1 .. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
3 ============================
4 Tips For Running KUnit Tests
5 ============================
7 Using ``kunit.py run`` ("kunit tool")
8 =====================================
10 Running from any directory
11 --------------------------
13 It can be handy to create a bash function like:
17 function run_kunit() {
18 ( cd "$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)" && ./tools/testing/kunit/kunit.py run "$@" )
22 Early versions of ``kunit.py`` (before 5.6) didn't work unless run from
23 the kernel root, hence the use of a subshell and ``cd``.
25 Running a subset of tests
26 -------------------------
28 ``kunit.py run`` accepts an optional glob argument to filter tests. The format
29 is ``"<suite_glob>[.test_glob]"``.
31 Say that we wanted to run the sysctl tests, we could do so via:
35 $ echo -e 'CONFIG_KUNIT=y\nCONFIG_KUNIT_ALL_TESTS=y' > .kunit/.kunitconfig
36 $ ./tools/testing/kunit/kunit.py run 'sysctl*'
38 We can filter down to just the "write" tests via:
42 $ echo -e 'CONFIG_KUNIT=y\nCONFIG_KUNIT_ALL_TESTS=y' > .kunit/.kunitconfig
43 $ ./tools/testing/kunit/kunit.py run 'sysctl*.*write*'
45 We're paying the cost of building more tests than we need this way, but it's
46 easier than fiddling with ``.kunitconfig`` files or commenting out
49 However, if we wanted to define a set of tests in a less ad hoc way, the next
52 Defining a set of tests
53 -----------------------
55 ``kunit.py run`` (along with ``build``, and ``config``) supports a
56 ``--kunitconfig`` flag. So if you have a set of tests that you want to run on a
57 regular basis (especially if they have other dependencies), you can create a
58 specific ``.kunitconfig`` for them.
60 E.g. kunit has one for its tests:
64 $ ./tools/testing/kunit/kunit.py run --kunitconfig=lib/kunit/.kunitconfig
66 Alternatively, if you're following the convention of naming your
67 file ``.kunitconfig``, you can just pass in the dir, e.g.
71 $ ./tools/testing/kunit/kunit.py run --kunitconfig=lib/kunit
74 This is a relatively new feature (5.12+) so we don't have any
75 conventions yet about on what files should be checked in versus just
76 kept around locally. It's up to you and your maintainer to decide if a
77 config is useful enough to submit (and therefore have to maintain).
80 Having ``.kunitconfig`` fragments in a parent and child directory is
81 iffy. There's discussion about adding an "import" statement in these
82 files to make it possible to have a top-level config run tests from all
83 child directories. But that would mean ``.kunitconfig`` files are no
84 longer just simple .config fragments.
86 One alternative would be to have kunit tool recursively combine configs
87 automagically, but tests could theoretically depend on incompatible
88 options, so handling that would be tricky.
90 Setting kernel commandline parameters
91 -------------------------------------
93 You can use ``--kernel_args`` to pass arbitrary kernel arguments, e.g.
97 $ ./tools/testing/kunit/kunit.py run --kernel_args=param=42 --kernel_args=param2=false
100 Generating code coverage reports under UML
101 ------------------------------------------
104 TODO(brendanhiggins@google.com): There are various issues with UML and
105 versions of gcc 7 and up. You're likely to run into missing ``.gcda``
106 files or compile errors.
108 This is different from the "normal" way of getting coverage information that is
109 documented in Documentation/dev-tools/gcov.rst.
