Provided by: plainbox_0.25-1_all 
NAME
plainbox-test-plan-units - syntax and semantics of Plainbox test plan unit type
SYNOPSIS
This page documents the Plainbox test plan units syntax and runtime behavior
DESCRIPTION
The test plan unit is an evolution of the Plainbox whitelist concept, that is, a facility that describes
a sequence of job definitions that should be executed together.
As in whitelists, jobs definitions are _selected_ by either listing their identifier or a regular
expression that matches their identifier. Selected jobs are executed in the sequence they appear in the
list, unless they need to be reordered to satisfy dependencies which always take priority.
Unlike whitelists, test plans can contain additional meta-data which can be used in a graphical user
interface. You can assign a translatable name and description to each test plan. This used to be done
informally by naming the .whitelist file appropriately, with some unique filename and including some
#-based comments at the top of the file.
Test plans are also typical units so they can be defined with the familiar RFC822-like syntax that is
also used for job definitions. They can also be multiple test plan definitions per file, just like with
all the other units, including job definitions.
Test Plan Fields
The following fields can be used in a test plan. Note that not all fields need to be used or even should
be used. Please remember that Checkbox needs to maintain backwards compatibility so some of the test
plans it defines may have non-typical constructs required to ensure proper behavior. You don't have to
copy such constructs when working on a new test plan from scratch
id: Each test plan needs to have a unique identifier. This is exactly the same as with other units
that have an identifier (like job definitions and categories).
This field is not used for display purposes but you may need to refer to it on command line so
keeping it descriptive is useful
name: A human-readable name of the test plan. The name should be relatively short as it may be used to
display a list of test plans to the test operator.
Remember that the user or the test operator may not always be familiar with the scope of testing
that you are focusing on. Also consider that multiple test providers may be always installed at
the same time. The translated version of the name (and icon, see below) is the only thing that
needs to allow the test operator to pick the right test plan.
Please use short and concrete names like:
• "Storage Device Certification Tests"
• "Ubuntu Core Application's Clock Acceptance Tests"
• "Default Ubuntu Hardware Certification Tests".
The field has a soft limit of eighty characters. It cannot have multiple lines. This field should
be marked as translatable by prepending the underscore character (_) in front. This field is
mandatory.
description:
A human-readable description of this test plan. Here you can include as many or few details as
you'd like. Some applications may offer a way of viewing this data. In general it is recommended
to include a description of what is being tested so that users can make an informed decision but
please in mind that the name field alone must be sufficient to discriminate between distinct test
plans so you don't have to duplicate that information in the description.
If your tests will require any special set-up (procuring external hardware, setting some devices
or software in special test mode) it is recommended to include this information here.
The field has no size limit. It can contain newline characters. This field should be marked as
translatable by prepending the underscore character (_) in front. This field is optional.
include:
A multi-line list of job identifiers or patterns matching such identifiers that should be included
for execution.
This is the most important field in any test plan. It basically decides on which job definitions
are selected by (included by) the test plan. Separate entries need to be placed on separate
lines. White space does not separate entries as the id field may (sic!) actually include spaces.
You have two options for selecting tests:
• You can simply list the identifier (either partial or fully qualified) of the job you want to
include in the test plan directly. This is very common and most test plans used by Checkbox
actually look like that.
• You can use regular expressions to select many tests at the same time. This is the only way
to select generated jobs (created either by template units or by job definitions using the
legacy 'local' plugin type). Please remember that the dot character has a special meaning so
unless you actually want to match any character escape the dot with the backslash character
(\).
Regardless of if you use patterns or literal job identifiers you can use their fully qualified
name (the one that includes the namespace they reside in) or an abbreviated form. The abbreviated
form is applicable for job definitions that reside in the same namespace (but not necessarily the
same provider) as the provider that is defining the test plan.
Plainbox will catch incorrect references to unknown jobs so you should be relatively safe. Have a
look at the examples section below for examples on how you can refer to jobs from other providers
(you simply use their fully qualified name for that)
mandatory_include:
A multi-line list of job identifiers or patterns matching such identifiers that should always be
executed.
This optional field can be used to specify the jobs that should always run. This is particularly
useful for specifying jobs that gather vital info about the tested system, as it renders imposible
to generate a report with no information about system under test.
For example, session results meant to be sent to the Ubuntu certification website must include the
special job: miscellanea/submission-resources
Example:
mandatory_include:
miscellanea/submission-resources
Note that mandatory jobs will always be run first (along with their dependant jobs)
bootstrap_include:
A multi-line list of job identifiers that should be run first, before the main body of testing
begins. The job that should be included in the bootstrapping sections are the ones generating or
helping to generate other jobs.
Example:
bootstrap_include:
graphics/generator_driver_version
Note that each entry in the bootstrap_include section must be a valid job identifier and cannot be
a regular expression pattern. Also note that only local and resource jobs are allowed in this
section.
exclude:
A multi-line list of job identifiers or patterns matching such identifiers that should be excluded
from execution.
This optional field can be used to prevent some jobs from being selected for execution. It follows
the similarly named -x command line option to the plainbox run command.
This field may be used when a general (broad) selection is somehow made by the include field and
it must be trimmed down (for example, to prevent a specific dangerous job from running). It has
the same syntax as the include.
When a job is both included and excluded, exclusion always takes priority.
category-overrides:
A multi-line list of category override statements.
This optional field can be used to alter the natural job definition category association.
Currently Plainbox allows each job definition to associate itself with at most one category (see
plainbox-category-units(7) and plainbox-job-units(7) for details). This is sub-optimal as some
tests can be easily assigned equally well to two categories at the same time.
For that reason, it may be necessary, in a particular test plan, to override the natural category
association with one that more correctly reflects the purpose of a specific job definition in the
context of a specific test plan.
