Need a package with kernel dep-8 tests

[Francis Ginther]

We either need to add dep-8 tests to a kernel package or create a stand alone package with the dep-8 tests and ensure that they are tested together.

[Paul Larson (pwlars)]

I've started looking at this a bit. The ubuntu kernel seems to include a single dep8 test that just does a kernel rebuild. I'll try to look more at it today.

[Paul Larson (pwlars)]

We could also take a look at adding more interesting kernel tests like ltp, or the qrt kernel regression tests. That is, perhaps, a bit longer of a task.

[Paul Larson (pwlars)]

So here are the basic steps I'm taking at the moment to build a kernel package to submit in a ticket.
apt-get install kernel-wedge
git clone git://kernel.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ubuntu-saucy.git
git checkout -b plars
  - Call your branch whatever you like of course
dch -i -c debian.master/changelog
  - add changelog stuff, modify version to ~plars1ubuntu1 or something at the end
git commit -a -m 'PLARS: test'
fakeroot debian/rules clean
 - occasionally, I can skip this section and it "just work" I've run into a lot of errors in the ppa build before though for ABI and module checks. So... see [1]. There's a trick to disabling it though, you need to echo 1 > debian.master/abi/<prev kernel version>/amd64/ignore and echo 1 > debian.master/abi/<prev kernel version>/amd64/ignore.modules - where <prev kernel version> is the version string in the changelog *before* the one you are currently on. Also, Brad Figg has a patch that is supposed to completely disable these checks, but I haven't had a chance to test it just yet.

Finally:
debuild -S

Then, you'll want to submit it as you normally would, and have it install the package "linux-image-virtual" for testing. This will not work as-is. I have a one-line patch that I'll propose as a WIP in just a moment, that *should* make it work, but I haven't managed to run a kernel build far enough to actually test it just yet, except for a few times where I was trying variations on the options that didn't quite work like I hoped.

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeam/KernelMaintenance#Overriding_ABI_check_failures

[Andy Doan (doanac)]

wow this gives me a 975M upload. ubuntu-ci create_ticket is going to be busy for a while

[Andy Doan (doanac)]

moving the .git directory out of ubuntu-saucy reduces the tarball down to 175M. i think this will still build and make the upload much faster.

[Vincent Ladeuil (vila)]

From Andy's mail:

Also a tip for people building the kernel .changes file. "debuild -S" pulls
in the git history. You should instead run:

 dpkg-buildpackage -S -rfakeroot -I.git -I.gitignore -i'\.git.*'

That produces a 115M tarball as opposed to a 975M.

[Vincent Ladeuil (vila)]

> git clone git://kernel.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ubuntu-saucy.git

$ cd ubuntu-saucy

> git checkout -b plars

[Paul Larson (pwlars)]

Additionally, if specifying the package in a ticket, make sure to use the real package and not a metapackage. For instance, use:
-a linux-image-3.11.0-19-generic

[Evan (ev)]

We seemingly have this now. Can we close out the bug?

[Paul Larson (pwlars)]

I think we may want to leave it open since the existing dep8 contained in the kernel package is just "run /bin/true after rebuilding the entire kernel". We really don't want the kernel rebuild as a test because it takes a really long time, but we'd like it to run something. I'd say for now, we roll this into the discussions about what we'd like to see here, and come up with some happy middle ground. Also, it's worth noting that our existing sru tests might be nice if we're using this process for sru testing, but still take a very long time to run, so that's probably not a great default option if we're targeting something that runs quickly.

[Evan (ev)]

Paul,

I think we definitely need to think about whether we can get SRU testing worked into this. Great point. I've created https://app.asana.com/0/8499154990155/11317606640403 to track that.

[Evan (ev)]

Moving to UCE-1 as the outcome of the discussion in the above Asana task will likely result in work for this timeframe. Do feel free to move the milestone as needed.