111 Instead of enabling ``CONFIG_GCOV_KERNEL=y``, we can set these options:
115 CONFIG_DEBUG_KERNEL=y
117 CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO_DWARF_TOOLCHAIN_DEFAULT=y
121 Putting it together into a copy-pastable sequence of commands:
125 # Append coverage options to the current config
126 $ ./tools/testing/kunit/kunit.py run --kunitconfig=.kunit/ --kunitconfig=tools/testing/kunit/configs/coverage_uml.config
127 # Extract the coverage information from the build dir (.kunit/)
128 $ lcov -t "my_kunit_tests" -o coverage.info -c -d .kunit/
130 # From here on, it's the same process as with CONFIG_GCOV_KERNEL=y
131 # E.g. can generate an HTML report in a tmp dir like so:
132 $ genhtml -o /tmp/coverage_html coverage.info
135 If your installed version of gcc doesn't work, you can tweak the steps:
139 $ ./tools/testing/kunit/kunit.py run --make_options=CC=/usr/bin/gcc-6
140 $ lcov -t "my_kunit_tests" -o coverage.info -c -d .kunit/ --gcov-tool=/usr/bin/gcov-6
142 Alternatively, LLVM-based toolchains can also be used:
146 # Build with LLVM and append coverage options to the current config
147 $ ./tools/testing/kunit/kunit.py run --make_options LLVM=1 --kunitconfig=.kunit/ --kunitconfig=tools/testing/kunit/configs/coverage_uml.config
148 $ llvm-profdata merge -sparse default.profraw -o default.profdata
149 $ llvm-cov export --format=lcov .kunit/vmlinux -instr-profile default.profdata > coverage.info
150 # The coverage.info file is in lcov-compatible format and it can be used to e.g. generate HTML report
151 $ genhtml -o /tmp/coverage_html coverage.info
154 Running tests manually
155 ======================
157 Running tests without using ``kunit.py run`` is also an important use case.
158 Currently it's your only option if you want to test on architectures other than
161 As running the tests under UML is fairly straightforward (configure and compile
162 the kernel, run the ``./linux`` binary), this section will focus on testing
163 non-UML architectures.
166 Running built-in tests
167 ----------------------
169 When setting tests to ``=y``, the tests will run as part of boot and print
170 results to dmesg in TAP format. So you just need to add your tests to your
171 ``.config``, build and boot your kernel as normal.
173 So if we compiled our kernel with:
178 CONFIG_KUNIT_EXAMPLE_TEST=y
180 Then we'd see output like this in dmesg signaling the test ran and passed:
188 # example_simple_test: initializing
189 ok 1 - example_simple_test
192 Running tests as modules
193 ------------------------
195 Depending on the tests, you can build them as loadable modules.
197 For example, we'd change the config options from before to
202 CONFIG_KUNIT_EXAMPLE_TEST=m
204 Then after booting into our kernel, we can run the test via
208 $ modprobe kunit-example-test
210 This will then cause it to print TAP output to stdout.
213 The ``modprobe`` will *not* have a non-zero exit code if any test
214 failed (as of 5.13). But ``kunit.py parse`` would, see below.
217 You can set ``CONFIG_KUNIT=m`` as well, however, some features will not
218 work and thus some tests might break. Ideally tests would specify they
219 depend on ``KUNIT=y`` in their ``Kconfig``'s, but this is an edge case
220 most test authors won't think about.
221 As of 5.13, the only difference is that ``current->kunit_test`` will
224 Pretty-printing results
225 -----------------------
227 You can use ``kunit.py parse`` to parse dmesg for test output and print out
228 results in the same familiar format that ``kunit.py run`` does.
232 $ ./tools/testing/kunit/kunit.py parse /var/log/dmesg
235 Retrieving per suite results
236 ----------------------------
238 Regardless of how you're running your tests, you can enable
239 ``CONFIG_KUNIT_DEBUGFS`` to expose per-suite TAP-formatted results:
244 CONFIG_KUNIT_EXAMPLE_TEST=m
245 CONFIG_KUNIT_DEBUGFS=y
247 The results for each suite will be exposed under
248 ``/sys/kernel/debug/kunit/<suite>/results``.
249 So using our example config:
253 $ modprobe kunit-example-test > /dev/null
254 $ cat /sys/kernel/debug/kunit/example/results
257 # After removing the module, the corresponding files will go away
258 $ modprobe -r kunit-example-test
259 $ cat /sys/kernel/debug/kunit/example/results
260 /sys/kernel/debug/kunit/example/results: No such file or directory
262 Generating code coverage reports
263 --------------------------------
265 See Documentation/dev-tools/gcov.rst for details on how to do this.
267 The only vaguely KUnit-specific advice here is that you probably want to build
268 your tests as modules. That way you can isolate the coverage from tests from
269 other code executed during boot, e.g.
273 # Reset coverage counters before running the test.
274 $ echo 0 > /sys/kernel/debug/gcov/reset
275 $ modprobe kunit-example-test
278 Test Attributes and Filtering
279 =============================
281 Test suites and cases can be marked with test attributes, such as speed of
282 test. These attributes will later be printed in test output and can be used to
283 filter test execution.
