17. DPDK Test Suite

The DPDK Test Suite, abbreviated DTS, is a Python test framework with test suites implementing functional and performance tests used to test DPDK.

17.1. DTS Terminology

DTS node
A generic description of any host/server DTS connects to.
DTS runtime environment
An environment containing Python with packages needed to run DTS.
DTS runtime environment node
A node where at least one DTS runtime environment is present. This is the node where we run DTS and from which DTS connects to other nodes.
System under test
An SUT is the combination of DPDK and the hardware we’re testing in conjunction with DPDK (NICs, crypto and other devices).
System under test node
A node where at least one SUT is present.
Traffic generator
A TG is either software or hardware capable of sending packets.
Traffic generator node
A node where at least one TG is present. In case of hardware traffic generators, the TG and the node are literally the same.

In most cases, interchangeably referring to a runtime environment, SUT, TG or the node they’re running on (e.g. using SUT and SUT node interchangeably) doesn’t cause confusion. There could theoretically be more than of these running on the same node and in that case it’s useful to have stricter definitions. An example would be two different traffic generators (such as Trex and Scapy) running on the same node. A different example would be a node containing both a DTS runtime environment and a traffic generator, in which case it’s both a DTS runtime environment node and a TG node.

17.2. DTS Environment

DTS is written entirely in Python using a variety of dependencies. DTS uses Poetry as its Python dependency management. Python build/development and runtime environments are the same and DTS development environment, DTS runtime environment or just plain DTS environment are used interchangeably.

17.2.1. Setting up DTS environment

  1. Python Version

    The Python Version required by DTS is specified in dts/pyproject.toml in the [tool.poetry.dependencies] section:

    [tool.poetry.dependencies]
python = "^3.10"

    The Python dependency manager DTS uses, Poetry, doesn’t install Python, so you may need to satisfy this requirement by other means if your Python is not up-to-date. A tool such as Pyenv is a good way to get Python, though not the only one.

  2. Poetry

    The typical style of python dependency management, pip with requirements.txt, has a few issues. The advantages of Poetry include specifying what Python version is required and forcing you to specify versions, enforced by a lockfile, both of which help prevent broken dependencies. Another benefit is the usage of pyproject.toml, which has become the standard config file for python projects, improving project organization. To install Poetry, visit their doc pages. The recommended Poetry version is at least 1.5.1.

  3. Getting a Poetry shell

    Once you have Poetry along with the proper Python version all set up, it’s just a matter of installing dependencies via Poetry and using the virtual environment Poetry provides:

    poetry install
poetry shell

  4. SSH Connection

    DTS uses the Fabric Python library for SSH connections between DTS environment and the other hosts. The authentication method used is pubkey authentication. Fabric tries to use a passed key/certificate, then any key it can with through an SSH agent, then any “id_rsa”, “id_dsa” or “id_ecdsa” key discoverable in ~/.ssh/ (with any matching OpenSSH-style certificates). DTS doesn’t pass any keys, so Fabric tries to use the other two methods.

17.3. Setting up System Under Test

There are two areas that need to be set up on a System Under Test:

  1. DPDK dependencies

    DPDK will be built and run on the SUT. Consult the Getting Started guides for the list of dependencies for each distribution.

  2. Hardware dependencies

    Any hardware DPDK uses needs a proper driver and most OS distributions provide those, but the version may not be satisfactory. It’s up to each user to install the driver they’re interested in testing. The hardware also may also need firmware upgrades, which is also left at user discretion.

  3. Hugepages

    There are two ways to configure hugepages:

    • DTS configuration

      You may specify the optional hugepage configuration in the DTS config file. If you do, DTS will take care of configuring hugepages, overwriting your current SUT hugepage configuration.

    • System under test configuration

      It’s possible to use the hugepage configuration already present on the SUT. If you wish to do so, don’t specify the hugepage configuration in the DTS config file.

