the actual provider and makes package management largely automatic.
File format and location¶
Packaging meta-data units are regular plainbox units and are contained and shipped with plainbox providers. In other words, they are just the same as job and test plan units, for example.
Fields¶
Following fields may be used by a manifest entry unit.
os-id
:- (mandatory) - the identifier of the operating system this rule applies to.
This is the same value as the
ID
field in the file/etc/os-release
. Typical values includedebian
,ubuntu
orfedora
. os-version-id
:- (optional) - the identifier of the specific version of the operating system
this rule applies to. This is the same as the
VERSION_ID
field in the file/etc/os-release
. If this field is not present then the rule applies to all versions of a given operating system.
The remaining fields are custom and depend on the packaging driver. The values for Debian are:
Depends
:- (optional) - a comma separated list of dependencies for the binary package. The syntax is the same as in normal Debian control files (including package version dependencies). This field can be split into multiple lines, for readability, as newlines are discarded.
Suggests
:- (optional) - same as
Depends
. Recommends
:- (optional) - same as
Depends
.
Matching Packaging Meta-Data Units¶
The base Linux distribution driver parses the /etc/os-release
file, looks
at the ID
, ID_VERSION
and optionally the ID_LIKE
fields. They are
used as a standard way to determine the distribution for which packaging
meta-data is being collected for.
The id and version match strategy requires that both the os-id
and
os-dependencies
fields are present and that they match the ID
and
ID_VERSION
values. This strategy allows the test maintainer to express each
dependency accurately for each operating system they wish to support.
The id match strategy is only used when the os-version
is not defined.
It is useful when a single definition is applicable to many subsequent
releases. This is especially useful when job works well with sufficiently old
version of a third party dependency and there is no need to repeatedly re-state
the same dependency for each later release of the operating system.
The id_like match strategy is only used as a last resort and can be seen as a
weaker id match strategy. This time the os-id
field is compared to the
ID_LIKE
field (if present). It is useful for working with Debian
derivatives, like Ubuntu.
Each matching packaging meta-data unit is then passed to the driver to generate packaging meta-data.
Example¶
This is an example packaging meta-data unit, as taken from the resource provider:
unit: packaging meta-data
os-id: debian
Depends:
python3-checkbox-support (>= 0.2),
python3 (>= 3.2),
Recommends:
dmidecode,
dpkg (>= 1.13),
lsb-release,
wodim
This will cause the binary provider package to depend on the appropriate
version of python3-checkbox-support
and python3
in both Debian,
Ubuntu and, for example, Elementary OS. In addition the package will
recommend some utilities that are used by some of the jobs contained in this
provider.
Using Packaging Meta-Data in Debian¶
To make use of the packaging meta-data, follow those steps:
Ensure that
/etc/os-release
exists in your build chroot. On Debian it is a part of thebase-files
package which is not something you have to worry about but other distributions may use different strategies.Mark the binary package that contains the provider with the
X-Plainbox-Provider: yes
header.Add the
${plainbox:Depends}
,${plainbox:Recommends}
and${plainbox:Suggests}
variables to the binary package that contains the provider.Override the gen_control debhelper rule and run the
python3 manage.py packaging
command in addition to runningdh_gencontrol
:override_dh_gencontrol: python3 manage.py packaging dh_gencontrol
Plainbox RFC822 Specification¶
The syntax is only loosely inspired by the actual RFC 822 syntax. Since Plainbox is not processing email, the original specification is used only as an inspiration. One of the most important aspect of the syntax we’re using is relative familiarity for other users of the system and ease-of-use when using general, off-the-shelf text editors.
Backus–Naur Form¶
An approximated syntax can be summarized as the following BNF:
record-list: record-list '\n' record
| record
record: entry-list '\n\n' entry
| entry
entry: KEY ':' VALUE
KEY: ^[^:]+
VALUE: .+\n([ ].+)*
There are two quirks which not handled by this syntax (see below). Otherwise the syntax is very simple. It defines a list of records. Each record is a list of entries. Each entry is a key-value pair. Values can be multi-line, which allows for convenient expression of longer text fragments.
Quirk 1 – the magic dot¶
Due to the way the multi-line VALUE syntax is defined, it would be impossible (or possible but dependent only on whitespace, which is not friendly) to include two consecutive newlines. For that reason a line consisting of a single space, followed by a single dot is translated to an empty line.
The example below:
key:
.
more value
Is parsed as an ENTRY (in python syntax):
("key", "\nvalue")
Quirk 2 – the # comments¶
Since it’s a line-oriented format and people are used to being able to insert
comments anywhere with the # comment
notation, any line that _starts_ with
a hash or pound character is discarded. This happens earlier than other parts
of parsing so comments are invisible to the rest of the parser. They can be
included anywhere, including in the middle of a multi-line value.
Example:
# this is a comment
key: value
multi-line
# comment!
and more
Reporting Bugs¶
To report bugs on the Checkbox project you will need a launchpad account. You may find instructions on how to create one useful. Once you have an account you can report bugs.
The “Checkbox Stack”¶
The Checkbox Stack is a collection of projects that together constitute a complete testing and certification solution. It is composed of the following parts (see table below for extra details). All of the projects are linked to from the Launchpad project group.
Component Descriptions¶
Project | Responsible for | Type |
---|---|---|
Checkbox (CLI) |
|
Application |
Client Certification Provider |
|
Provider |
Server Certification Provider |
|
Provider |
Checkbox Provider |
|
Provider |
Resource Provider |
|
Provider |
Snappy Provider |
|
|
Checkbox Support |
|
Library |
PlainBox (part of Checkbox) |
|
Library and Development Toolkit |
Checkbox launchers tutorial¶
Checkbox launchers are INI files that customize checkbox experience. The customization includes:
- choosing what jobs will be run
- how to handle machine restart
- what type of UI to use
- how to handle the results
Each section in the launcher is optional, when not supplied, the default values will be used.
