openQA is an automated test tool that makes it possible to test the whole installation process of an operating system. It uses virtual machines to reproduce the process, check the output (both serial console and screen) in every step and send the necessary keystrokes and commands to proceed to the next. openQA can check whether the system can be installed, whether it works properly in 'live' mode, whether applications work or whether the system responds as expected to different installation options and commands.
Even more importantly, openQA can run several combinations of tests for every revision of the operating system, reporting the errors detected for each combination of hardware configuration, installation options and variant of the operating system.
openQA is free software released under the GPLv2 license. The source code and documentation are hosted in the os-autoinst organization on GitHub.
This document describes the general operation and usage of openQA. The main goal is to provide a general overview of the tool, with all the information needed to become a happy user. More advanced topics like installation, administration or development of new tests are covered by further documents available in the official repository.
Although the project as a whole is referred to as openQA, there are in fact several components that are hosted in separate repositories as shown in the following figure.
The heart of the test engine is a standalone application called 'os-autoinst' (blue). In each execution, this application creates a virtual machine and uses it to run a set of test scripts (red). 'os-autoinst' generates a video, screenshots and a JSON file with detailed results.
'openQA' (green) on the other hand provides a web based user interface and infrastructure to run 'os-autoinst' in a distributed way. The web interface also provides a JSON based REST-like API for external scripting and for use by the worker program. Workers fetch data and input files from openQA for os-autoinst to run the tests. A host system can run several workers. The openQA web application takes care of distributing test jobs among workers. Web application and workers don’t have to run on the same machine but can be connected via network instead.
| test modules |
an individual test case in a single perl module file, e.g. "sshxterm". If not further specified a test module is denoted with its "short name" equivalent to the filename including the test definition. The "full name" is composed of the test group (TBC), which itself is formed by the top-folder of the test module file, and the short name, e.g. "x11-sshxterm" (for x11/sshxterm.pm) |
| test suite |
a collection of test modules, e.g. "textmode". All test modules within one test suite are run serially |
| job |
one run of individual test cases in a row denoted by a unique number for one instance of openQA, e.g. one installation with subsequent testing of applications within gnome |
| test run |
equivalent to job |
| test result |
the result of one job, e.g. "passed" with the details of each individual test module |
| test step |
the execution of one test module within a job |
| distri |
a test distribution but also sometimes referring to a product (CAUTION: ambiguous, historically a "GNU/Linux distribution"), composed of multiple test modules in a folder structure that compose test suites, e.g. "opensuse" (test distribution, short for "os-autoinst-distri-opensuse") |
| product |
the main "system under test" (SUT), e.g. "openSUSE" |
| job group |
equivalent to product, used in context of the webUI |
| version |
one version of a product, don’t confuse with builds, e.g. "Tumbleweed" |
| flavor |
a specific variant of a product to distinguish differing variants, e.g. "DVD" |
| arch |
an architecture variant of a product, e.g. "x86_64" |
| machine |
additional variant of machine, e.g. used for "64bit", "uefi", etc. |
| scenario |
A composition of <distri>-<version>-<flavor>-<arch>-<test_suite>@<machine>, e.g. "openSUSE-Tumbleweed-DVD-x86_64-gnome@64bit", nicknamed koala |
| build |
Different versions of a product as tested, can be considered a "sub-version" of version, e.g. "Build1234"; CAUTION: ambiguity: either with the prefix "Build" included or not |
One of the most important features of openQA is that it can be used to test several combinations of actions and configurations. For every one of those combinations, the system creates a virtual machine, performs certain steps and returns an overall result. Every one of those executions is called a 'job'. Every job is labeled with a numeric identifier and has several associated 'settings' that will drive its behavior.
A job goes through several states:
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scheduled Initial state for recently created jobs. Queued for future execution.
-
running In progress.
-
cancelled The job was explicitly cancelled by the user or was replaced by a clone (see below).
-
done Execution finished.