  4. User with administrator privileges

DTS needs administrator privileges to run DPDK applications (such as testpmd) on the SUT. The SUT user must be able run commands in privileged mode without asking for password. On most Linux distributions, it’s a matter of setting up passwordless sudo:

  1. Run sudo visudo and check that it contains %sudo    ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL.
  2. Add the SUT user to the sudo group with:
sudo usermod -aG sudo <sut_user>

17.4. Setting up Traffic Generator Node

These need to be set up on a Traffic Generator Node:

  1. Traffic generator dependencies

    The traffic generator running on the traffic generator node must be installed beforehand. For Scapy traffic generator, only a few Python libraries need to be installed:

    sudo apt install python3-pip
sudo pip install --upgrade pip
sudo pip install scapy==2.5.0

  2. Hardware dependencies

    The traffic generators, like DPDK, need a proper driver and firmware. The Scapy traffic generator doesn’t have strict requirements - the drivers that come with most OS distributions will be satisfactory.

  3. User with administrator privileges

    Similarly to the System Under Test, traffic generators need administrator privileges to be able to use the devices. Refer to the System Under Test section <sut_admin_user> for details.

17.5. Running DTS

DTS needs to know which nodes to connect to and what hardware to use on those nodes. Once that’s configured, DTS needs a DPDK tarball and it’s ready to run.

17.5.1. Configuring DTS

DTS configuration is split into nodes and executions and build targets within executions. By default, DTS will try to use the dts/conf.yaml config file, which is a template that illustrates what can be configured in DTS:

executions:
  - build_targets:
      - arch: x86_64
        os: linux
        cpu: native
        compiler: gcc
        compiler_wrapper: ccache
    perf: false
    func: true
    skip_smoke_tests: false # optional flag that allows you to skip smoke tests
    test_suites:
      - hello_world
      - os_udp
    system_under_test_node:
      node_name: "SUT 1"
      vdevs: # optional; if removed, vdevs won't be used in the execution
        - "crypto_openssl"
    traffic_generator_node: "TG 1"
nodes:
  - name: "SUT 1"
    hostname: sut1.change.me.localhost
    user: dtsuser
    arch: x86_64
    os: linux
    lcores: ""
    use_first_core: false
    memory_channels: 4
    hugepages:  # optional; if removed, will use system hugepage configuration
        amount: 256
        force_first_numa: false
    ports:
      - pci: "0000:00:08.0"
        os_driver_for_dpdk: vfio-pci # OS driver that DPDK will use
        os_driver: i40e
        peer_node: "TG 1"
        peer_pci: "0000:00:08.0"
      - pci: "0000:00:08.1"
        os_driver_for_dpdk: vfio-pci
        os_driver: i40e
        peer_node: "TG 1"
        peer_pci: "0000:00:08.1"
  - name: "TG 1"
    hostname: tg1.change.me.localhost
    user: dtsuser
    arch: x86_64
    os: linux
    lcores: ""
    ports:
      - pci: "0000:00:08.0"
        os_driver_for_dpdk: rdma
        os_driver: rdma
        peer_node: "SUT 1"
        peer_pci: "0000:00:08.0"
      - pci: "0000:00:08.1"
        os_driver_for_dpdk: rdma
        os_driver: rdma
        peer_node: "SUT 1"
        peer_pci: "0000:00:08.1"
    use_first_core: false
    hugepages:  # optional; if removed, will use system hugepage configuration
        amount: 256
        force_first_numa: false
    traffic_generator:
        type: SCAPY

The user must have administrator privileges which don’t require password authentication. The other fields are mostly self-explanatory and documented in more detail in dts/framework/config/conf_yaml_schema.json.