For example let's consider a job definition that tests if a specific piece of hardware works
correctly after a suspend-resume cycle. Let's assume that the job definition has a natural
association with the category describing such hardware devices. In one test plan, this test will
be associated with the hardware-specific category (using the natural association). In a special
suspend-resume test plan the same job definition can be associated with a special suspend-resume
category.
The actual rules as to when to use category overrides and how to assign a natural category to a
specific test is not documented here. We believe that each project should come up with a workflow
and semantics that best match its users.
The syntax of this field is a list of statements defined on separate lines. Each override
statement has the following form:
apply CATEGORY-IDENTIFIER to JOB-DEFINITION-PATTERN
Both 'apply' and 'to' are literal strings. CATEGORY-IDENTIFIER is the identifier of a category
unit. The JOB-DEFINITION-PATTERN has the same syntax as the include field does. That is, it can be
either a simple string or a regular expression that is being compared to identifiers of all the
known job definitions. The pattern can be either partially or fully qualified. That is, it may or
may not include the namespace component of the job definition identifier.
Overrides are applied in order and the last applied override is the effective override in a given
test plan. For example, given the following two overrides:
apply cat-1 to .*
apply cat-2 to foo
The job definition with the partial identifier foo will be associated with the cat-2 category.
estimated_duration:
An approximate time to execute this test plan, in seconds.
Since plainbox version 0.24 this field can be expressed in two formats. The old format, a floating
point number of seconds is somewhat difficult to read for larger values. To avoid mistakes test
designers can use the second format with separate sections for number of hours, minutes and
seconds. The format, as regular expression, is (\d+h)?[: ]*(\d+m?)[: ]*(\d+s)?. The regular
expression expresses an optional number of hours, followed by the h character, followed by any
number of spaces or : characters, followed by an optional number of minutes, followed by the m
character, again followed by any number of spaces or : characters, followed by the number of
seconds, ultimately followed by the s character.
The values can no longer be fractional (you cannot say 2.5m you need to say 2m 30s). We feel that
sub-second granularity does is too unpredictable to be useful so that will not be supported in the
future.
This field is optional. If it is missing it is automatically computed by the identical field that
may be specified on particular job definitions.
Since sometimes it is easier to think in terms of test plans (they are typically executed more
often than a specific job definition) this estimate may be more accurate as it doesn't include the
accumulated sum of mis-estimates from all of the job definitions selected by a particular test
plan.
Migrating From Whitelists
Migrating from whitelists is optional but strongly recommended. Whitelists are discouraged but neither
deprecated nor unsupported. As we progress on the transition we are likely to fully deprecate and
subsequently remove the classical form of whitelits (as are typically found in many *.whitelist files).
The first thing you need to do is to create a file that will hold your test plans. You should put that
file in the units/ directory of your provider.
Note that a file that holds a test plan may also hold any other units. The decision on how to structure
your provider is up to you and the particular constraints and recommended practices of the project you
are participating in.
Having selected an appropriate file simply copy your old whitelist (just one) and paste it into the
_template_ below:
unit: test plan
id: << DERIVE A PROPER IDENTIFIER FROM THE NAME OF THE WHITELIST FILE >>
_name: << COME UP WITH A PROPER NAME OF THIS TEST PLAN >>
_description:
<< COME UP WITH A PROPER DESCRIPTION OF THIS TEST PLAN >>
include:
<< PASTE THE FULL TEXT OF YOUR OLD WHITELIST >>
Note that you may also add the estimated_duration field but this is not required. Sometimes it is easier
to provide a rough estimate of a whole test plan rather than having to compute it from all the job
definitions it selects.
Examples
A simple test plan that selects several jobs:
id: foo-bar-and-froz
_name: Tests Foo, Bar and Froz
_description:
This example test plan selects the following three jobs:
- Foo
- Bar
- Froz
include:
foo
bar
froz
A test plan that uses jobs from another provider's namespace in addition to some of its own definitions:
id: extended-tests
_name: Extended Storage Tests (By Corp Inc.)
_description:
This test plan runs an extended set of storage tests, customized
by the Corp Inc. corporation. In addition to the standard Ubuntu
set of storage tests, this test plan includes the following tests::
- Multipath I/O Tests
- Degraded Array Recovery Tests
include:
2013.com.canonical.certification:disk/.*
multipath-io
degrade-array-recovery
A test plan that generates jobs using bootstrap_include section:
unit: test plan
id: test-plan-with-bootstrapping
_name: Tests with a bootstrapping stage
_description:
This test plan uses bootstrapping_include field to generate additional
jobs depending on the output of the generator job.
include: .*
bootstrap_include:
generator
unit: job
id: generator
plugin: resource
_description: Job that generates Foo and Bar resources
command:
echo "my_resource: Foo"
echo
echo "my_resource: Bar"
unit: template
template-unit: job
template-resource: generator
plugin: shell
estimated_duration: 1
id: generated_job_{my_resource}
command: echo {my_resource}
_description: Job instantiated from template that echoes {my_resource}
A test plan that marks some jobs as mandatory:
unit: test plan
id: test-plan-with-mandatory-jobs
_name: Test plan with mandatory jobs
_description:
This test plan runs some jobs regardless of user selection.
include:
Foo
mandatory_include:
Bar
unit: job
id: Foo
_name: Foo job
_description: Job that might be deselected by the user
plugin: shell
command: echo Foo job
unit: job
id: Bar
_name: Bar job (mandatory)
_description: Job that should *always* run
plugin: shell
command: echo Bar job
AUTHOR
Zygmunt Krynicki & Checkbox Contributors
COPYRIGHT
2012-2014 Canonical Ltd
0.25 January 05, 2016 PLAINBOX-TEST-PLAN-UNITS(7)