Jobs in state 'done' have typically gone through a whole sequence of steps (called 'testmodules') each one with its own result. But in addition to those partial results, a finished job also provides an overall result from the following list.
-
none For jobs that have not reached the 'done' state.
-
passed No critical check failed during the process. It does not necessarily mean that all testmodules were successful or that no single assertion failed.
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failed At least one assertion considered to be critical was not satisfied at some point.
-
softfailed At least one known, non-critical issue has been found. That could be that workaround needles are in place, a softfailure has been recorded explicitly via record_soft_failure (from os-autoinst) or a job failure has been ignored explicitly via a job label.
-
incomplete The job is no longer running but no result was provided. Either it was cancelled while running or it crashed.
Sometimes, the reason of a failure is not an error in the tested operating system itself, but an outdated test or a problem in the execution of the job for some external reason. In those situations, it makes sense to re-run a given job from the beginning once the problem is fixed or the tests have been updated. This is done by means of 'cloning'. Every job can be superseded by a clone which is scheduled to run with exactly the same settings as the original job. If the original job is still not in 'done' state, it’s cancelled immediately. From that point in time, the clone becomes the current version and the original job is considered outdated (and can be filtered in the listing) but its information and results (if any) are kept for future reference.
One of the main mechanisms for openQA to know the state of the virtual machine is checking the presence of some elements in the machine’s 'screen'. This is performed using fuzzy image matching between the screen and the so called 'needles'. A needle specifies both the elements to search for and a list of tags used to decide which needles should be used at any moment.
A needle consists of a full screenshot in PNG format and a json file with the same name (e.g. foo.png and foo.json) containing the associated data, like which areas inside the full screenshot are relevant or the mentioned list of tags.
{
"area" : [
{
"xpos" : INTEGER,
"ypos" : INTEGER,
"width" : INTEGER,
"height" : INTEGER,
"type" : ( "match" | "ocr" | "exclude" ),
"match" : INTEGER, // 0-100. similarity percentage
},
...
],
"tags" : [
STRING, ...
]
}There are three kinds of areas:
-
Regular areas define relevant parts of the screenshot. Those must match with at least the specified similarity percentage. Regular areas are displayed as green boxes in the needle editor and as green or red frames in the needle view (green for matching areas, red for non-matching ones).
-
OCR areas also define relevant parts of the screenshot. However, an OCR algorithm is used for matching. In the needle editor OCR areas are displayed as orange boxes. To turn a regular area into an OCR area within the needle editor, double click the concerning area twice. Note that such needles are only rarely used.
-
Exclude areas can be used to ignore parts of the reference picture. In the needle editor exclude areas are displayed as red boxes. To turn a regular area into an exclude area within the needle editor, double click the concerning area. In the needle view exclude areas are displayed as gray boxes.
Some actions in openQA require special privileges. openQA provides authentication through openID. By default, openQA is configured to use the openSUSE openID provider, but it can very easily be configured to use any other valid provider. Every time a new user logs into an instance, a new user profile is created. That profile only contains the openID identity and two flags used for access control:
-
operator Means that the user is able to manage jobs, performing actions like creating new jobs, cancelling them, etc.
-
admin Means that the user is able to manage users (granting or revoking operator and admin rights) as well as job templates and other related information (see the the corresponding section).
Many of the operations in an openQA instance are not performed through the web interface but using the REST-like API. The most obvious examples are the workers and the scripts that fetch new versions of the operating system and schedule the corresponding tests. Those clients must be authorized by an operator using an API key with an associated shared secret.
For that purpose, users with the operator flag have access in the web interface to a page that allows them to manage as many API keys as they may need. For every key, a secret is automatically generated. The user can then configure the workers or any other client application to use whatever pair of API key and secret owned by him. Any client to the REST-like API using one of those API keys will be considered to be acting on behalf of the associated user. So the API key not only has to be correct and valid (not expired), it also has to belong to a user with operator rights.
