xref: /linux/tools/testing/selftests/arm64/signal/README (revision c95baf12f5077419db01313ab61c2aac007d40cd)
1*f96bf434SCristian MarussiKSelfTest arm64/signal/
2*f96bf434SCristian Marussi=======================
3*f96bf434SCristian Marussi
4*f96bf434SCristian MarussiSignals Tests
5*f96bf434SCristian Marussi+++++++++++++
6*f96bf434SCristian Marussi
7*f96bf434SCristian Marussi- Tests are built around a common main compilation unit: such shared main
8*f96bf434SCristian Marussi  enforces a standard sequence of operations needed to perform a single
9*f96bf434SCristian Marussi  signal-test (setup/trigger/run/result/cleanup)
10*f96bf434SCristian Marussi
11*f96bf434SCristian Marussi- The above mentioned ops are configurable on a test-by-test basis: each test
12*f96bf434SCristian Marussi  is described (and configured) using the descriptor signals.h::struct tdescr
13*f96bf434SCristian Marussi
14*f96bf434SCristian Marussi- Each signal testcase is compiled into its own executable: a separate
15*f96bf434SCristian Marussi  executable is used for each test since many tests complete successfully
16*f96bf434SCristian Marussi  by receiving some kind of fatal signal from the Kernel, so it's safer
17*f96bf434SCristian Marussi  to run each test unit in its own standalone process, so as to start each
18*f96bf434SCristian Marussi  test from a clean slate.
19*f96bf434SCristian Marussi
20*f96bf434SCristian Marussi- New tests can be simply defined in testcases/ dir providing a proper struct
21*f96bf434SCristian Marussi  tdescr overriding all the defaults we wish to change (as of now providing a
22*f96bf434SCristian Marussi  custom run method is mandatory though)
23*f96bf434SCristian Marussi
24*f96bf434SCristian Marussi- Signals' test-cases hereafter defined belong currently to two
25*f96bf434SCristian Marussi  principal families:
26*f96bf434SCristian Marussi
27*f96bf434SCristian Marussi  - 'mangle_' tests: a real signal (SIGUSR1) is raised and used as a trigger
28*f96bf434SCristian Marussi    and then the test case code modifies the signal frame from inside the
29*f96bf434SCristian Marussi    signal handler itself.
30*f96bf434SCristian Marussi
31*f96bf434SCristian Marussi  - 'fake_sigreturn_' tests: a brand new custom artificial sigframe structure
32*f96bf434SCristian Marussi    is placed on the stack and a sigreturn syscall is called to simulate a
33*f96bf434SCristian Marussi    real signal return. This kind of tests does not use a trigger usually and
34*f96bf434SCristian Marussi    they are just fired using some simple included assembly trampoline code.
35*f96bf434SCristian Marussi
36*f96bf434SCristian Marussi - Most of these tests are successfully passing if the process gets killed by
37*f96bf434SCristian Marussi   some fatal signal: usually SIGSEGV or SIGBUS. Since while writing this
38*f96bf434SCristian Marussi   kind of tests it is extremely easy in fact to end-up injecting other
39*f96bf434SCristian Marussi   unrelated SEGV bugs in the testcases, it becomes extremely tricky to
40*f96bf434SCristian Marussi   be really sure that the tests are really addressing what they are meant
41*f96bf434SCristian Marussi   to address and they are not instead falling apart due to unplanned bugs
42*f96bf434SCristian Marussi   in the test code.
43*f96bf434SCristian Marussi   In order to alleviate the misery of the life of such test-developer, a few
44*f96bf434SCristian Marussi   helpers are provided:
45*f96bf434SCristian Marussi
46*f96bf434SCristian Marussi   - a couple of ASSERT_BAD/GOOD_CONTEXT() macros to easily parse a ucontext_t
47*f96bf434SCristian Marussi     and verify if it is indeed GOOD or BAD (depending on what we were
48*f96bf434SCristian Marussi     expecting), using the same logic/perspective as in the arm64 Kernel signals
49*f96bf434SCristian Marussi     routines.
50*f96bf434SCristian Marussi
51*f96bf434SCristian Marussi   - a sanity mechanism to be used in 'fake_sigreturn_'-alike tests: enabled by
52*f96bf434SCristian Marussi     default it takes care to verify that the test-execution had at least
53*f96bf434SCristian Marussi     successfully progressed up to the stage of triggering the fake sigreturn
54*f96bf434SCristian Marussi     call.
55*f96bf434SCristian Marussi
56*f96bf434SCristian Marussi  In both cases test results are expected in terms of:
57*f96bf434SCristian Marussi   - some fatal signal sent by the Kernel to the test process
58*f96bf434SCristian Marussi  or
59*f96bf434SCristian Marussi  - analyzing some final regs state
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