adt-testreport-runloop(1)				     Linux Programmer's Manual					 adt-testreport-runloop(1)

NAME

       adt-testreport-runloop - repeatedly choose and test packages

SYNOPSYS

       adt-testreport-runloop [[!@]variable=value|[!@]settings-file]...

DESCRIPTION

       adt-testreport-runloop  is  a  rather  ad-hoc  script which repeatedly invokes adt-testreport-onepackage; it is designed to be invoked from
       cron.

       WARNING - it is essential to reconfigure this program before use, as the supplied examples will send emails to people who will become  very
       upset with you!

CONFIGURATION

       Command-line  arguments	containing  =  are  interpreted  with  eval; other arguments are sourced using ., in each case interpreted as bash
       script.

       Supplied arguments are both executed by a-t-r and passed through to the invocation of a-t-o.  You may prefix an argument with @ to indicate
       that it is for a-t-onepackage only, or with ! to indicate that it is for a-t-runloop only.

       Thus  the  set of variables which can be set is the union of those for a-t-runloop itself and those for a-t-onepackage.	See the a-t-o man-
       page for such information about its configuration as is available.  Configuration fragment authors should bear in mind that  both  programs
       use set -e.

       It is quite permissible to set PATH and other needed environmnet variables in the configuration file.

       The following variables may be set:

       distro distribution  (`suite') to be tested.  There is no default.  This variable is used only for the default values of testbed_check_path
	      and test_classes.  However, it is probably a convenient way of specifying the intended  effect  particularly  as	attempting  to	do
	      cross-distribution testing in a single installation does not work properly right now (see a-t-o's BUGS).

       max_test_count
	      the  maximum  number  of	times to invoke a-t-o.	This counts both passed and failed tests, but it doesn't count possible runs which
	      were suppressed.	Default: 10.

       go_anway
	      Run even though the file go does not exist.  See SUPPRESSION, below.  Default: false.

       architecture
	      Used in combination with distro when calculating the right default for test_classes.  The default is the result from  dpkg  --print-
	      architecture.

       testbed_check_path
	      If  the  file  named by this variable doesn't exist, a-t-r will exit.  This avoids it spinning and reporting many immediate failures
	      due to a broken testbed.	The default is /var/lib/autopkgtest/xenlvm/adt_distro/good if distro is set, which assumes that  the  Xen-
	      based virtualisation system is being used; if distro is not set then default is /dev/null which nullifies this feature.

       test_classes
	      Specifies  the set of test classes to try, with the details of each test class separated by a colon : from the next.  a-t-r will run
	      a-t-o once for each listed test class and then return to the beginning of the list.

	      Tests in each class are thus selected approximately equally often.  (If max_test_count is not a multiple of  the	number	of  actual
	      test classes then early classes are used slightly more.)

	      Each  test  class  consists  of a set of suppression checks, a comma ,, and some configuration arguments for a-t-o.  The suppression
	      checks are whitespace-separated words; see SUPPRESSION.  The configuration arguments are likewise whitespace-separated.  There is no
	      provision for passing configuration arguments containing spaces to a-t-o.  a-t-o arguments in test classes override other configura-
	      tion settings.

	      The default is source distro, target=source : binary distro, target=binary-architecture which tests binary packages and source pack-
	      ages from the same distribution in alternation

SUPPRESSION

       a-t-r is designed to be enabled and disabled by sentinel files.

       Firstly,  if  the file go does not exist in its working directory, it will stop at the first sensible opportunity.  (See also the go_anyway
       configuration variable.)

       Secondly, test classes may specify suppression checks.  For each such check classcheck, a-t-r will test for the	existence  of  stop-class-
       check in its current directory.	If that file exists, it will suppress that class of test.  Do not suppress all of the tests without remov-
       ing go.

FILES

       /var/lib/autopkgtest/xenlvm/adt_distro/good
	      default sentinel file for testbed_check_path.

       ./go   Sentinel file indicating that operation should be enabled.

       ./stop-classcheck
	      Sentinel file indicating that test classes mentioning classcheck should be suppressed.

       adt-testreport-runloop does not use any other files directly, but it will probably need a configuration file as an argument,  and  it  will
       invoke adt-testreport-onepackage which uses many files in the current directory and which invokes an autopkgtest virtualisation server.

BUGS AND WARNINGS

       It is essential not to use the example configuration!  This configuration is likely to send inappropriate emails!

       There  is no locking.  Whatever invokes a-t-r should take out a lock of some kind.  See the example cronjobs provided in hosts/*/cronjob in
       the source package.

       If all of the test classes are suppressed, a-t-r will spin in a tight loop looking for something to do.

       The testbed_check_path feature is rather ad-hoc.  It would be better to query the virtualisation server to be used directly and	then  sup-
       press the test class if relevant.  (But the infinite loop bug would need to be fixed too.)

       The design precludes detecting attempts to set incorrectly named configuration options.

AUTHORS AND COPYRIGHT

       This  manpage  is part of autopkgtest, a tool for testing Debian binary packages.  autopkgtest is Copyright (C) 2006-2007 Canonical Ltd and
       others.

       See /usr/share/doc/autopkgtest/CREDITS for the list of contributors and full copying conditions.

autopkgtest							       2007						 adt-testreport-runloop(1)