xcat-core/test/README.md

Testing Workflow for buildrpms.pl

Overview

Requirements:

The following software are assumed to be instaled in the host responsible for building the RPMs and running the tests.

• mock for building the RPMs
• nginx for serving RPM repositories
• podman
• This was tested on a RHEL9.7 host.

Note: Before start, ensure nginx is listening 8080. (the script will not do that for you, you need to change the nginx.conf and restart it), more on this below

Workflow:

buildrpms.pl is the entry point for generating all xCAT RPMs required for a specific mock target (for example rhel+epel-9-x86_64, rhel+epel-10-x86_64). Use mock --list-chroots to see all possible postions. But note that only rhle+epel-{8,9,10} are being tested now. Each target corresponds to a mock chroot and eventually to a container image used by the test harness. The high-level flow is:

1. Prepare the dependency repositories (../xcat-dep) for the target (more on this below)
2. Run buildrpms.pl to build or reuse RPMs for the target and export a repository.
3. Provision the testing container for the same target.
4. Execute the automated test suite inside the container.

All scripts are idempotent. They only rebuild or reinstall what is missing. Pass --force to any step when you want to overwrite existing content.

xCAT Runtime Dependencies (../xcat-dep)

• The dependency repositories must live one directory above this repo, in ../xcat-dep.
• We keep a tarball that already includes the EL 8, EL 9 and EL 10 dependency RPMs. Extract the tarball so that the directory tree looks like ../xcat-dep/<el version>/<arch>/.
• Dependencies are only required to run xCAT. Building does not require xcat-dep.

The expected structure is like this

xcat-dep/
├── el10
│   └── x86_64
│       └──  repodata
|       └──  *.rpm
├── el9
│   └── x86_64
│       └──  repodata
|       └──  *.rpm
└── el8
    └── x86_64
        └──  repodata
        └──  *.rpm

Building RPMs for a Target

./buildrpms.pl [--target <target>] [--package <pkg>] [--force] [--nproc N] [--xcat_dep_path /path/to/xcat-dep] [--nginx_port 8080]

• --target may be repeated; by default all supported targets (rhel+epel-{8,9,10}-x86_64) are built.
• --package narrows the build to specific RPM names; the default list contains every xCAT component.
• --force rebuilds even if the corresponding SRPM/RPM already exists under dist/<target>/.
• --nproc N controls the amount of parallel mock jobs (defaults to nproc --all).
• --xcat_dep_path tells the nginx helper where the dependency repos live (defaults to ../xcat-dep).
• --nginx_port changes the port used when generating /etc/nginx/conf.d/xcat-repos.conf.
• Passing --configure_nginx alone regenerates the nginx configuration without building.

Example – rebuild only perl-xCAT for EL9 and overwrite previous artifacts:

./buildrpms.pl --target rhel+epel-9-x86_64 --package perl-xCAT --force

Under the hood the script invokes mock to build SRPMs and RPMs, skips work when files already exist (unless --force is used), runs createrepo dist/<target>/rpms, and finally rewrites the nginx configuration so the repo is served automatically.

All builds run in parallel according to --nproc. Be aware that mock consumes significant disk space (plan for at least ~50 GB between /var/lib/mock and /var/cache/mock).

nginx on Port 8080

• buildrpms.pl assumes nginx exposes the generated repository on port 8080. Manually update the main nginx configuration (for example /etc/nginx/nginx.conf) so that it listens on 8080 port. The scripts will create a /etc/nginx/conf.d/xcat-repos.conf file with all the repositories configured and restart nginx at each run.

Preparing the Test Container

test/scripts/setuptesthost.pl --setup_container --target <target> [--force]

• This builds a container image and creates a container named xcattest-elX (X is 8, 9 or 10 depending on the target).
• The container setup is idempotent: it checks for an existing container/image and skips recreation unless you provide --force.
• The EL RELEASEVER (8, 9 or 10) is deduced from the target which is expected to be a triple in the format <DISTRO>-<RELEASEVER>-<ARCH> and it is used to as --build-arg RELEASEVER=<RELEASEVER> during the container image building.

Running the Automated Tests

Once the container exists and nginx is serving the repo:

podman exec -it xcattest-el10 scripts/testxcat.pl --all

• Replace xcattest-el10 with the appropriate container name. The script configures the repository inside the container, installs xCAT, ensures xcatd is running, and finally runs lsdef to verify daemon connectivity.
• The tester exposes additional knobs: use --setup_repos, --install, --uninstall, --reinstall, --validate, or --all (default in the example) plus --nginx_port if your repo is served on a different port. Combine these as needed to drive just one phase or the entire install/validate pass.
• You can safely rerun the command; it will reuse the container state unless --force is supplied to the helper scripts, and --reinstall forces a clean uninstall/install cycle inside the container.

End-to-End Checklist

• Dependencies extracted to ../xcat-dep for all EL versions you plan to build.
• buildrpms.pl completes successfully for the target and produces a repository.
• nginx listens on port 8080 and serves the generated repository.
• test/scripts/setuptesthost.pl --setupcontainer --target <target> creates or updates the xcattest-elX container.
• podman exec -it xcattest-elX scripts/testxcat.pl --all runs to completion and verifies the xCAT stack inside the container.