17.5.2. DTS Execution

DTS is run with main.py located in the dts directory after entering Poetry shell:

usage: main.py [-h] [--config-file CONFIG_FILE] [--output-dir OUTPUT_DIR] [-t TIMEOUT]
               [-v VERBOSE] [-s SKIP_SETUP] [--tarball TARBALL]
               [--compile-timeout COMPILE_TIMEOUT] [--test-cases TEST_CASES]
               [--re-run RE_RUN]

Run DPDK test suites. All options may be specified with the environment variables provided in
brackets. Command line arguments have higher priority.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --config-file CONFIG_FILE
                        [DTS_CFG_FILE] configuration file that describes the test cases, SUTs
                        and targets. (default: conf.yaml)
  --output-dir OUTPUT_DIR, --output OUTPUT_DIR
                        [DTS_OUTPUT_DIR] Output directory where dts logs and results are
                        saved. (default: output)
  -t TIMEOUT, --timeout TIMEOUT
                        [DTS_TIMEOUT] The default timeout for all DTS operations except for
                        compiling DPDK. (default: 15)
  -v VERBOSE, --verbose VERBOSE
                        [DTS_VERBOSE] Set to 'Y' to enable verbose output, logging all
                        messages to the console. (default: N)
  -s SKIP_SETUP, --skip-setup SKIP_SETUP
                        [DTS_SKIP_SETUP] Set to 'Y' to skip all setup steps on SUT and TG
                        nodes. (default: N)
  --tarball TARBALL, --snapshot TARBALL
                        [DTS_DPDK_TARBALL] Path to DPDK source code tarball which will be
                        used in testing. (default: dpdk.tar.xz)
  --compile-timeout COMPILE_TIMEOUT
                        [DTS_COMPILE_TIMEOUT] The timeout for compiling DPDK. (default: 1200)
  --test-cases TEST_CASES
                        [DTS_TESTCASES] Comma-separated list of test cases to execute.
                        Unknown test cases will be silently ignored. (default: )
  --re-run RE_RUN, --re_run RE_RUN
                        [DTS_RERUN] Re-run each test case the specified amount of times if a
                        test failure occurs (default: 0)

The brackets contain the names of environment variables that set the same thing. The minimum DTS needs is a config file and a DPDK tarball. You may pass those to DTS using the command line arguments or use the default paths.

17.5.3. DTS Results

Results are stored in the output dir by default which be changed with the --output-dir command line argument. The results contain basic statistics of passed/failed test cases and DPDK version.

17.6. How To Write a Test Suite

All test suites inherit from TestSuite defined in dts/framework/test_suite.py. There are four types of methods that comprise a test suite:

  1. Test cases

    Test cases are methods that start with a particular prefix.
    Functional test cases start with test_, e.g. test_hello_world_single_core.
    Performance test cases start with test_perf_, e.g. test_perf_nic_single_core.
    A test suite may have any number of functional and/or performance test cases. However, these test cases must test the same feature, following the rule of one feature = one test suite. Test cases for one feature don’t need to be grouped in just one test suite, though. If the feature requires many testing scenarios to cover, the test cases would be better off spread over multiple test suites so that each test suite doesn’t take too long to execute.

  2. Setup and Teardown methods

    There are setup and teardown methods for the whole test suite and each individual test case.
    Methods set_up_suite and tear_down_suite will be executed before any and after all test cases have been executed, respectively.
    Methods set_up_test_case and tear_down_test_case will be executed before and after each test case, respectively.
    These methods don’t need to be implemented if there’s no need for them in a test suite. In that case, nothing will happen when they’re is executed.

  3. Test case verification

    Test case verification should be done with the verify method, which records the result. The method should be called at the end of each test case.

  4. Other methods

    Of course, all test suite code should adhere to coding standards. Only the above methods will be treated specially and any other methods may be defined (which should be mostly private methods needed by each particular test suite). Any specific features (such as NIC configuration) required by a test suite should be implemented in the SutNode class (and the underlying classes that SutNode uses) and used by the test suite via the sut_node field.

17.7. DTS Developer Tools

There are three tools used in DTS to help with code checking, style and formatting:

  • isort

    Alphabetically sorts python imports within blocks.

  • black

    Does most of the actual formatting (whitespaces, comments, line length etc.) and works similarly to clang-format.

  • pylama

    Runs a collection of python linters and aggregates output. It will run these tools over the repository:

    linters = "mccabe,pycodestyle,pyflakes"

These three tools are all used in devtools/dts-check-format.sh, the DTS code check and format script. Refer to the script for usage: devtools/dts-check-format.sh -h.