automated CI testing

[adrelanos]

There is travis but travis went paid-only this is where most Open Source projects stopped using them.

What's the status of automated CI testing? I suppose once travis changed there's no CI testing anymore?

What alternatives are there? Could the travis files if no longer used be ported to github or any other CI?

[adrelanos]

Not having CI makes bigger changes difficult. (#224)

It doesn't even need to be automated CI testing. Just local automated testing would suffice.

So if I could use a disposable (throw away) (Qubes) App Qube (that I am not afraid to damage) for automated testing that might also help.

[jkirk]

AFAIK we have make testrun (7fc0e06) which uses Vagrant under the hood. I haven't used it for ages and I think it should get some love. 😉

That said, since we switched to GitHub, I would also like to see some GitHub Actions/Workflows (at least for basic stuff like linting/coding style/spellchecking/...), @mika ?

[mika]

Yeah good point!

The make testrun should actually get updated, I usually run the more recent Debian versions inside the packer directory (bookworm/bullseye/buster) whenever it's relevant for customer work, a new Debian point release shows up or alike, but I'm aware of that this is somewhat of type WFM.

Switching from Travis to GitHub actions would be very nice, if someone wants to look into this, more than welcome. :)

[adrelanos]

make testrun is currently not easy to use for me. It seems strange that it downloads VirtualBox guest additions, grml ISO.

It fails to start for me because I am ready using a VM - Qubes. Hence, I cannot run tests inside VirtualBox.

Can the tests be run locally without VMs?

[zeha]

Currently no. Maybe you can get packer to run with a lighter weight VM technology, and/or get nested virtualisation to work on your system. I think it would be beneficial to have the tests use qemu, because that would also work in Debian's autopkgtest setup.

[zeha]

#238 adds CI for VM mode.

Additional ideas:

• Test EFI setup for VMs
• Reuse a freshly built VM and execute grml-debootstrap -inside- it, effectively testing an "on-host replacement" strategy.
• aarch64, possibly using https://amperecomputing.com/blogs/adding-aarch64-to-your-github-ci-with-github-actions-and-ampere-altra