Ubuntu Manpage: kyua — Testing framework for infrastructure software

Provided by: kyua_0.13+git20240311+0a43bb8d89e3-3_amd64

NAME

       kyua — Testing framework for infrastructure software

SYNOPSIS

       kyua   [--config   file]   [--logfile   file]   [--loglevel   level]   [--variable   name=value]  command
            [command_options] [command_arguments]

DESCRIPTION

If you are here looking for details on how to run the test suite in /usr/tests (or /usr/tests), please
start by reading the tests(7) manual page that should be supplied by your system.

Kyua is a testing framework for infrastructure software, originally designed to equip BSD-based operating
systems with a test suite. This means that Kyua is lightweight and simple, and that Kyua integrates well
with various build systems and continuous integration frameworks.

Kyua features an expressive test suite definition language, a safe runtime engine for test suites and a
powerful report generation engine.

Kyua is for both developers and users, from the developer applying a simple fix to a library to the
system administrator deploying a new release on a production machine.

Kyua is able to execute test programs written with a plethora of testing libraries and languages. The
test program library of choice is ATF, which kyua's design originated from. However, framework-less test
programs and TAP-compliant test programs can also be executed through kyua

Overview
As can be observed in the synopsis, the interface of kyua implements a common subcommand-based interface.
The arguments to the tool specify, in this order: a set of common options that all the commands accept, a
required command name that specifies what kyua should do, and a set of possibly-optional command_options
and command_arguments that are specific to the chosen command.

The following options are recognized by all the commands. Keep in mind that these must always be
specified before the command name.

--config path, -c path
Specifies the configuration file to process, which must be in the format described in kyua.conf(5).
The special value ‘none’ explicitly disables the loading of any configuration file.

Defaults to ~/.kyua/kyua.conf if it exists, otherwise to /etc/kyua/kyua.conf if it exists, or else to
‘none’.

--logfile path
Specifies the location of the file to which kyua will log run time events useful for postmortem
debugging.

The default depends on different environment variables as described in “Logging”, but typically the
file will be stored within the user's home directory.

--loglevel level
Specifies the maximum logging level to record in the log file. See “Logging” for more details.

The default is ‘info’.

--variable name=value, -v name=value
Sets the name configuration variable to value. The values set through this option have preference
over the values set in the configuration file.

The specified variable can either be a builtin variable or a test-suite specific variable. See
kyua.conf(5) for more details.

The following commands are generic and do not have any relation to the execution of tests or the
inspection of their results:

about Shows general program information. See kyua-about(1).

config Inspects the values of the configuration variables. See kyua-config(1).

db-exec Executes an arbitrary SQL statement on a results file and prints the resulting
table. See kyua-db-exec(1).

help Shows usage information. See kyua-help(1).

The following commands are used to generate reports based on the data previously recorded in a results
file:

report Generates a plaintext report. Combined with its --verbose flag and the ability to
only display specific test cases, this command can also be used to debug test
failures post-facto on the console. See kyua-report(1).

report-html Generates an HTML report. See kyua-report-html(1).

report-junit Generates a JUnit report. See kyua-report-junit(1).

The following commands are used to interact with a test suite:

debug Executes a single test case in a controlled environment for debugging purposes.
See kyua-debug(1).

list Lists test cases defined in a test suite by a kyuafile(5) and, optionally, displays
their metadata. See kyua-list(1).

test Runs tests defined in a test suite by a kyuafile(5). See kyua-test(1).

Logging
kyua has a logging facility that collects all kinds of events at run time. These events are always
logged to a file so that the log is available when it is most needed: right after a non-reproducible
problem happens. The only way to disable logging is by sending the log to /dev/null.

The location of the log file can be manually specified with the --logfile option, which applies to all
commands. If no file is explicitly specified, the location of the log files is chosen in this order:

1. ${HOME}/.kyua/logs/ if HOME is defined.

2. ${TMPDIR}/ if TMPDIR is defined.

3. /tmp/.

