xref: /linux/tools/testing/selftests/livepatch/README (revision c532de5a67a70f8533d495f8f2aaa9a0491c3ad0)
1====================
2Livepatch Self Tests
3====================
4
5This is a small set of sanity tests for the kernel livepatching.
6
7The test suite loads and unloads several test kernel modules to verify
8livepatch behavior.  Debug information is logged to the kernel's message
9buffer and parsed for expected messages.  (Note: the tests will compare
10the message buffer for only the duration of each individual test.)
11
12
13Config
14------
15
16Set CONFIG_LIVEPATCH=y option and it's prerequisites.
17
18
19Building the tests
20------------------
21
22To only build the tests without running them, run:
23
24  % make -C tools/testing/selftests/livepatch
25
26The command above will compile all test modules and test programs, making them
27ready to be packaged if so desired.
28
29Running the tests
30-----------------
31
32Test kernel modules are built before running the livepatch selftests.  The
33modules are located under test_modules directory, and are built as out-of-tree
34modules.  This is specially useful since the same sources can be built and
35tested on systems with different kABI, ensuring they the tests are backwards
36compatible.  The modules will be loaded by the test scripts using insmod.
37
38To run the livepatch selftests, from the top of the kernel source tree:
39
40  % make -C tools/testing/selftests TARGETS=livepatch run_tests
41
42or
43
44  % make kselftest TARGETS=livepatch
45
46
47Adding tests
48------------
49
50See the common functions.sh file for the existing collection of utility
51functions, most importantly setup_config(), start_test() and
52check_result().  The latter function greps the kernel's ring buffer for
53"livepatch:" and "test_klp" strings, so tests be sure to include one of
54those strings for result comparison.  Other utility functions include
55general module loading and livepatch loading helpers (waiting for patch
56transitions, sysfs entries, etc.)
57