N(ext)Runner

This section details the avocado.core.nrunner module, which contains a proposal for the next Avocado test runner implementation.

Motivation

There are a number of reasons for introducing a different runner architecture and implementation. Some of them are related to limitations found in the current implementation, that were found to be too hard to remove without major breakage. Other reasons are closely related to missing features that are deemed important.

For instance, these are the current limitations of the Avocado test runner:

  • Test execution limited to the same machine, given that the communication between runner and test is a Python queue (the remote runner plugins actually execute an Avocado Job remotely, with all the overhead and complications that it brings)
  • Test execution is limited to a single test at a time (non-parallel)
  • Test processes are not properly isolated and can affect the test runner (including the “UI”)

And these are some features which it’s believed to be more easily implemented under a different architecture and implementation:

  • Remote execution
  • Different test execution isolation models provided by the test runner (process, container, virtual machine)
  • Distributed execution of tests across a pool of any combination of processes, containers, virtual machines, etc.
  • Parallel execution of tests
  • Optimized runners for a given environment and or test type (for instance, a runner written in RUST to run tests written in RUST in an environment that already has RUST installed but not much else)
  • Notification of execution results to many simultaneous “status servers”
  • Disconnected test execution, so that results can be saved to a device and collected by the runner
  • Simplified and automated deployment of the runner component into execution environments such as containers and virtual machines

Concepts:

Runnable

A runnable is a description of an entity that can be executed and produce some kind of result. The description is abstract on purpose. A simple and obvious candidate for filling the description is a standalone executable, such as the ones available on your /bin directory.

A runnable must declare its kind. Using the previous example of standalone executables, those may be given the unique kind identifier such as exec.

Each runnable kind may require a different amount of information to be provided so that it can be instantiated. Using standalone executables as an example, the information required should be limtied to the location of the the standalone executable file. The following pseudo-code may help to put these ideas together:

runnable_instance = create_runnable('exec', uri='/bin/true')

Runner

A runner is an active entity that acts on the information of a runnable. A runner will usually be tied to an specific kind of runnable, and will to able to act upon the specific information that runnable kind provides.

The following pseudo-code may help to illustrate that:

runnable_instance = create_runnable('exec', uri='/bin/sleep')
if runnable_instance.kind == 'exec':
   runner = create_runner_exec(runnable_instance)

A runner should produce status information on the progress of the execution of a runnable. If the runnable produces interesting information, it should forward that along. For instance, using the exec runner example, it’s helpful to start producing status that the process has been created and it’s running as soon as possible. These can be as simple as a sequence of:

{"status": "running"}
{"status": "running"}

When the process is finished, it can return:

{"status": "finished", "returncode": 0, 'stdout': b'', 'stderr': b''}

Note that, besides the status of finished, and a return code which can be used to determine a success or failure status, it’s not the runner’s responsibility to determine test results.

Task

A task is one specific instance/occurrence of the execution of a runnable with its respective runner. They should have a unique identifier, although a task by itself wont’t enforce its uniqueness in a process or any other type of collection.

A task is responsible for producing and reporting status updates. This status updates are in a format similar to those received from a runner, but will add more information to them, such as its unique identifier.

A different agreggate structure should be used to keep track of the execution of tasks.

Recipe

A recipe is the serialization of the runnable information in a file. The format chosen is JSON, and that should allow both quick and easy machine handling and also manual creation of recipes when necessary.

Runners

A runner can be capable of running one or many different kinds of runnables. A runner should implement a capabilities command that returns, among other info, a list of runnable kinds that it can (to the best of its knowledge) run. Example:

python3 -m avocado.core.nrunner capabilities
{'runnables': ['noop', 'exec', 'exec-test', 'python-unittest'],
 'commands': ['capabilities', 'runnable-run', 'runnable-run-recipe',
 'task-run', 'task-run-recipe', 'status-server']}

Runner scripts

The primary runner implementation is a Python module that can be run, as shown before, with the avocado.core.nrunner module name. Additionally it’s also available as the avocado-runner script.

Runner Execution

While the exec runner given as example before will need to create an extra process to actually run the standalone executable given, that is an implementation detail of that specific runner. Other types of runners may be able to run the code the users expects it to run, while still providing feedback about it in the same process.

The runner’s main method (run()) operates like a generator, and yields results which are dictionaries with relevant information about it.

Trying it out - standalone

It’s possible to interact with the runner features by using the command line. This interface is not stable at all, and may be changed or removed in the future.

You can run a “noop” runner with:

python3 -m avocado.core.nrunner runnable-run -k noop

You can run an “exec” runner with:

python3 -m avocado.core.nrunner runnable-run -k exec -u /bin/uname --args='-a'

You can run an “exec-test” runner with:

python3 -m avocado.core.nrunner runnable-run -k exec-test -u /bin/true

You can run a “python-unittest” runner with:

python3 -m avocado.core.nrunner runnable-run -k python-unittest -u unittest.TestCase

Trying it out - Avocado Plugins

Simple Avocado plugins for the runner features are also available.

Runnables from parameters

You can run a “noop” runner with:

avocado runnable-run -k noop

You can run an “exec” runner with:

avocado runnable-run -k exec -u /bin/sleep -a 3

You can run an “exec-test” runner with:

avocado runnable-run -k exec-test -u /bin/true

You can run a “python-unittest” runner with:

avocado runnable-run python-unittest unittest.TestCase

Runnables from recipes

You can run a “noop” recipe with:

avocado runnable-run-recipe examples/recipes/runnables/noop.json

You can run an “exec” runner with:

avocado runnable-run-recipe examples/recipes/runnables/exec_sleep_3.json

You can run a “python-unittest” runner with:

avocado runnable-run-recipe examples/recipes/runnables/python_unittest.json