This tutorial describes Launchers version 1.
External configuration files¶
Launcher can specify external file(s) to load values from.
[config]
Beginning of the configuration section.
config_filename
Name of the configuration file to look for. Default value: checkbox.conf
The directories that will be searched for the file are /etc/xdg/
and
~/.config/
.
Example:
[config]
config_filename = testing.conf
This will make checkbox look for /etc/xdg/testing.conf
and
~/config/testing.conf
files.
The config_filename
may be an absolute path, and may use environment
variables
Example:
[config]
config_filename = $MYCONFIGS/testing.conf
[config]
config_filename = /home/ubuntu/next-testing.conf
For more details about value resolution order see configs
Launcher meta-information¶
Launcher meta-information helps to provide consistent checkbox behaviour in the future.
[launcher]
Beginning of the launcher meta-information section.
app_id
This fields helps to differentiate between checkbox front-ends. This way
sessions started with launcher with one app_id
won’t interfere with
sessions started with a different launcher (provided it has app_id
set to
other value). The app_id should be in a IQN form. Default value:
com.canonical:checkbox-cli
app_version
This field is purely informational.
launcher_version
Version of the launcher language syntax and semantics to use.
api_flags
API flags variable determines optional feature set. List of API flags that this launcher requires. Items should be separated by spaces or commas. The default value is an empty list.
api_version
API version determines the behaviour of the launcher. Each checkbox feature is
added at a specific API version. Default behaviours don’t change silently;
explicit launcher change is required. Default value: 0.99
session_title
A title to be applied to the sessions created using this launcher. This can be be used to identify a stored sessions and can be used in report generation.
session_desc
A string that can be applied to sessions created using this launcher. Useful for storing some contextual infomation about the session.
stock_reports
Stock reports are shortcuts in creating common reports. Instead of having to specify exporter, transport and a report section in a launcher, you can use any number of the stock ones. In launchers version 1 there are 4 stock reports you may use:
text
- print results as text on standard outputsubmission_files
- writehtml
,xlsx
,json
andtar.xz
files to$XDG_DATA_HOME
directory (or to~/.local/share/
if$XDG_DATA_HOME
is not defined.certification
- send results to certification sitecertification-staging
- send results to staging version of certification site
If you don’t want to have any stock report automatically generated use
none
as the value.
This field is a list; use commas or spaces to separate stock reports. The
default value: text, certification, submission_files
.
When using certification
stock report, the secure_id
variable may be
overriden by the launcher.
To do this define secure_id
in a transport:c3
section (this is the
transport that’s used by the certification
stock reports).
Launcher section example:
[launcher]
app_id = com.foobar:system-testing
launcher_version = 1
stock_reports = text
session_title = MegaCorp Thingy Alpha-1
session_desc = Testing the alpha-1 release of MegaCorp Thingy including feature X
Launcher using all defaults with overridden secure_id:
[transport:c3]
secure_id = 001122334455667788
Launcher that disables all stock reports:
[launcher]
app_id = com.foobar:system-testing
launcher_version = 1
stock_reports = none
Providers section¶
This section provides control over which providers are used by the launcher.
[providers]
Beginning of the providers section.
use
A list of globs, from which a provider id must match at least one in order to be used. By default all providers are used.
Providers section example:
[providers]
use = provider1, provider2, provider-*
Test plan section¶
This section provides control over which test plans are visible in the menus and optionally forces the app to use particular one.
[test plan]
Beginning of the test plan section.
unit
An ID of a test plan that should be selected by default. By default nothing is selected.
filter
Glob that test plan IDs have to match in order to be visible. Default value:
*
forced
If set to yes
, test plan selection screen will be skipped. Requires
unit
field to be set. Default value: no
.
Test selection section¶
This section provides lets forcing of test selection.
[test selection]
Beginning of the test selection section
forced
If set to yes
, test selection screen will be skipped and all test specified
in the test plan will be selected. Default value: no
exclude
List of regex patterns that job ids will be matched against. The matched jobs will be excluded from running in both stages of the session: bootstrapping and normal stage. Note that if you specify a pattern that matches a resource job that is used to instantiate template units those units won’t get generated. The patterns should be separated with whitespace. Examples:
Exclude all jobs containing ‘bluetooth’ in their id:
[test selection]
exclude = .*bluetooth.*
Exclude all jobs containing bluetooth
in their id, or having ids starting
with com.canonical.certification::dock/wireless
:
[test selection]
exclude = .*bluetooth.* com.canonical.certification::dock/wireless.*
Note: Exclude field set in launcher can be overriden in a config, following Checkbox values resolution order. see configs for more info.
Note: To clear the exclude list use…
exclude =
…in your ‘last’ config.
User Interface section¶
This section controls which type of UI to use.
[ui]
Beginning of the user interface section
type
Type of UI to use. This has to be set to interactive
, silent
,
converged
, or converged-silent
.
interactive
runs the standard Checkbox command line version that prompts
user in non-automated tests.
silent
skips the tests that would require human interaction. It’s not
‘silent’ in the traditional command-line tool sense.
Default value: interactive
.
Note: the converged
and converged-silent
UI types will launch the QML
interface and requires checkbox-converged to be installed on your system.
Note: using silent
or converged-silent
UI types requires forcing
test selection and test plan selection.
dont_suppress_output
Note
This field is deprecated, use ‘output’ to specify which jobs should have their output printed to the screen.
