xref: /illumos-gate/usr/src/man/man9/ktest.9 (revision 10d41d991988b6dfe2f102d139fb64152e1614ce)

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.Dd February 17, 2023
.Dt KTEST 9
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm ktest
.Nd kernel test facility
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The ktest facility provides the means for writing and executing kernel
test modules.
A kernel test module is a kernel module that contains test functions
designed to execute and verify some aspect of the kernel.
You can test any aspect of the kernel for which you can create the
requisite context, whether that be its local arguments or shared
state.
.Pp
The key design idea behind ktest is to put the test in the same
context as the code it's testing: kernel context.
By writing tests as kernel functions it allows one to more thoroughly test
particular aspects of the kernel.
The ktest facility complements user-space testing by allowing targeted
testing of the kernel that is not as easily exercised via user-space.
.Pp
The ktest facility provides a kernel API for creating tests as well as
a character device for interacting with the facility from user-space.
The latter of which should be done by way of the
.Xr ktest 8
command.
.Pp
This page concerns itself with the various kernel-side concepts of the
ktest facility and acts as a guide to the various 9F APIs.
.Ss The Test Triple
A test is uniquely identified by its test triple.
The triple is a three-level namespace comprising of the module name,
suite name, and test name.
Each part of the namespace is separated by the ':' character.
.Bd -literal -offset 4m
<module>:<suite>:<test>
.Ed
.Bl -tag -width 6m
.It module
The top of the namespace.
If the test module is primarily focused on testing one kernel module,
then its module name is typically named after the module-under-test.
For example, a test module designed to test all aspects of the
.Sy mac
kernel module might use "mac" as the module name.
This is merely a convention; at the end of the day the module name is
simply a string meant to represent the general theme of its underlying
tests.
.It suite
Each module consists of one or more suites.
The suite name provides a second level of organization for grouping
related tests.
For example, your "mac" test module may have several tests for
checksum-related routines.
In that case it might help to organize all those tests under the
"checksum" suite.
.It test
The name of the test.
This can be any name you find descriptive of the test.
For tests that focus on a single function you could use the name of
the function-under-test with the "_test" suffix attached.
For tests that exercise many functions do your best to make the name
descriptive.
The test functions are typically suffixed with "_test" to visually
separate them from test-helper functions; and the test name is often
the same as the test function.
.El
.Pp
For a name to be considered valid it must meet the following criteria.
.Bl -enum
.It
It must be 63 characters or less (the 64th byte must hold the
.Sy NUL
character).
.It
It must contain only the following ASCII
characters: 'A-Z', 'a-z', '0-9', '.', '_'.
.El
.Ss The Context Handle
The context handle provides the means through which the test
communicates with the ktest facility.
All test functions must conform to the following prototype.
.Bd -literal -offset 4m
typedef void (*ktest_fn_t)(ktest_ctx_hdl_t *ctx);
.Ed
.Pp
The test interacts with
.Fa ctx
through various ktest routines documented in their requisite sections.
.Ss Setting Test Results
The ultimate goal of a test function is to return a result.
See
.Xr ktest_result_pass 9f
for the complete guide to setting test results.
.Ss Test Input
Some tests require an input stream to test against.
The input stream is provided at runtime by the user.
The user may run the same test against one or more different input
streams.
.Pp
This is useful when a test applies to many different scenarios with
the same general logic.
For example, a test that verifies a checksum routine applies to any
byte stream; or a test that verifies TCP header parsing applies to any
byte stream as well.
.Pp
Writing a test against an input stream provides several benefits.
.Bl -enum
.It
It allows one test to verify innumerable scenarios, reducing the need
to replicate test logic.
.It
It avoids the need to hard-code test input in the test module itself.
.It
With the ability to change the input stream at runtime it allows
testing new scenarios on the spot, avoiding the need for writing a new
test.
.El
.Pp
A test that requires input must specify the
.Sy KTEST_FLAG_INPUT
flag when calling
.Xr ktest_add_test 9f .
To retrieve the input stream the test uses the
.Xr ktest_get_input 9f
function.
.Ss Testing Private Functions
A test facility that can't test private (
.Ft static
) functions is going to be pretty limited.
Some of the most useful functions to test are those that act as
"helpers" to other, larger functions.
These functions are often declared
.Ft static
and not directly accessible to the test module which is built as its
own compilation unit.
.Pp
One solution would be to alter ktest to also allow declaring test
functions inside the regular kernel modules themselves, but it
currently does not offer that capability.
Instead, ktest provides the
.Xr ktest_get_fn 9f
function for obtaining a handle to private functions.
See that page for more detail.
.Ss Registering Tests
Only registered tests are accessible to the user.
See
.Xr ktest_create_module 9f
for more information.
.Ss Test Module Conventions
There are several conventions to follow when creating a new test
module.
.Bl -enum
.It
The test module should be a miscellaneous-type module using the
.Xr modlmisc 9S
linkage structure.
.It
Test functions are prefixed with their test module name.
.It
Test functions are suffixed with "_test" to distinguish them from test
helper functions.
.It
Test registration should happen in
.Xr _init 9E .
.It
Test deregistration should happen in
.Xr _fini 9E .
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr KT_ASSERT 9F ,
.Xr KT_ERROR 9F ,
.Xr KT_FAIL 9F ,
.Xr KT_PASS 9F ,
.Xr KT_SKIP 9F ,
.Xr ktest_add_suite 9F ,
.Xr ktest_add_test 9F ,
.Xr ktest_create_module 9F ,
.Xr ktest_get_fn 9F ,
.Xr ktest_get_input 9F ,
.Xr ktest_hold_mod 9F ,
.Xr ktest_msg_clear 9F ,
.Xr ktest_msg_prepend 9F ,
.Xr ktest_register_module 9F ,
.Xr ktest_release_mod 9F ,
.Xr ktest_unregister_module 9F ,
.Xr modlmisc 9S