Ubuntu Manpage: plainbox - toolkit for software and hardware integration testing

NAME

       plainbox - toolkit for software and hardware integration testing

SYNOPSIS

       usage: plainbox [-h] [--version] [-v] [-D] [-C]
              [-T LOGGER] [-P] [-I] subcommand ...

DESCRIPTION

       PlainBox  is a toolkit consisting of python3 library, development tools, documentation and
       examples. It is targeted at developers working on testing  or  certification  applications
       and authors creating tests for such applications.

OPTIONS

   Optional Arguments
          -h, --help
                 show this help message and exit

          --version
                 show program's version number and exit

   Logging and Debugging
          -v, --verbose
                 be more verbose (same as --log-level=INFO)

          -D, --debug
                 enable DEBUG messages on the root logger

          -C, --debug-console
                 display DEBUG messages in the console

          -T LOGGER, --trace LOGGER
                 enable DEBUG messages on the specified logger (can be used multiple times)

          -P, --pdb
                 jump into pdb (python debugger) when a command crashes

          -I, --debug-interrupt
                 crash on SIGINT/KeyboardInterrupt, useful with --pdb

PLAINBOX SUB-COMMANDS

PlainBox uses a number of sub-commands for performing specific operations. Since it
targets several different audiences commands are arranged into three parts: test authors,
test users and core developers

Test Users
plainbox run
Run a test job. This is the swiss army knife of a swiss army knife. Has lots of
options that affect job selection, execution and handling results.

plainbox check-config
check and display plainbox configuration. While this command doesn't allow to
edit any settings it is very useful for figuring out what variables are
available and which configuration files are consulted.

Test Authors
plainbox startprovider
Create a new provider (directory). This command allows test authors to create a
new collection (provider) of test definitions for PlainBox.

plainbox dev script
Run the command from a job in a way it would run as a part of normal run,
ignoring all dependencies / requirements and providing additional diagnostic
messages.

plainbox dev analyze
Analyze how selected jobs would be executed. Takes almost the same arguments as
plainbox run does. Additional optional arguments control the type of analysis
performed.

plainbox dev parse
Parse stdin with the specified parser. PlainBox comes with a system for plugging
parser definitions so that shell programs (and developers) get access to
structured data exported from otherwise hard-to-parse output.

plainbox dev list
List and describe various objects. Run without arguments to see all the
high-level objects PlainBox knows about. Optional argument can restrict the list
to objects of one kind.

Core Developers
plainbox self-test
Run unit and integration tests. Unit tests work also after installation so this
command can verify a local installation at any time.

plainbox dev special
Access to special/internal commands.

plainbox dev crash
Crash the application. Useful for testing the crash handler and crash log files.

plainbox dev logtest
Log messages at various levels. Useful for testing the logging system.

FILES AND DIRECTORIES

The following files and directories affect PlainBox:

Created or written to
$XDG_CACHE_HOME/plainbox/logs
PlainBox keeps all internal log files in this directory. In particular the
crash.log is generated there on abnormal termination. If extended logging / tracing
is enabled via --debug or --trace then debug.log will be created in this directory.
The files are generated on demand and are rotated if they grow too large. It is
safe to remove them at any time.

$XDG_CACHE_HOME/plainbox/sessions
PlainBox keeps internal state of all running and dormant (suspended or complete)
sessions here. Each session is kept in a separate directory with a randomly
generated name. This directory may also contain a symlink last-session that points
at one of those sessions. The symlink may be broken as a part of normal operation.

Sessions may accumulate, in some cases, and they are not garbage collected at this
time. In general it is safe to remove sessions when PlainBox is not running.

Looked up or read from
/usr/local/share/plainbox-providers-1/*.provider
System wide, locally administered directory with provider definitions. See
PROVIDERS for more information. Jobs defined here have access to
plainbox-trusted-launcher(1) and may run as root without prompting (depending on
configuration).

/usr/share/plainbox-providers-1/*.provider
Like /usr/local/share/plainbox-providers-1 but maintained by the local package
management system. This is where packaged providers add their definitions.

$XDG_DATA_HOME/plainbox-providers-1/*.provider
Per-user directory with provider definitions. This directory may be used to install
additional test definitions that are only available to a particular user. Jobs
defined there will not have access to plainbox-trusted-launcher(1) and will use
pkexec(1) or sudo(1) to run as root, if needed.

Typically this directory is used by test provider developers transparently by
invoking manage.py develop (manage.py is the per-provider management script
generated by plainbox startprovider)

/etc/xdg/plainbox.conf
System-wide configuration file (lowest priority). See below for details.

$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/plainbox.conf
Per-user configuration (highest priority).

CONFIGURATION FILES

       PlainBox  (and its derivatives) uses a configuration system composed of variables arranged
       in sections. All  configuration  files  follow  the  well-known  INI-style  syntax.  While
       PlainBox itself is not really using any variables, knowledge of where those can be defined
       is useful for working with derivative applications, such as Checkbox.

   The environment section
       The [environment] section deserves  special  attention.  If  a  job  advertises  usage  of
       environment  variable FOO (by using the environ: FOO declaration) and FOO is not available
       in the environment of the user starting plainbox, then the  value  is  obtained  from  the
       [environment]  section.  This  mechanism  is  useful  for  distributing both site-wide and
       per-user configuration for jobs.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       The following environment variables affect PlainBox:

       PROVIDERPATH
              Determines the lookup of test providers. Note that unless otherwise  essential,  it
              is recommended to install test providers into one of the aforementioned directories
              instead of using PROVIDERPATH.

              The default value is composed out of ':'-joined list of:

              • /usr/local/share/plainbox-providers-1

              • /usr/share/plainbox-providers-1

              • $XDG_DATA_HOME/plainbox-providers-1

       PLAINBOX_LOCALE_DIR
              Alters the lookup directory for translation catalogs. When unset  uses  system-wide
              locations.  Developers  working  with a local copy should set it to build/mo (after
              running ./setup.py build_i18n)

       PLAINBOX_I18N_MODE
              Alters behavior of the translation subsystem. This is  only  useful  to  developers
              that  wish  to  see  fake  translations  of all the strings marked as translatable.
              Available values include no-op, gettext (default), lorem-ipsum-XX where XX  is  the
              language  code  of  the  faked  translations.  Supported faked translations are: ar
              (Arabic), ch (Chinese), he (Hebrew), jp (Japanese), kr (Korean), pl (Polish) and ru
              (Russian)

AUTHOR

       Zygmunt Krynicki

COPYRIGHT

       2012-2014 Canonical Ltd