Test Driven Kernel Development
In this talk Knut will make a case for a pragmatic test driven approach to Linux kernel development. Most of the testing we are aware of are based on tests that are executed from user space only, and …
| Talk Title | Test Driven Kernel Development |
| Speakers | Knut Omang (Consulting member of Technical Staff, Oracle) |
| Conference | Open Source Summit + ELC Europe |
| Conf Tag | |
| Location | Edinburgh, UK |
| Date | Oct 21-25, 2018 |
| URL | Talk Page |
| Slides | Talk Slides |
| Video | |
In this talk Knut will make a case for a pragmatic test driven approach to Linux kernel development. Most of the testing we are aware of are based on tests that are executed from user space only, and can only observe what the kernel exposes. Often this is not sufficient to test detailed semantics of components of the kernel, as many of the stimulis needed to activate certain pieces of the code is not easily generated. Also, even when a certain class of problems can be exposed using system level tests, running it as part of a continuous integration (CI) system may not be feasible due to the hardware needs. A good unit test framework can make it easier to write tests that asserts certain behavour that some code rely on. Oracle is developing and improving KTF (Kernel Test Framework), available on github to allow unit testing across the user/kernel boundary, which will be demonstrated as part of the talk.
