xenial (7) plainbox-job-units.7.gz

NAME

       plainbox-job-units - syntax and semantics of Plainbox manifest entry unit type

SYNOPSIS

       This page documents the syntax of the plainbox manifest entry units

DESCRIPTION

       A  manifest  entry unit describes a single entry in a manifest that describes the machine or device under
       test. The purpose of each entry is to define one specific fact. Plainbox uses  such  units  to  create  a
       manifest that associates each entry with a value.

       The  values  themselves  can  come  from  multiple sources, the simplest one is the test operator who can
       provide an answer. In more complex cases a specialized application might look up the type of  the  device
       using  some  identification  method (such as DMI data) from a server, thus removing the extra interaction
       steps.

   File format and location
       Manifest entry units are regular plainbox units and are contained and shipped with plainbox providers. In
       other words, they are just the same as job and test plan units, for example.

   Fields
       Following fields may be used by a manifest entry unit.

       id:    (mandatory)  -  Unique  identifier  of  the entry. This field is used to look up and store data so
              please keep it stable across the lifetime of your provider.

       name:  (mandatory) - A human readable name of the entry. This should read as in a  feature  matrix  of  a
              device in a store (e.g., "802.11ac wireless capability", or "Thunderbolt support", "Number of hard
              drive bays"). This is not a sentence, don't end it with a dot. Please capitalize the first letter.
              The name is used in various listings so it should be kept reasonably short.

              The name is a translatable field so please prefix it with _ as in _name: Example.

       value-type:
              (mandatory)  -  Type  of value for this entry. Currently two values are allowed: bool for a yes/no
              value and natural for any natural number (negative numbers are rejected).

       value-units:
              (optional) - Units in which value is measured in. This is only used when value-type  is  equal  to
              natural. For example a "Screen size" manifest entry could be measured in "inch" units.

       resource-key:
              (optional)  -  Name  of  the  resource  key used to store the manifest value when representing the
              manifest as a resource record. This field defaults to the so-called partial id which is  just  the
              id: field as spelled in the unit definition file (so without the name space of the provider)

   Example
       This is an example manifest entry definition:

          unit: manifest entry
          id: has_thunderbolt
          _name: Thunderbolt Support
          value-type: bool

   Naming Manifest Entries
       To  keep  the  code  consistent  there's  one naming scheme that should be followed.  Entries for boolean
       values must use the has_XXX naming scheme. This will allow us to avoid issues  later  on  where  multiple
       people   develop  manifest  entries  and  it's  all  a  bit  weird  what  them  mean  has_thunderbolt  or
       thunderbolt_supported or tb or whatever we come up with. It's a convention, please stick to it.

   Using Manifest Entries in Jobs
       Manifest data can be used to decide if a given test is applicable for a given device under test  or  not.
       When  used  as a resource they behave in a standard way, like all other resources. The only special thing
       is the unique name-space of the resource job as it is provided  by  plainbox  itself.  The  name  of  the
       resource  job  is:  2013.com.canonical.plainbox.  In  practice a simple job that depends on data from the
       manifest can look like this:

          unit: job
          id: ...
          plugin: ...
          requires:
           manifest.has_thunderbolt == 'True' and manifest.ns == '2013.com.canonical.checkbox'
          imports: from 2013.com.canonical.plainbox import manifest

       Note that the job uses the manifest job from the 2013.com.canonical.plainbox name-space.  It  has  to  be
       imported  using  the  imports:  field as it is in a different name-space than the one the example unit is
       defined in (which is arbitrary). Having that resource it can then check  for  the  has_thunderbolt  field
       manifest  entry  in  the 2013.com.canonical.checkbox name-space. Note that the name-space of the manifest
       job is not related to the manifest.ns value. Since any provider can ship additional manifest entries  and
       then  all  share  the  flat  name-space  of  resource attributes looking at the .ns attribute is a way to
       uniquely identify a given manifest entry.

   Collecting Manifest Data
       To interactively collect manifest data from a user please include this job somewhere early in  your  test
       plan: 2013.com.canonical.plainbox::collect-manifest.

   Supplying External Manifest
       The  manifest  file  is stored in $HOME/.local/share/plainbox/machine-manifest.json.  If the provisioning
       method ships a valid manifest  file  there  it  can  be  used  for  fully  automatic  but  manifest-based
       deployments.

AUTHOR

       Zygmunt Krynicki & Checkbox Contributors

COPYRIGHT

       2012-2014 Canonical Ltd