Currently testing of userspace and in-kernel API use two different frameworks. kselftests for the userspace ones and Kunit for the in-kernel ones. Besides their different scopes, both have different strengths and limitations:
Kunit: * Tests are normal kernel code. * They use the regular kernel toolchain. * They can be packaged and distributed as modules conveniently.
Kselftests: * Tests are normal userspace code * They need a userspace toolchain. A kernel cross toolchain is likely not enough. * A fair amout of userland is required to run the tests, which means a full distro or handcrafted rootfs. * There is no way to conveniently package and run kselftests with a given kernel image. * The kselftests makefiles are not as powerful as regular kbuild. For example they are missing proper header dependency tracking or more complex compiler option modifications.
Therefore kunit is much easier to run against different kernel configurations and architectures. This series aims to combine kselftests and kunit, avoiding both their limitations. It works by compiling the userspace kselftests as part of the regular kernel build, embedding them into the kunit kernel or module and executing them from there. If the kernel toolchain is not fit to produce userspace because of a missing libc, the kernel's own nolibc can be used instead. The structured TAP output from the kselftest is integrated into the kunit KTAP output transparently, the kunit parser can parse the combined logs together.
Further room for improvements: * Call each test in its completely dedicated namespace * Handle additional test files besides the test executable through archives. CPIO, cramfs, etc. * Compatibility with kselftest_harness.h (in progress) * Expose the blobs in debugfs * Provide some convience wrappers around compat userprogs * Figure out a migration path/coexistence solution for kunit UAPI and tools/testing/selftests/
Output from the kunit example testcase, note the output of "example_uapi_tests".
$ ./tools/testing/kunit/kunit.py run --kunitconfig lib/kunit example ... Running tests with: $ .kunit/linux kunit.filter_glob=example kunit.enable=1 mem=1G console=tty kunit_shutdown=halt [11:53:53] ================== example (10 subtests) =================== [11:53:53] [PASSED] example_simple_test [11:53:53] [SKIPPED] example_skip_test [11:53:53] [SKIPPED] example_mark_skipped_test [11:53:53] [PASSED] example_all_expect_macros_test [11:53:53] [PASSED] example_static_stub_test [11:53:53] [PASSED] example_static_stub_using_fn_ptr_test [11:53:53] [PASSED] example_priv_test [11:53:53] =================== example_params_test =================== [11:53:53] [SKIPPED] example value 3 [11:53:53] [PASSED] example value 2 [11:53:53] [PASSED] example value 1 [11:53:53] [SKIPPED] example value 0 [11:53:53] =============== [PASSED] example_params_test =============== [11:53:53] [PASSED] example_slow_test [11:53:53] ======================= (4 subtests) ======================= [11:53:53] [PASSED] procfs [11:53:53] [PASSED] userspace test 2 [11:53:53] [SKIPPED] userspace test 3: some reason [11:53:53] [PASSED] userspace test 4 [11:53:53] ================ [PASSED] example_uapi_test ================ [11:53:53] ===================== [PASSED] example ===================== [11:53:53] ============================================================ [11:53:53] Testing complete. Ran 16 tests: passed: 11, skipped: 5 [11:53:53] Elapsed time: 67.543s total, 1.823s configuring, 65.655s building, 0.058s running
Based on v6.14-rc1 and the series "tools/nolibc: compatibility with -Wmissing-prototypes" [0]. For compatibility with LLVM/clang another series is needed [1].
[0] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250123-nolibc-prototype-v1-0-e1afc5c1999a@wei... [1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250213-kbuild-userprog-fixes-v1-0-f255fb477d9...
Signed-off-by: Thomas Weißschuh thomas.weissschuh@linutronix.de --- Thomas Weißschuh (12): kconfig: implement CONFIG_HEADERS_INSTALL for Usermode Linux kconfig: introduce CONFIG_ARCH_HAS_NOLIBC kbuild: userprogs: respect CONFIG_WERROR kbuild: userprogs: add nolibc support kbuild: introduce blob framework kunit: tool: Add test for nested test result reporting kunit: tool: Don't overwrite test status based on subtest counts kunit: tool: Parse skipped tests from kselftest.h kunit: Introduce UAPI testing framework kunit: uapi: Add example for UAPI tests kunit: uapi: Introduce preinit executable kunit: uapi: Validate usability of /proc
Documentation/kbuild/makefiles.rst | 12 + Makefile | 5 +- include/kunit/uapi.h | 17 ++ include/linux/blob.h | 21 ++ init/Kconfig | 2 + lib/Kconfig.debug | 1 - lib/kunit/Kconfig | 9 + lib/kunit/Makefile | 17 +- lib/kunit/kunit-example-test.c | 17 ++ lib/kunit/kunit-uapi-example.c | 58 +++++ lib/kunit/uapi-preinit.c | 61 +++++ lib/kunit/uapi.c | 250 +++++++++++++++++++++ scripts/Makefile.blobs | 19 ++ scripts/Makefile.build | 6 + scripts/Makefile.clean | 2 +- scripts/Makefile.userprogs | 18 +- scripts/blob-wrap.c | 27 +++ tools/include/nolibc/Kconfig.nolibc | 18 ++ tools/testing/kunit/kunit_parser.py | 13 +- tools/testing/kunit/kunit_tool_test.py | 9 + .../test_is_test_passed-failure-nested.log | 10 + .../test_data/test_is_test_passed-kselftest.log | 3 +- 22 files changed, 584 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-) --- base-commit: 20e952894066214a80793404c9578d72ef89c5e0 change-id: 20241015-kunit-kselftests-56273bc40442
Best regards,