For more insights about authentication, authorization and the technical details of the openQA security model, refer to the detailed blog post about the subject by the openQA development team.
A job can belong to a job group. Those job groups are displayed on the index page and in the Job Groups menu on the navigation bar. From there the job group overview pages can be accessed. Besides the test results the job group overview pages provide a description about the job group and allow commenting.
Job groups have properties. These properties are mostly cleanup related. The configuration can be done in the operators menu for job groups.
It is also possible to put job groups into categories. The nested groups will then inherit properties from the category. The categories are meant to combine job groups with common builds so test results for the same build can be shown together on the index page.
|
Important
|
openQA automatically deletes data that it considers "old" based on different settings. For example job data is deleted from old jobs by the gru task. |
The following cleanup settings can be done on job-group-level:
| size limit |
Limits size of assets |
| keep logs for |
Specifies how long logs of a non-important job are retained after it finished |
| keep important logs for |
How long logs of an important job are retained after it finished |
| keep results for |
specifies How long results of a non-important job are retained after it finished |
| keep important results for |
How long results of an important job are retained after it finished |
The defaults for those values are defined in lib/OpenQA/Schema/JobGroupDefaults.pm.
NOTE Deletion of job results includes deletion of logs and will cause the job to be completely removed from the database.
NOTE Jobs which do not belong to a job group are currently not affected by the mentioned cleanup properties.
Just as the worker uses an API key+secret every user of the client script must do the same. The same API key+secret as previously created can be used or a new one created over the webUI.
The personal configuration should be stored in a file
~/.config/openqa/client.conf in the same format as previously described for
the client.conf, i.e. sections for each machine, e.g. localhost.
When testing an operating system, especially when doing continuous testing, there is always a certain combination of jobs, each one with its own settings, that needs to be run for every revision. Those combinations can be different for different 'flavors' of the same revision, like running a different set of jobs for each architecture or for the Full and the Lite versions. This combinational problem can go one step further if openQA is being used for different kinds of tests, like running some simple pre-integration tests for some snapshots combined with more comprehensive post-integration tests for release candidates.
This section describes how an instance of openQA can be configured using the options in the admin area to automatically create all the required jobs for each revision of your operating system that needs to be tested. If you are starting from scratch, you should probably go through the following order:
-
Define machines in 'Machines' menu
-
Define medium types (products) you have in 'Medium Types' menu
-
Specify various collections of tests you want to run in the 'Test suites' menu
-
Go to the template matrix in 'Job templates' menu and decide what combinations do make sense and need to be tested
Machines, mediums and test suites can all set various configuration variables. Job templates define how the test suites, mediums and machines should be combined in various ways to produce individual 'jobs'. All the variables from the test suite, medium and machine for the 'job' are combined and made available to the actual test code run by the 'job', along with variables specified as part of the job creation request. Certain variables also influence openQA’s and/or os-autoinst’s own behavior in terms of how it configures the environment for the job. Variables that influence os-autoinst’s behavior are documented in the file doc/backend_vars.asciidoc in the os-autoinst repository.
In openQA we can parametrize a test to describe for what product it will run and for what kind of machines it will be executed. For example, a test like KDE can be run for any product that has KDE installed, and can be tested in x86-64 and i586 machines. If we write this as a triples, we can create a list like this to characterize KDE tests:
(Product, Test Suite, Machine) (openSUSE-DVD-x86_64, KDE, 64bit) (openSUSE-DVD-x86_64, KDE, Laptop-64bit) (openSUSE-DVD-x86_64, KDE, USBBoot-64bit) (openSUSE-DVD-i586, KDE, 32bit) (openSUSE-DVD-i586, KDE, Laptop-32bit) (openSUSE-DVD-i586, KDE, USBBoot-32bit) (openSUSE-DVD-i586, KDE, 64bit) (openSUSE-DVD-i586, KDE, Laptop-64bit) (openSUSE-DVD-i586, KDE, USBBoot-64bit)
For every triplet, we need to configure a different instance of os-autoinst with a different set of parameters.
