[GSoC] RTEMS Tester Improvements

[Gedare Bloom]

On Mon, Mar 13, 2017 at 11:50 AM, Tanu Hari Dixit <tokencolour at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I am interested in applying for GSoC under RTEMS. I am interested in the
> idea RTEMS Tester Improvements (https://devel.rtems.org/ticket/2919). I have
> used rtems-tester in the past and also have a working knowledge of python.
>
What platforms have you run tester on?

> I have a few questions and will be grateful if they are answered.
> 1) Which simulator recipes need to be added?

The first place to look is to compare what is supported in tester
versus what we have scripts for in the older rtems-testing.git repo
under sim-scripts/
https://git.rtems.org/rtems-testing/tree/sim-scripts

I personally would also be interested to add simulator recipes for the
gem5 (gem5.org) simulator. I made a start at this a long time ago and
got it to work reasonably well, but appear to have misplaced the
actual changes. Related to this would be adding complementary recipes
for building simulators in the RSB. I have run rtems under gem5 for
the sparc64/usiii and arm/realview_pbx_a9_qemu BSPs in the past and
would be able to help with simulator setup to get you to the point of
transitioning from manual/shell-scripted steps into python automation.

> 2) What are the improvements that need to be done? I couldn't find the
> appropriate tickets or pointers.

I believe it is primarily to increase the range of simulators that are
supported. Perhaps Chris has other ideas for infrastructure
improvements, e.g. there is almost always improvements that can be
made to report usability such as visualizing aggregated testing
results, tracking down failed tests quicker, and so forth.

> 3) Do I need to start a Google doc for the proposal or is there some other
> platform, I need to write on? Is there a template, I should be aware of?

There is a template of a Google doc linked from the GSoC 2017 Tracking
Page (start https://devel.rtems.org/wiki/GSoC and navigate your way
around). Ultimately you need to submit a PDF to the GSoC site for an
official submission.

> 4) Is the implementation of this idea in general interest of the community?

Yes.

> 5) Will this be enough work for the GSoC term or will I have to club this
> with another idea (maybe the one where we have to design simple examples
> (different from tests) for user documentation so that it is easy for users
> to see how to use a call.) or will that be a stretch goal?
>

I suggest you focus on one specific area and make your stretch goals
be "deep" in that area. It is hard to say for sure what may be a
stretch, it depends on your individual performance. You will
definitely need to define a reasonably large number of tasks that we
believe you can be kept busy all summer. I have provided a few ideas
above that should help you to flesh out a fully-scoped project around
the Tester infrastructure.

> Thank you,
> Tanu Hari Dixit.
>
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