GNS3/dynamips

Need a test script

flaviojs opened this issue · 1 comments

flaviojs commented

I don't use this software so I'm asking help from anyone that uses it.

Requirements of the script:

  • uses a regular dynamips executable (no extra code changes)
  • no gui or user interaction, to be executed from the console as part of automated tests (I'm in a 64-bit linux)
  • it must assert that a router capability worked (maybe send a packet from A to B?, starting up is not enough)

Optional, would be nice to have:

  • cleanup leftovers so the next run occurs in the same conditions
  • report the amount of clock time it took to complete the task
  • report the amount of cpu time it took to complete the task
  • report the amount of memory it needed to complete the task
  • use an easy-to-modify setup or language (like python)
  • minimize dependencies

Long story:

I'm playing around with rust in this project. After a few tries I arrived at a nice solution. I have access to the public structures and functions that the C code provides and can easily replace any C function with a rust function.

I make mistakes all the time, so I need a baseline test to avoid the accumulation of mistakes that comes with blind development. My focus/interest is the virtual hardware, which I want to experiment with, possibly complete or fix.

It sucks to see this project with security bugs, but I'm not gonna touch C code unless someone integrates Coverity Scan or similar into the CI (so I can see a list of bugs).
I find C to be very error-prone, I don't intend to repeat that frustrating development experience now that I know rust.

flaviojs commented

I tried a bunch of stuff while converting to rust and found a decent baseline test.
Only thing left is make a script to automate the test.

Non-hypervisor "can boot" test:

  1. run dynamips with options for a particular image and TCP console
  2. telnet to the TCP console and wait for either "bytes of NVRAM" or "bytes of processor board System flash"
  3. Result:
    3.a) PASS if the target text is found
    3.b) FAIL if dynamips crashes
    3.c) FAIL if telnet fails to connect X times
    3.d) FAIL if there is no telnet text during X time
    3.e) FAIL if IOS keeps rebooting

When the target text appears we know that:

  1. the microcode and cpu (jit/nojit) seem to work
  2. all the hardware that IOS can detect has been detected (memory,pci,eeprom,fpga,...) without crashing or rebooting
  3. the config file has not been read yet