A medium type (product) in openQA is a simple description without any concrete meaning. It basically consists of a name and a set of variables that define or characterize this product in os-autoinst.
Some example variables used by openSUSE are:
-
ISO_MAXSIZE contains the maximum size of the product. There is a test that checks that the current size of the product is less or equal than this variable.
-
DVD if it is set to 1, this indicates that the medium is a DVD.
-
LIVECD if it is set to 1, this indicates that the medium is a live image (can be a CD or USB)
-
GNOME this variable, if it is set to 1, indicates that it is a GNOME only distribution.
-
PROMO marks the promotional product.
-
RESCUECD is set to 1 for rescue CD images.
This is the form where we define the different tests that we created for openQA. A test consists of a name, a priority and a set of variables that are used inside this particular test. The priority is used in the scheduler to choose the next job. If multiple jobs are scheduled and their requirements for running them are fulfilled the ones with a lower value for the priority are triggered. The id is the second sorting key: Of two jobs with equal requirements and same priority the one with lower id is triggered first.
Some sample variables used by openSUSE are:
-
BTRFS if set, the file system will be BtrFS.
-
DESKTOP possible values are 'kde' 'gnome' 'lxde' 'xfce' or 'textmode'. Used to indicate the desktop selected by the user during the test.
-
DOCRUN used for documentation tests.
-
DUALBOOT dual boot testing, needs HDD_1 and HDDVERSION.
-
ENCRYPT encrypt the home directory via YaST.
-
HDDVERSION used together with HDD_1 to set the operating system previously installed on the hard disk.
-
INSTALLONLY only basic installation.
-
INSTLANG installation language. Actually used only in documentation tests.
-
LIVETEST the test is on a live medium, do not install the distribution.
-
LVM select LVM volume manager.
-
NICEVIDEO used for rendering a result video for use in show rooms, skipping ugly and boring tests.
-
NOAUTOLOGIN unmark autologin in YaST
-
NUMDISKS total number of disks in QEMU.
-
REBOOTAFTERINSTALL if set to 1, will reboot after the installation.
-
SCREENSHOTINTERVAL used with NICEVIDEO to improve the video quality.
-
SPLITUSR a YaST configuration option.
-
TOGGLEHOME a YaST configuration option.
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UPGRADE upgrade testing, need HDD_1 and HDDVERSION.
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VIDEOMODE if the value is 'text', the installation will be done in text mode.
Some of the variables usually set in test suites that influence openQA and/or os-autoinst’s own behavior are:
-
HDDMODEL variable to set the HDD hardware model
-
HDDSIZEGB hard disk size in GB. Used together with BtrFS variable
-
HDD_1 path for the pre-created hard disk
-
RAIDLEVEL RAID configuration variable
-
QEMUVGA parameter to declare the video hardware configuration in QEMU
You need to have at least one machine set up to be able to run any tests. Those machines represent virtual machine types that you want to test. To make tests actually happen, you have to have an 'openQA worker' connected that can fulfill those specifications.
-
Name. User defined string - only needed for operator to identify the machine configuration.
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Backend. What backend should be used for this machine. Recommended value is qemu as it is the most tested one, but other options (such as kvm2usb or vbox) are also possible.
-
Variables Most machine variables influence os-autoinst’s behavior in terms of how the test machine is set up. A few important examples:
-
QEMUCPU can be 'qemu32' or 'qemu64' and specifies the architecture of the virtual CPU.
-
QEMUCPUS is an integer that specifies the number of cores you wish for.
-
LAPTOP if set to 1, QEMU will create a laptop profile.
-
USBBOOT when set to 1, the image will be loaded through an emulated USB stick.
-
Any variable defined in Test Suite, Machine or Product table can refer to another variable using this syntax: %NAME%. When the test job is created, the string will be substituted with the value of the specified variable at that time.