Setting this field to yes
disables hiding of command output for jobs of
type resource
and attachment
. Default value: no
.
output
This setting lets you hide output of commands run by checkbox. It can be set to one of the following values:
show
- output of all jobs will be printedhide-resource-and-attachment
- output of resource and attachment jobs will be hidden, output of other job types will be printedhide-automated
- output of shell jobs as well as attachment and resource jobs will be hidden. Only interactive job command’s output will be shownhide
- same ashide-automated
. This value is deprecated, usehide-automated
Default value: show
Note
Individual jobs can have their output hidden by specifying ‘suppress-output’ in their definition.
verbosity
This setting makes checkbox report more information from checkbox internals. Possible values are:
normal
- report only warnings and errors.verbose
- report important events that take place during execution (E.g. adding units, starting jobs, changing the state of the session)debug
- print out everything
Default value: normal
Note
You can also change this behavior when invoking Checkbox by using
--verbose
and --debug
options respectively.
auto_retry
If set to yes
, failed jobs will automatically be retried at the end of
the testing session. In addition, the re-run screen (where user can select
failed and skipped jobs to re-run) will not be shown. Default value: no
.
max_attempts
Defines the maximum number of times a job should be run in auto-retry mode.
If the job passes, it won’t be retried even if the maximum number of attempts
have not been reached. Default value: 3
.
delay_before_retry
The number of seconds to wait before retrying the failed jobs at the end of
the testing session. This can be useful when the jobs relying on external
factors (e.g. a WiFi access point) and you want to wait before retrying the
same job. Default value: 1
.
Warning
When auto_retry
is set to yes
, every failing jobs will be retried.
This can be a problem, for instance, for jobs that take a really long time
to run. To avoid this, you can use the auto-retry=no
inline override
in the test plan to explicitly mark each job you do not wish to see
retried.
For example:
id: foo-bar-and-froz
_name: Tests Foo, Bar and Froz
include:
foo
bar auto-retry=no
froz
In that case, even if job bar
fails and auto-retry is activated, it
will not be retried.
Restart section¶
This section enables fine control over how checkbox is restarted.
[restart]
Beginning of the restart section
strategy
Override the restart strategy that should be used. Currently supported
strategies are XDG
and Snappy
. By default the best strategy is
determined in runtime.
Environment section¶
[environment]
Beginning of the environment section
Each variable present in the environment
section will be present as
environment variable for all jobs run.
Example:
[environment]
TESTING_HOST = 192.168.0.100
Daemon-specific configuration¶
[daemon]
Beginning of the daemon-specific section. Setting in this section only apply to sessions that are run by checkbox-slave spawned as a daemon.
normal-user
Username to use when job doesn’t specify which user to run as.
Checkbox-slave daemon is run by root so in order to run some jobs as an unpriviledged user this variable can be used.
Generating reports¶
Creation of reports is govern by three sections: report
, exporter
, and
transport
. Each of those sections might be specified multiple times to
provide more than one report.
Exporter¶
[exporter:exporter_name]
Beginning of an exporter declaration. Note that exporter_name
should be
replaced with something meaningful, like html
.
unit
ID of an exporter to use. To get the list of available exporter in your system
run $ plainbox dev list exporter
.
options
A list of options that will be supplied to the exporter. Items should be separated by spaces or commas.
Example:
[exporter:html]
unit = com.canonical.plainbox::html
Transport¶
[transport:transport_name]
Beginning of a transport declaration. Note that transport_name
should be
replaced with something meaningful, like standard_out
.
type
Type of a transport to use. Allowed values are: stream
, file
, and
certification
.
Depending on the type of transport there might be additional fields.
transport type | variables | meaning | example |
---|---|---|---|
stream |
stream |
which stream to
use stdout
or stderr |
|
file |
path |
where to save the file |
|
submission-service |
secure-id |
secure-id to use when uploading to certification sites |
|
staging |
determines if
staging site
should be used
Default:
no |
Report¶
[report:report_name]
Beginning of a report declaration. Note that report_name
should be
replaced with something meaningful, like to_screen
.
exporter
Name of the exporter to use
transport
Name of the transport to use
forced
If set to yes
will make checkbox always produce the report (skipping the
prompt). Default value: no
.
Example of all three sections working to produce a report:
[exporter:text]
unit = com.canonical.plainbox::text
[transport:out]
type = stream
stream = stdout
[report:screen]
exporter = text
transport = out
forced = yes
Launcher examples¶
1) Fully automatic run of all tests from ‘com.canonical.certification::smoke’ test plan concluded by producing text report to standard output.
#!/usr/bin/env checkbox-cli
[launcher]
launcher_version = 1
app_id = com.canonical.certification:smoke-test
stock_reports = text
[test plan]
unit = com.canonical.certification::smoke
forced = yes
[test selection]
forced = yes
[ui]
type = silent
[transport:outfile]
type = stream
stream = stdout
[exporter:text]
unit = com.canonical.plainbox::text
[report:screen]
transport = outfile
exporter = text
2) Interactive testing of FooBar project. Report should be uploaded to the staging version of certification site and saved to /tmp/submission.tar.xz
#!/usr/bin/env checkbox-cli
[launcher]
launcher_version = 1
app_id = com.foobar:system-testing
[providers]
use = com.megacorp.foo::bar*
[test plan]
unit = com.megacorp.foo::bar-generic
[ui]
type = silent
output = hide
[transport:certification]
type = certification
secure-id = 00112233445566
staging = yes
[transport:local_file]
type = file
path = /tmp/submission.tar.xz
[report:c3-staging]
transport = certification
exporter = tar
[report:file]
transport = local_file
exporter = tar
3) A typical launcher to run a desktop SRU test plan automatically.
The launcher will automatically retry the failed test jobs. Besides,
this launcher include another launcher launcher.conf
as its
customized environment configuration.
