Autotest Client Quick Start

The autotest client has few requirements. Make sure you have python 2.4 or later installed. Also, it is a good idea to try things in a VM or test machine you don’t care about, for safety.

Download the client wherever you see fit:

git clone --recursive git://github.com/autotest/autotest.git
cd autotest

Run some simple tests, such our sleeptest, which only sleeps for a given amount of seconds (our favorite autotest sanity testing). From the autotest directory (i.e. /usr/local/autotest/client):

client/autotest-local --verbose run sleeptest

To run any individual test:

client/autotest-local run <testname>

You can also run tests by providing the control file

client/autotest-local client/tests/sleeptest/control

Some tests may require that you run them as root. For example, if you try to run the rtc test as normal user, you will get /dev/rtc0: Permission denied error in your test result. So you must run the test as root.

In case you run the client as root, then switch back to a regular user, some important directories will be owned by root and the next run will fail. If that happens, you can remove the directories:

sudo rm -rf client/tmp
sudo rm -rf client/results

There are sample control files inside the client/samples directory, useful for learning from. The kbuild_and_tests/control file in there will download a kernel, compile it, then reboot the machine into it.

Execute it as root:

client/autotest-local --verbose client/samples/kbuild_and_tests/control

WARNING - do it on a test machine, or in a VM, so you don’t mess up your existing system boot configuration