For example this variable defined for Test Suite:
PUBLISH_HDD_1 = %DISTRI%-%VERSION%-%ARCH%-%DESKTOP%.qcow2may be expanded to this job variable:
PUBLISH_HDD_1 = opensuse-13.1-i586-kde.qcow2It’s possible to define the same variable in multiple places that would all be used for a single job - for instance, you may have a variable defined in both a test suite and a product that appear in the same job template. The precedence order for variables is as follows (from lowest to highest):
-
Product
-
Machine
-
Test suite
-
API POST query parameters
That is, variable values set as part of the API request that triggers the jobs will 'win' over values set at any of the other locations.
If you need to override this precedence - for example, you want the value set in one particular test suite to take precedence over a setting of the same value from the API request - you can add a leading + to the variable name. For instance, if you set +VARIABLE = foo in a test suite, and passed VARIABLE=bar in the API request, the test suite setting would 'win' and the value would be foo.
If the same variable is set with a + prefix in multiple places, the same precedence order described above will apply to those settings.
An easy way to start using openQA is to start testing openSUSE or Fedora as they have everything setup and prepared to ease the initial deployment. If you want to play deeper, you can configure the whole openQA manually from scratch, but this document should help you to get started faster.
First you need to get actual tests. You can get openSUSE tests and needles (the expected results) from GitHub. It belongs into the /var/lib/openqa/tests/opensuse directory. To make it easier, you can just run
/usr/share/openqa/script/fetchneedlesWhich will download the tests to the correct location and will set the correct rights as well.
Fedora’s tests are also in git. To use them, you may do:
cd /var/lib/openqa/share/tests
mkdir fedora
cd fedora
git clone https://pagure.io/fedora-qa/os-autoinst-distri-fedora.git
./templates --clean
cd ..
chown -R geekotest fedora/To get everything configured to actually run the tests, there are plenty of options to set in the admin interface. If you plan to test openSUSE Factory, using tests mentioned in the previous section, the easiest way to get started is the following command:
/var/lib/openqa/share/tests/opensuse/products/opensuse/templates [--apikey API_KEY] [--apisecret API_SECRET]This will load some default settings that were used at some point of time in openSUSE production openQA. Therefore those should work reasonably well with openSUSE tests and needles. This script uses /usr/share/openqa/script/load_templates, consider reading its help page (--help) for documentation on possible extra arguments.
For Fedora, similarly, you can call:
/var/lib/openqa/share/tests/fedora/templates [--apikey API_KEY] [--apisecret API_SECRET]Some Fedora tests require special hard disk images to be present in /var/lib/openqa/share/factory/hdd/fixed. The createhdds.py script in the createhdds repository can be used to create these. See the documentation in that repo for more information.
To start testing a new ISO put it in /var/lib/openqa/share/factory/iso and call the following commands:
# Run the first test
/usr/share/openqa/script/client isos post \
ISO=openSUSE-Factory-NET-x86_64-Build0053-Media.iso \
DISTRI=opensuse \
VERSION=Factory \
FLAVOR=NET \
ARCH=x86_64 \
BUILD=0053If your openQA is not running on port 80 on 'localhost', you can add option --host=http://otherhost:9526 to specify a different port or host.
|
Warning
|
Use only the ISO filename in the 'client' command. You must place the file in /var/lib/openqa/share/factory/iso. You cannot place the file elsewhere and specify its path in the command. However, openQA also supports a remote-download feature of assets from trusted domains. |
For Fedora, a sample run might be:
# Run the first test
/usr/share/openqa/script/client isos post \
ISO=Fedora-Everything-boot-x86_64-Rawhide-20160308.n.0.iso \
DISTRI=fedora \
VERSION=Rawhide \
FLAVOR=Everything-boot-iso \
ARCH=x86_64 \
BUILD=Rawhide-20160308.n.0More details on triggering tests can also be found in the Users Guide.
Take a look at Documented Pitfalls.