The launcher
#!/usr/bin/env checkbox-cli
[launcher]
launcher_version = 1
[config]
config_filename = $HOME/launcher.conf
[test plan]
unit = com.canonical.certification::sru
forced = yes
[test selection]
forced = yes
[ui]
type = silent
auto_retry = yes
max_attempts = 3
delay_before_retry = 15
The launcher configuration laucher.conf
#!/usr/bin/env checkbox-cli
[launcher]
launcher_version = 1
stock_reports = text, submission_files, certification
[transport:c3]
secure_id = <your secure ID>
[transport:local_file]
type = file
path = /home/ubuntu/c3-local-submission.tar.xz
[exporter:example_tar]
unit = com.canonical.plainbox::tar
[report:file]
transport = local_file
exporter = tar
forced = yes
[environment]
ROUTERS = multiple
WPA_BG_SSID = foo-bar-bg-wpa
WPA_BG_PSK = foo-bar
WPA_N_SSID = foo-bar-n-wpa
WPA_N_PSK = foobar
WPA_AC_SSID = foo-bar-ac-wpa
WPA_AC_PSK = foobar
OPEN_BG_SSID = foo-bar-bg-open
OPEN_N_SSID = foo-bar-n-open
OPEN_AC_SSID = foo-bar-ac-open
BTDEVADDR = ff:oo:oo:bb:aa:rr
TRANSFER_SERVER = cdimage.ubuntu.com
Side-loading Providers¶
If you want to create a new job, or tweak an existing one without a need to repackage the provider or the snap, you can use side-loaded providers.
If the path /var/tmp/checkbox-proviers
exists, Checkbox will load providers
from that path. If any given provider has the same namespace and the same name
as an existing (installed or supplied with the same snap) provider, only the
side-loaded one will be used.
You may override as many providers as you find necessary. There’s also no limit on the number of new providers supplied with side-loading.
Note
side-loading is a means to quickly iterate when developing new jobs. Don’t use it in production. Also remember to empty (or delete) the ~/provider directory once you’re done developing, so you don’t get nasty surprises down the line. Checkbox will not submit any reports to Certificaiton website if side-loaded providers have been used.
Example scenario¶
Goal: change the runtime of the stress/cpu_stress_ng_test job without rebuilding snap.
Make sure that checkbox-snappy snap is installed. It comes with following providers available:
plainbox-provider-checkbox
plainbox-provider-docker
2017.com.canonical.se:engineering-tests
plainbox-provider-ipdt
plainbox-provider-resource-generic
plainbox-provider-snappy
plainbox-provider-sru
plainbox-provider-tpm2
Create checkbox-providers
directory in /var/tmp/
:
mkdir /var/tmp/checkbox-providers
Note
You may not have write permissions for /var/tmp/
. You may want to
run mkdir with sudo and later chown
that directory
Clone plainbox-provider-checkbox to the side-loaded directory:
cd /var/tmp/checkbox-providers
git clone --depth=1 http://git.launchpad.net/plainbox-provider-checkbox
Tip
–depth=1 tells git not to download all the history of the repo
When started, Checkbox should display following warning:
$ checkbox-snappy.checkbox-cli
WARNING:plainbox.session.assistant:Using side-loaded provider:
com.canonical.certification:plainbox-provider-checkbox
Let’s edit the job definition:
$ vim /var/tmp/checkbox-providers/plainbox-provider-checkbox/units/stress/jobs.pxu
Now let’s run Checkbox:
$ checkbox-snappy.checkbox-cli
The recently edited definition should be used.
Configuration values resolution order¶
The directories that are searched for config files are:
/etc/xdg/
~/.config/
The filename that’s looked up depends on how checkbox is run.
Invoking checkbox-cli
(without launcher)¶
Assumed config file name is checkbox.conf
Invoking plainbox
¶
Assumed config file name is plainbox.conf
Invoking launcher¶
The file name to look for is specified using config_filename
variable from
launcher, from the [config]
section. If it’s not present, checkbox.conf
‘ is used.
Apps using SessionAssistant or the plainbox internals directly¶
plainbox.conf
is used, unless
SessionAsistant.use_alternate_configuration()
is called.
Note that if same configuration variable is defined in more then one place, the
value resolution is as follows:
1. config file from ~/.config
2. launcher being invoked (only the new syntax launchers)
3. config file from /etc/xdg
Checkbox nested test plans tutorial¶
We designed checkbox to consume test providers. Hence the test harness and the tests are completely separated. Checkbox can load tests from multiple providers. They can be installed as Debian packages or loaded from source to build a snap.
To load the tests and run them we need a test plan. Test plans for checkbox are a collection of job (test) ids meant to be run one by one.
Most of the time when we create a new test plan, there’s a need to include a generic section, common to several other test plans. But the test plan unit was not allowing such feature and we ended up having a lot of duplication across our projects. And duplication means duplicated efforts to maintain all those test plan sections in sync and up-to-date.
What if it could be possible now to have nested test plans. One being built by aggregating sections from one or more “base test plans”?
Let’s review in detail this new feature available in checkbox since plainbox 0.29
Quick start¶
The only thing to add to your test plan is the identifier of the test plan you want to include, as follow:
nested_part:
com.canonical.certification::my_base_test_plan
The test plan order will then be test plan include
+ all nested test plan
include
, in that order.
Loading nested parts will load the include
, mandatory_include
and
bootstrap_include
sections and all the overrides (category
,
certification status
).
Note: All mandatory includes will always be run first.
Note: Job and test plan ids can be listed in their abbreviated form (without the namespace prefix) if the job definitions reside in the same namespace as the provider that is defining the test plan.