And the default naming scheme of the log files is: ‘<progname>.<timestamp>.log’.

The messages stored in the log file have a level (or severity) attached to them. These are:

error Fatal error messages. The program generally terminates after these, either in a clean
manner or by crashing.

warning Non-fatal error messages. These generally report a condition that must be addressed but
the application can continue to run.

info Informational messages. These tell the user what the program was doing at a general
level of operation.

debug Detailed informational messages. These are often useful when debugging problems in the
application, as they contain lots of internal details.

The default log level is ‘info’ unless explicitly overridden with --loglevel.

The log file is a plain text file containing one line per log record. The format of each line is as
follows:

timestamp entry_type pid file:line: message

entry_type can be one of: ‘E’ for an error, ‘W’ for a warning, ‘I’ for an informational message and ‘D’
for a debug message.

Bug reporting
If you think you have encountered a bug in kyua, please take the time to let the developers know about
it. This will ensure that the bug is addressed and potentially fixed in the next Kyua release.

The first step in reporting a bug is to check if there already is a similar bug in the database. You can
check what issues are currently in the database by going to:

https://github.com/jmmv/kyua/issues/

If there is no existing issue that describes an issue similar to the one you are experiencing, you can
open a new one by visiting:

https://github.com/jmmv/kyua/issues/new/

When doing so, please include as much detail as possible. Among other things, explain what operating
system and platform you are running kyua on, what were you trying to do, what exact messages you saw on
the screen, how did you expect the program to behave, and any other details that you may find relevant.

Also, please include a copy of the log file corresponding to the problem you are experiencing. Unless
you have changed the location of the log files, you can most likely find them in ~/.kyua/logs/. If the
problem is reproducible, it is good idea to regenerate the log file with an increased log level so as to
provide more information. For example:

$ kyua --logfile=problem.log --loglevel=debug \
[rest of the command line]

ENVIRONMENT

The following variables are recognized and can be freely tuned by the end user:

COLUMNS The width of the screen, in number of characters. kyua uses this to wrap long lines. If not
present, the width of the screen is determined from the terminal stdout is connected to, and,
if the guessing fails, this defaults to infinity.

HOME Path to the user's home directory. kyua uses this location to determine paths to
configuration files and default log files.

TMPDIR Path to the system-wide temporary directory. kyua uses this location to place the work
directory of test cases, among other things.

The default value of this variable depends on the operating system. In general, it is /tmp.

The following variables are also recognized, but you should not need to set them during normal operation.
They are only provided to override the value of built-in values, which is useful when testing kyua
itself:

KYUA_CONFDIR Path to the system-wide configuration files for kyua.

Defaults to /etc/kyua.

KYUA_DOCDIR Path to the location of installed documentation.

Defaults to /usr/share/doc/kyua.

KYUA_MISCDIR Path to the location of the installed miscellaneous scripts and data files provided by
kyua.

Defaults to /usr/share/kyua/misc.

KYUA_STOREDIR Path to the location of the installed store support files; e.g., the directory containing
the SQL database schema.

Defaults to /usr/share/kyua/store.

FILES

       ~/.kyua/store/
             Default location for the results files.

       ~/.kyua/kyua.conf
             User-specific configuration file.

       ~/.kyua/logs/
             Default location for the collected log files.

       /etc/kyua/kyua.conf
             System-wide configuration file.

EXIT STATUS

       kyua returns 0 on success, 1 on a controlled error condition in the given  subcommand,  2  on  a  general
       unexpected error and 3 on a usage error.

       The  documentation  of  the  subcommands  in  the  corresponding manual pages only details the difference
       between a successful exit (0) and the detection of a controlled error (1).  Even though when those manual
       pages do not describe any other exit statuses, codes above 1 can be returned.

AUTHORS

       The original author of kyua was Julio Merino.

       For more details on the people that made kyua possible and the license terms, run:

             $ kyua about

Debian                                            May 12, 2015                                           KYUA(1)