Re: [Xen-devel] [OSSTEST PATCH] README.hardware-acquisition

[George Dunlap <dunlapg@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 6:46 PM Stefano Stabellini
<sstabellini@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > ---
> > > + Baremetal boot from Debian stable or stable-backports:
> > >
> > > In order to avoid cross-compilation, Osstest must be able to install a
> > > bare-metal system on the host itself in order to build Linux and Xen
> > > test binaries for that host. At the moment osstest uses Debian for
> > > this, and there is no facility in osstest for building custom kernels
> > > for this purpose.  As such, a suitable Linux kernel binary which can
> > > boot baremetal on the proposed hardware must be available from Debian
> > > (at least `stable', or, if that is not possible, `stable-backports').
> > > Osstest cannot install using a patched version of Linux, or one built
> > > from a particular git branch, or some such.  If the required kernel is
> > > not available in Debian, the vendor should ideally work with the
> > > Debian project to ensure and validate that Debian stable-backports
> > > kernel binaries boot on the proposed hardware.  Alternately, the
> > > vendor can work with the community to implement the necessary
> > > functionality within osstest to enable it to build custom kernels for
> > > build installs, or use alternate distributions which have better
> > > baremetal support for the hardware.
>
> If we want to grow Xen on ARM testing in OSSTest for embedded boards, I
> think that requiring Debian kernel support is unrealistic,

You keep using the word "requirement" as though it's an active choice
that is being made.  This is a checklist for what kind of hardware can
currently be integrated into the XenProject test lab; it is not a
policy document or a design document.  As such, it should reflect the
situation as it exists at the moment, not how we would like it to be,
or how we think it may be at some point in the future.  At the moment,
only kind of hardware which can actually be integrated is one on which
Debian will boot; so this is listed as a criterion.  There's no point
buying hardware which only boots on the XenProject Linux tree until
osstest can actually boot such hardware.

It also includes pointers for how to change the situation.  If and
when the situation changes, we can change the document.

> The best compromise is to use our own Xen Project Linux tree for
> testing. We could build, by hand if necessary, kernel binaries out of
> it, push them to a known location and have OSSTest use them.

Ian objects to having binary blobs built by hand for an automated
testing system, and I tend to agree with him.  What would be required
for using the XenProject Linux tree, then, is to have a system set up
such that osstest builds its own build kernels on the target hardware
from the XenProject Linux tree.  Of course, in order to build a buiild
kernel, it needs a build kernel; so osstest needs the following
additional functionality:
 * a way to bootstrap the first build kernel, bk_1, for a particular
hardware line
 * a system within osstest to generate bk_N+1 from bk_N
Once we have those, we can change the criteria.

 -George

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