Use cases¶
All the following examples are available here: https://github.com/yphus/nested_testplan_demo To test them locally you just need to develop the 3 providers and run one of the demo launchers:
git clone https://github.com/yphus/nested_testplan_demo.git
cd nested_testplan_demo/
find . -name manage.py -exec {} develop \;
./demo1 # or demo2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
How to use a base test plan?¶
Let’s use two providers, both belonging to the same namespace, com.ubuntu
:
com.ubuntu:foo
and com.ubuntu:baz
Baz provider contains the following units, 4 jobs and a test plan (our base test plan):
id: hello
command: echo hello
flags: simple
id: bye
command: echo bye
flags: simple
id: mandatory
command: true
flags: simple
id: bootstrap
command: echo os: ubuntu
plugin: resource
flags: simple
unit: test plan
id: baz_tp
_name: Generic baz test plan
_description: This test plan contains generic test cases
estimated_duration: 1m
include:
hello certification-status=blocker
bye certification-status=non-blocker
mandatory_include:
mandatory certification-status=blocker
bootstrap_include:
bootstrap
Foo provider contains two new tests:
id: always-pass
command: true
flags: simple
id: always-fail
command: true
flags: simple
We want to reuse the baz_tp
in a new test plan (in the Foo provider) with
the two new tests. Such test plan will look like this:
unit: test plan
id: foo_tp_1
_name: Foo test plan 1
_description: This test plan contains generic tests + 2 new tests
include:
always-pass certification-status=blocker
always-fail
nested_part:
baz_tp
The jobs execution order is:
bootstrap
mandatory
always-pass
always-fail
hello
bye
How to use a base test plan, but without running them last?¶
Let’s keep the previous providers, Foo and Baz. This time we want to run the
base test plan between always-pass
and always-fail
. In order to change
the job execution order, the new test plan will be made of several nested
parts, since they will follow the list order. Let’s create in the Foo provider
2 new test plans that we’ll use as nested parts to fine tune the job ordering:
unit: test plan
id: foo_tp_part1
_name: Foo test plan part 1
_description: This test plan contains part 1
estimated_duration: 1m
include:
always-pass certification-status=blocker
unit: test plan
id: foo_tp_part2
_name: Foo test plan part 2
_description: This test plan contains part 2
estimated_duration: 1m
include:
always-fail
The final test plan will only contain nested parts:
unit: test plan
id: foo_tp_2
_name: Foo test plan 2
_description:
This test plan contains generic tests + 2 new tests (but ordered differently)
include:
nested_part:
foo_tp_part1
baz_tp
foo_tp_part2
Note: Always keep the include
section (even empty) as this field is
mandatory and validation would failed otherwise (and the test plan never loaded
by checkbox)
The jobs execution order is:
bootstrap
mandatory
always-pass
hello
bye
always-fail
How to change category or certification status of jobs coming from nested parts?¶
The test plan override mechanism
still works with nested parts. For example the hello
job from the Baz
provider was defined as a blocker and did not have a category.
Let’s update the previous use case:
unit: test plan
id: foo_tp_3
_name: Foo test plan 3
_description: This test plan contains generic tests + 2 new tests + overrides
include:
always-pass certification-status=blocker
always-fail
nested_part:
baz_tp
certification_status_overrides:
apply non-blocker to hello
category_overrides:
apply com.canonical.plainbox::audio to hello
To check that overrides worked as expected, you can open the json exporter report:
"result_map": {
"com.ubuntu::hello": {
"summary": "hello",
"category_id": "com.canonical.plainbox::audio",
"certification_status": "non-blocker"
[...]
How to include a nested part from another namespace?¶
You can include a nested part from another namespace, just prefix the test plan identifier with the provider namespace.
Let’s use a third provider (Bar, under the com.ubuntu
namespace) as an
example:
id: sleep
command: sleep 1
flags: simple
id: uname
command: uname -a
flags: simple
unit: test plan
id: bar_tp
_name: bar test plan
_description: This test plan contains bar test cases
estimated_duration: 1m
include:
sleep
uname
Now in provider Foo, a test plan including a part from provider Bar will look like this:
unit: test plan
id: foo_tp_4
_name: Foo test plan 4
_description:
This test plan contains generic tests + 2 new tests + 2 tests from a
different namespace provider
include:
always-pass certification-status=blocker
always-fail
nested_part:
baz_tp
com.ubuntu::bar_tp
The jobs execution order is:
bootstrap
mandatory
always-pass
always-fail
hello
bye
sleep
uname
Is it possible to have multiple levels of nesting?¶
Yes, it’s possible to have multiple levels of nesting, a nested part being built from another nested parts, each level bringing its own set of new tests.
Let’s add a new test plan to provider Baz:
unit: test plan
id: baz_tp_2
_name: Generic baz test plan 2
_description: This test plan contains generic test cases + a nested part
include:
hello certification-status=blocker
bye certification-status=non-blocker
mandatory_include:
mandatory certification-status=blocker
bootstrap_include:
bootstrap
nested_part:
com.ubuntu::bar_tp
As you can see this test plan includes a part from provider Bar (the same used in the previous example). In provider Foo, we can create a new test plan including baz_tp_2:
unit: test plan
id: foo_tp_5
_name: Foo test plan 5
_description: This test plan is built from multiple level of nested test plans
include:
always-pass certification-status=blocker
always-fail
nested_part:
baz_tp_2
The jobs execution order is still:
bootstrap
mandatory
always-pass
always-fail
hello
bye
sleep
uname
How to use a base test plan except a few jobs?¶
The test plan units support an optional field - exclude
- that we can use
to remove jobs from a nested part include
section.
Note: The exclude
ids cannot remove jobs that are parts of the
mandatory_include
sections (nested or not).
The test plan below (from provider Foo) won’t run the hello
job of provider
Baz:
unit: test plan
id: foo_tp_6
_name: Foo test plan 6
_description: This test plan contains generic tests + 2 new tests - hello job
include:
always-pass certification-status=blocker
always-fail
exclude:
hello
nested_part:
baz_tp
The jobs execution order is:
bootstrap
mandatory
always-pass
always-fail
bye
Known limitations¶
You can create infinite loops if a nested part is calling itself or if somewhere in the nested chain such a loop exists. Checkbox won’t like that and so far there’s no validation to prevent it, be warned!
Contributing to Snappy Testing with Checkbox¶
Introduction¶
To support the release of devices running snappy Ubuntu Core, Canonical has produced versions of Checkbox tailored specifically for these systems.
