Tests packaged for Fedora

The initial versions of the atf, lutok and kyua-cli packages that landed in Fedora did not install the bundled test suites. This was done to simplify the initial addition of the packages to the distribution, as using /usr/tests right away for the installation of the tests would have probably been a package review blocker.

With the original packages already in place, I have now changed them to supply an additional -tests package that installs the test suite. Because the use of /usr/tests has not yet been discussed in detail (and obviously not approved yet), I have opted to go for a compromise in the meantime. These test packages install the test suites under /usr/libexec/<package>/tests and they include a README.Fedora file explaining why the tests are in such location and how to run them.

No matter what, running the test suite of any of these packages is actually pretty simple. For example:

# yum install kyua-cli kyua-tests
$ kyua test -k /usr/libexec/kyua-cli/tests/Kyuafile

Note that, at the moment, these new -tests packages are only available in the updates-testing repository of Fedora 17 and will not move onto updates for over a week.

Fedora 17 package available for testing

This last week, I have been working on getting a new kyua-cli package into the Fedora repositories. The obvious goal is to reach more users by providing an easy mechanism for Fedora consumers to install Kyua. Just now, the package has been pushed to the updates-testing repository, which means it is available for testing before it gets moved to the regular updates repository.

So, go ahead, issue yum install kyua-cli (or use any graphical frontend) and start playing with Kyua! Do not hesitate to report any problems that you encounter, or to give karma if the package works fine for you. You may need to enable the updates-testing repository first though.

One thing to note is that none of the packages that are Kyua-related (atf, kyua-cli and lutok) install their test suite as they should be doing (yet). This is because the ideal place for such tests would be under /usr/tests/ as we do in NetBSD, but this directory is not allowed by the Linux Standard Base guidelines. While I think what the best way to resolve this is, I'm going to modify the packages to place the tests elsewhere in the meantime (most likely somewhere under /usr/libexec/)... so expect some -tests packages soon!