285 Marking Test Attributes
286 -----------------------
288 Tests are marked with an attribute by including a ``kunit_attributes`` object
289 in the test definition.
291 Test cases can be marked using the ``KUNIT_CASE_ATTR(test_name, attributes)``
292 macro to define the test case instead of ``KUNIT_CASE(test_name)``.
296 static const struct kunit_attributes example_attr = {
297 .speed = KUNIT_VERY_SLOW,
300 static struct kunit_case example_test_cases[] = {
301 KUNIT_CASE_ATTR(example_test, example_attr),
305 To mark a test case as slow, you can also use ``KUNIT_CASE_SLOW(test_name)``.
306 This is a helpful macro as the slow attribute is the most commonly used.
308 Test suites can be marked with an attribute by setting the "attr" field in the
313 static const struct kunit_attributes example_attr = {
314 .speed = KUNIT_VERY_SLOW,
317 static struct kunit_suite example_test_suite = {
319 .attr = example_attr,
323 Not all attributes need to be set in a ``kunit_attributes`` object. Unset
324 attributes will remain uninitialized and act as though the attribute is set
325 to 0 or NULL. Thus, if an attribute is set to 0, it is treated as unset.
326 These unset attributes will not be reported and may act as a default value
327 for filtering purposes.
332 When a user runs tests, attributes will be present in the raw kernel output (in
333 KTAP format). Note that attributes will be hidden by default in kunit.py output
334 for all passing tests but the raw kernel output can be accessed using the
335 ``--raw_output`` flag. This is an example of how test attributes for test cases
336 will be formatted in kernel output:
340 # example_test.speed: slow
343 This is an example of how test attributes for test suites will be formatted in
349 # Subtest: example_suite
350 # module: kunit_example_test
355 Additionally, users can output a full attribute report of tests with their
356 attributes, using the command line flag ``--list_tests_attr``:
360 kunit.py run "example" --list_tests_attr
363 This report can be accessed when running KUnit manually by passing in the
364 module_param ``kunit.action=list_attr``.
369 Users can filter tests using the ``--filter`` command line flag when running
370 tests. As an example:
374 kunit.py run --filter speed=slow
377 You can also use the following operations on filters: "<", ">", "<=", ">=",
378 "!=", and "=". Example:
382 kunit.py run --filter "speed>slow"
384 This example will run all tests with speeds faster than slow. Note that the
385 characters < and > are often interpreted by the shell, so they may need to be
386 quoted or escaped, as above.
388 Additionally, you can use multiple filters at once. Simply separate filters
389 using commas. Example:
393 kunit.py run --filter "speed>slow, module=kunit_example_test"
396 You can use this filtering feature when running KUnit manually by passing
397 the filter as a module param: ``kunit.filter="speed>slow, speed<=normal"``.
399 Filtered tests will not run or show up in the test output. You can use the
400 ``--filter_action=skip`` flag to skip filtered tests instead. These tests will be
401 shown in the test output in the test but will not run. To use this feature when
402 running KUnit manually, use the module param ``kunit.filter_action=skip``.
404 Rules of Filtering Procedure
405 ----------------------------
407 Since both suites and test cases can have attributes, there may be conflicts
408 between attributes during filtering. The process of filtering follows these
411 - Filtering always operates at a per-test level.
413 - If a test has an attribute set, then the test's value is filtered on.
415 - Otherwise, the value falls back to the suite's value.
417 - If neither are set, the attribute has a global "default" value, which is used.
419 List of Current Attributes
420 --------------------------
424 This attribute indicates the speed of a test's execution (how slow or fast the
427 This attribute is saved as an enum with the following categories: "normal",
428 "slow", or "very_slow". The assumed default speed for tests is "normal". This
429 indicates that the test takes a relatively trivial amount of time (less than
430 1 second), regardless of the machine it is running on. Any test slower than
431 this could be marked as "slow" or "very_slow".
433 The macro ``KUNIT_CASE_SLOW(test_name)`` can be easily used to set the speed
434 of a test case to "slow".
438 This attribute indicates the name of the module associated with the test.
440 This attribute is automatically saved as a string and is printed for each suite.
441 Tests can also be filtered using this attribute.
445 This attribute indicates whether the test uses init data or functions.
447 This attribute is automatically saved as a boolean and tests can also be
448 filtered using this attribute.