This document aims to provide the reader with enough information to contribute new tests, or modify existing tests, with the goal of increasing coverage wherever possible.
Brief anatomy of a Checkbox test tool¶
Checkbox test tools consist of a number components falling into three categories:
- Core testing framework (known as Plainbox)
- UI and launchers
- Test definitions and associated data contained in a “Provider”
To add tests one need only know the specifics of the Provider(s) that form their test tool. The rest of this document will focus on Checkbox Providers and how to work on them.
Snappy Provider¶
The Provider housing the majority of tests for snappy Ubuntu Core systems is known as plainbox-provider-snappy and can be found in this launchpad project: https://launchpad.net/plainbox-provider-snappy
All the code both for the core of Checkbox itself and for the tests is also hosted on Launchpad. Refer to the instructions on the Code subpage to retrieve the source files for the provider: https://code.launchpad.net/plainbox-provider-snappy
Directory structure of the Provider¶
Using git to clone the provider, described above, will result in a directory that looks like this (at time of writing):
checkbox@xenial:~$ ls -1 plainbox-provider-snappy/
plainbox-provider-snappy
plainbox-provider-snappy-resource
The first directory listed is the provider holding the tests, the second is a supporting provider which gathers information about the system at the start of a test run. Lets look in more detail at the test provider:
checkbox@xenial:~$ ls -1 plainbox-provider-snappy/plainbox-provider-snappy
bin
data
manage.py
po
src
units
bin | Executable scripts that can be called as part of the test (refer to command field below) |
data | Data to support the running of tests e.g. configuration files |
manage.py | Provider management script. Must be present in each provider to specify unique identifiers. |
po | Translation support, files here are used to provide translations for tests fields in to other languages. |
src | Source files and accompanying build scripts e.g. C source code and a Makefile, that are compiled in to binaries and packaged with the provider for use as part of the test (refer to command field below) |
units | “Job” definition files |
Jobs¶
A Job is Checkbox parlance for an individual test. They are defined in text files whose syntax is loosely based on RFC 822. Here is an example from plainbox-provider-snappy:
id: cpu/offlining_test
_summary:
Test offlining of each CPU core
_description:
Attempts to offline each core in a multicore system.
plugin: shell
command: cpu_offlining
category_id: cpu
estimated_duration: 1s
user: root
An overview of the fields in this example test:
id | A unique identifier for the job |
summary | A human readable name for the job. It must be one line long, ideally it should be short (50-70 characters max) |
plugin | Best thought of as describing the “type” of job. Note that it is preferred for jobs to automated wherever possible so as to minimize both time to complete and possibility for operator error. The key job types starting with the most automated are:
|
command | A command or script to run as part of the test. A multi-line command or shell script can be used. Refer to the plugin field above for significance to the test outcome. |
category_id | Groups tests together for convenience in UIs etc. |
estimated_duration | An estimate of the time taken to execute the job. Uses hours(h), minutes(m) and seconds(s) format e.g. 1h 23m 4s |
Further reading: http://checkbox.readthedocs.io/en/latest/units/job.html
Test plans¶
Test Plans are a facility for describing a sequence of Job definitions that should be executed together. Jobs definitions are selected for inclusion in a Test Plan by either listing their identifier (see id: field above) or by inclusion of a regular expression that matches their identifier.
Here is an example of a Test Plan from plainbox-provider-snappy, it has been abbreviated:
id: snappy-generic
unit: test plan
_name: QA tests for Snappy Ubuntu Core devices
estimated_duration: 1h
include:
wifi/.*
audio/.*
id | A unique identifier for the test plan |
unit | Distinguishes this definition from that of e.g. a test |
_name | A human readable name for the test plan |
estimated_duration | A estimate of the time taken to execute the test plan. Uses hours(h), minutes(m) and seconds(s) format e.g. 1h 23m 4s |
include _id | The list of tests that make up the test plan. It can be multi-line and include individual job identifiers or patterns matching multiple identifiers |
Further reading: http://checkbox.readthedocs.io/en/latest/units/test-plan.html
Creating a test in five easy steps¶
1. Configure your development environment¶
Development of Checkbox tests is best carried out on an Ubuntu Desktop system. You will need either a dedicated PC or Virtual Machine running Ubuntu Desktop 16.04 (Xenial Xerus) to gain access to the tools supporting the building of packages for snappy Ubuntu Core.
When your system is up and running make sure the following packages are installed:
$ sudo apt install snapcraft git:
And to ease development, remove these pre-installed providers:
$ sudo apt remove plainbox-provider-checkbox plainbox-provider-resource-generic
You should now have all the tools required to modify and build a provider.
2. Get the source¶
Clone the providers:
$ git clone https://git.launchpad.net/plainbox-provider-snappy
Clone the snapcraft packaging branch:
$ git clone https://git.launchpad.net/~checkbox-dev/plainbox-provider-snappy/+git/packaging
Further instructions will assume these were cloned in to your user’s home directory.
3. Make your changes¶
The units folder contains a number of files named after categories. This is not a requirement, but has been used here too make finding tests a bit easier. Either create a new file or edit an existing category.:
$ git checkout -b <NEW-BRANCH>
$ touch ~/plainbox-provider-snappy/plainbox-provider-snappy/units/<category>.pxu
$ editor ~/plainbox-provider-snappy/plainbox-provider-snappy/units/<category>.pxu
If adding a new test, make sure to add the test id to the “includes” section of any test plans you’d like this test to be part of.
4. Check your test is valid¶
Use the provider management script to check the provider is still valid after your modifications:
$ cd ~/plainbox-provider-snappy/plainbox-provider-snappy-resource
$ ./manage.py develop
$ cd ~/plainbox-provider-snappy/plainbox-provider-snappy
$ ./manage.py validate
The validate tool will provide advisories to indicate places where you provider does not follow best practices, warnings to indicate places where runtime issues could arise, and errors to indicate things which must be fixed for the provider to be parsed and run correctly by Checkbox. This validation result is given in the last line:
The provider seems to be valid
5. Build the Checkbox snap package¶
The tools to build a new version of the Checkbox tool snap package are found in your clone of the packaging branch. This uses the snapcraft tool which is controlled by the snapcraft.yaml file. To build a snap with your local changes examine this file for the source sections of the provider parts:
$ editor ~/packaging/snapcraft.yaml
...
plainbox-provider-snappy:
after: [checkbox]
...
Modify these so the point to your local providers:[a][b]:
...
plainbox-provider-snappy:
source: <path-to-local-provider>
source-type: local
after: [checkbox]
...
Then you can build the snap package:
$ snapcraft clean
...
$ snapcraft
...
Snapped checkbox-snappy_0.10~s16_amd64.snap
6. Run the tests¶
See Running Checkbox on Ubuntu Core which describes the process of installing and running the snap.
7. Submit your modifications to the project¶
To push code, report bugs etc. you will require a launchpad account: https://login.launchpad.net/
Once you have an account you will be able to push code up to Launchpad. You can they request a merge in to the master repository. To get the code to Launchpad follow these steps:
$ git add <file>
$ git commit -m “Adds a test for...”
$ git remote add my-repo git+ssh://git.launchpad.net/~<USERNAME>/plainbox-provider-snappy
$ git push my-repo <NEW-BRANCH>
If you navigate to the plainbox-provider-snappy project on launchpad you should now see your repository listed under the “Other repositories” section. Here you can see my (jocave) personal repository listed at the top:
Clicking on your repository will take you to an overview page listing all your branches:
Click on the branch you have uploaded and there will be an option to “Propose for merging”.
Select this and fill out the form as follows:
Members of the team that maintain the project will be alerted to the Merge Request and will review it for landing.
Running Checkbox on Ubuntu Core¶
Introduction¶
Checkbox is a hardware testing tool developed by Canonical for certifying hardware with Ubuntu. Checkbox is free software and is available at https://launchpad.net/checkbox-project.
To support the release of devices running snappy Ubuntu Core, Canonical has produced versions of Checkbox tailored specifically for these systems.
This document aims to provide the reader with enough information to install and run Checkbox on an Ubuntu Core system, and how to view/interpret/submit test results.
Installation¶
Installing Ubuntu Core on KVM¶
Follow the Ubuntu tutorial to install Ubuntu Core on KVM.
Installing Checkbox Snap¶
Now you are ready to install the Checkbox snap, install it straight from the store:
$ snap install checkbox-snappy --devmode
Running Checkbox¶
Launch Checkbox using:
$ checkbox-snappy.test-runner
Checkbox keeps track of previous test runs, so if a session is not completed, you’ll be asked to resume your previous run or create a new session:
The first selection screen will ask you to select a test plan to run:
Move the selection with the arrow keys, select with Space
and confirm your
choice by pressing Enter
. The next screen will allow you to fine tune the
tests you want to run:
Tests are grouped by categories. Expand/collapse with Enter
, select/unselect
with Space
(also works on categories). Press S
to select all and D
to
deselect all the tests. Press H
to display a help screen with more keyboard
shortcuts.
Start the tests by pressing T
.
Checkbox is a test runner able to process fully automated tests/commands and tests requiring user interaction (whether to setup or plug something to the device, e.g. USB insertion or to confirm that the device acts as expected, e.g. a led blinks).
Please refer to the Checkbox documentation to learn more about the supported types of tests.
A fully automated test will stream stdout/stderr to your terminal allowing you to immediately look at the I/O logs (if the session is run interactively). Attachments jobs are treated differently as they could generate lots of I/O. Therefore their outputs are hidden by default.
Interactive jobs will pause the test runner and detail the steps to complete the test:
Getting Results¶
When the test selection has been run, the first displayed screen will allow you to re-run failed jobs:
Commands to select the tests to rerun are the same used to select tests in the
first selection screen. Here you can re-run your selection with R
or finish
the session by pressing F
.
Checkbox will then print the the test results in the terminal and save them in different formats locally on the device (and print their respective filenames):
The resulting reports can be pulled from the system via scp
for instance.
Creating a custom Checkbox application for Ubuntu Core testing¶
This guide describes how to create a custom Checkbox application for testing a new project (project meaning a new system that we want to test with Checkbox).
Initialize the project¶
Creating your working directory and initializing the projects. Make sure you have at least snapcraft version 2.13 (available in Ubuntu 16.04 or newer).:
mkdir checkbox-myproject
cd checkbox-myproject
snapcraft init
git init
You will now have a snapcraft.yaml
file in the snap
directory.
Modify it and insert your title, description, version.
name: checkbox-myproject
version: 1
summary: Checkbox tool for MyProject
description: Checkbox tool for MyProject
grade: devel
confinement: strict
Adding parts¶
Add the basic reusable snappy provider parts.
(...)
parts:
plainbox-provider-snappy:
after: [plainbox-provider-snappy-resource]
plainbox-provider-snappy-resource:
after: [plainbox-dev, checkbox-support-dev, checkbox-ng-dev]
network-tools:
plugin: nil
stage-packages:
- network-manager
- modemmanager
- hostapd
- iw
snap:
- usr/bin/mmcli
- usr/lib/*/libmm-glib.so*
- usr/bin/nmcli
- usr/lib/*/libnm*
- usr/sbin/hostapd
- sbin/iw
Create a device/project specific provider¶
$ plainbox startprovider --empty com.canonical.qa.myproject:
plainbox-provider-myproject
The directory name for the provider is quite a mouthful, let’s change it to something more manageable.
$ mv com.canonical.qa.myproject:plainbox-provider-myproject
plainbox-provider-myproject
This new provider has to also be included as a part of the snap
:caption: snap/snapcraft.yaml
:name: snapcraft.yaml-with-custom-provider
(...)
parts:
plainbox-provider-myproject:
plugin: plainbox-provider
source: ./plainbox-provider-myproject
after: [plainbox-provider-snappy]
Create your new test plans (and jobs to go in them)¶
Edit the plainbox-provider-myproject provider by adding jobs and particularly test plans that list all the jobs that you want to run.
By convention units reside in .pxu files in the units
directory of the
provider. Let’s create one
$ cd plainbox-provider-myproject
$ mkdir units
Let’s add a job from Checkbox tutorials
id: my-first-job
_summary: 10GB available in $HOME
_description:
this test checks if there's at least 10gb of free space in user's home
directory
plugin: shell
estimated_duration: 0.01
command: [ `df -B 1G --output=avail $HOME |tail -n1` -gt 10 ]
You may read more on how to write jobs here: Job Unit
It is a good practice to group jobs in test plans, here’s one that will include
the my-first-job
unit: test plan
id: my-project-custom
_name: MyProject tests
_description:
This test plan includes all test related to MyProject
include:
my-first-job
You may read more on test plans here: Test Plan Unit
Reusing existing provider(s)¶
It’s best not to duplicate stuff, so if the test you want to run already exists in another provider it is best to include that provider in the snap, and include the test, or whole test plans from that provider in your new testing project.
Let’s reuse disk tests from the “plainbox-provider-snappy” provider that we already have as a part of the snap. All we need is a test plan that will include both reused disk tests and the new custom ones.
id: my-project-all-tests
_name: All MyProject tests
_description:
This test plan includes some disk tests from plainbox-provider-snappy
and the my-first-job test.
include:
com.canonical.certification::disk/detect
com.canonical.certification::disk/stats_.*
my-first-job
You can also include the whole external test plan. Let’s reuse the CPU testing suite from plainbox-provider-snappy.
unit: test plan
id: my-project-all-tests
_name: All MyProject tests
_description:
This test plan includes some disk tests from plainbox-provider-snappy
and the my-first-job test.
include:
com.canonical.certification::disk/detect
com.canonical.certification::disk/stats_.*
my-first-job
nested_part:
com.canonical.certification::cpu-full
Create Checkbox Launchers configurations¶
Launchers help to predefine how Checkbox should run. Read more here: Checkbox launchers tutorial
First, let’s leave the provider directory and go back to the
checkbox-myproject
.
$ cd ..
and write the first launcher
#!/usr/bin/env checkbox-cli-wrapper
[launcher]
app_id = com.canonical.qa.myproject:checkbox
launcher_version = 1
stock_reports = text, submission_files
[test plan]
filter = *myproject*, *tpm-smoke-tests
Create wrapper scripts¶
We currently need wrapper scripts to discover providers, set up the execution environment and work around a few other snappy issues. Add one like this:
#!/bin/bash
export PATH="$PATH:$SNAP/usr/sbin"
exec python3 $(which checkbox-cli) "$@"
Now we need to make the launchers executable
chmod +x launchers/*
(...)
launchers:
plugin: dump
source: launchers/
organize:
'*': bin/
Declare the launchers to be Apps that exist in your Snap¶
(...)
apps:
myproject-test-runner:
command: bin/myproject-test-runner
What’s left is to snap it all together!
$ snapcraft
Glossary¶
- Hardware certification
A process of ensuring that a specific device works well with Ubuntu. For more details see our certification program:
- Hardware certification team
- A team inside Canonical working on Hardware Certification.
- Checkbox
- Checkbox is a hardware testing tool developed by Canonical for certifying hardware with Ubuntu. Checkbox is free software and is available at http://launchpad.net/checkbox.
- Checkbox-ng
- Name of the package in Ubuntu Archive that contains Checkbox.
- Plainbox
- Plainbox is a functional core of the Checkbox. These days it’s almost synonymous with Checkbox.
- Test plan
- Test plans are text files used by Checkbox to select jobs for execution. They can include simple regular expressions to match and pick many similar jobs at once.
- Job
- Jobs are smallest units of testing that can be performed by Checkbox. All jobs have an unique name. There are many types of jobs, some are fully automated others are fully manual. Some jobs are only an implementation detail and a part of the internal architecture of Checkbox.
- Provider
- A container for jobs, test plans, private executables and data. Providers are the foundation of Checkbox as they provide all of the content. Providers can be created and managed by any entity, separately from the Checkbox project.
- Namespace
- A private space for naming job definitions. Each job definition has a
partial identifier and a full identifier (typically just called job
id). The partial identifier is encoded in job definition file. The
full identifier is composed of the namespace of a job provider and the
partial identifier, joined with the double-colon string
::
. - Resources
- Resources are collections of key-value data sets that are generated by special resource jobs. They are extensively used to indicate hardware or software dependencies. For example a bluetooth test may indicate it requires bluetooth hardware and appropriate software packages installed.
- Bootstrapping
- Phase of a Checkbox session where resource jobs are executed to gather information about the hardware.
- Requirement program
- Requirement programs are small (one to few lines) programs that use a
subset of python to execute some code against resources. They are what
actually describes the relationship of a Job to some Resources. For
example a resource program
package.name == "bluez"
indicates that at least one resource generated by thepackage
job has a keyname
equal to the stringbluez
. - Attachment
- Attachments are a special type of a Job that can create an attachment record in the submission reports. They are commonly used to include basic system information files and output of certain commands which can aid in system certification.
- Certification Website
- The website https://certification.canonical.com/
- Secure ID
- An identifier, similar to Canonical ID, used for hardware certification. This identifier is used when interacting with the Certification Website, it does not reveal anything about the actual hardware (like the manufacturer name or device name).
- PyPI
- The Python Package Index where any developer can share their python programs and libraries. Pypi is available at: https://pypi.org/.