davidandClaude Opus 5.5
3117674404
The images are kept between runs (installed is about 35 GB), and a scenario's disk only holds its changes, so the old "a VM disk grows to about 50 GB and is deleted" was misleading. Mention smoketest clean. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
107 lines
4.9 KiB
Markdown
107 lines
4.9 KiB
Markdown
# coredesktop-dev
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Tools for working on [CoreDesktop](https://gitea.federated.computer/Federated_Computer/coredesktop)
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itself. Only contributors need these, so they're a CoreDesktop sibling project
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rather than part of CoreDesktop.
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## Install
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```
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sibling add <url of this repo>
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```
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It asks where your working copy of CoreDesktop is (default
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`~/Projects/coredesktop`), and offers to clone it there. CoreDesktop's `update`
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keeps this project current from then on. To change the working copy, run
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`sibling add` again.
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It installs shellcheck, bats, tea (Gitea's CLI), QEMU and xorriso.
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## Why: the two copies of CoreDesktop
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A developer's machine has two copies of CoreDesktop:
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- **Deployed**, in `~/.local/share/coredesktop`: what the machine runs, and
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what `update` pulls (fast-forward only). Never edit it: a changed tracked
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file stops `update` from pulling.
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- **Working**, e.g. `~/Projects/coredesktop`: where you make changes. Nothing
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runs from here unless you run it.
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These commands let you test the working copy without touching the deployed one.
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## Commands
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| Command | |
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|---------|---|
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| `coredesktop-dev doctor` | Check the tools, the working copy, and that the deployed copy can still update |
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| `coredesktop-dev check [--fast]` | `make lint` and `make test` in the working copy, plus shellcheck on scripts not committed yet. `--fast`: shellcheck only |
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| `coredesktop-dev try [--keep] [cmd...]` | Run the working copy's code as if it were installed, in a throwaway home with its own D-Bus session and no display, e.g. `coredesktop-dev try configure --list`. sudo, yay, pacman and systemctl still change this machine |
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| `coredesktop-dev deployed [status\|restore]` | Show the deployed copy's state, or undo local changes to it (after asking) |
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| `coredesktop-dev hooks [status\|install\|remove]` | A pre-push hook in the working copy that runs `check` first. `git push --no-verify` skips it |
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| `coredesktop-dev smoketest ...` | Test install and update on virtual machines (below) |
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Each takes `--help`. In a Flatpak (an editor's built-in terminal, say),
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coredesktop-dev runs itself on the host with `flatpak-spawn --host`.
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## Smoketest
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Runs CoreDesktop's end-to-end scenarios, in `smoketest/` in the working copy,
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on throwaway QEMU virtual machines: a fresh install, updates of all kinds,
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failing migrations and hooks, low disk space, a month-old machine, and more.
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See `smoketest/README.md` in CoreDesktop for what's tested and how to add a
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scenario.
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```
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coredesktop-dev smoketest list # the scenarios
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coredesktop-dev smoketest run # the quick ones (tier pr), against HEAD
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coredesktop-dev smoketest run --tier all # everything; hours
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coredesktop-dev smoketest run 40 43 # just these
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coredesktop-dev smoketest run --keep 40 # on failure, leave the VM up to look around
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coredesktop-dev smoketest shell installed # SSH into a throwaway VM
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```
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What it needs: KVM (virtualization turned on in the firmware), about 8 GB of
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RAM and 4 CPUs per VM (`SMOKETEST_MEMORY`, `SMOKETEST_CPUS`), and about 45 GB
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in `~/.cache/coredesktop-dev/smoketest`. The images are kept between runs (the
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installed one is the biggest, around 35 GB), along with the shared package
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cache and each run's logs. A scenario's own disk only holds its changes to the
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image, and is deleted when the scenario ends.
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To free space, `coredesktop-dev smoketest clean` deletes old runs' logs, and
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`clean --all` deletes everything, so the next run rebuilds the images.
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The first run builds two images before any scenario runs: base in a few
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minutes, installed in an hour or more. Later runs reuse them.
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- **base**: Arch's official cloud image, with GNOME added the way archinstall's
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desktop profile installs it. The user `tester` (password `tester`) logs in to
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GNOME automatically and has passwordless sudo.
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- **installed**: base after CoreDesktop's `install.sh`, at the commit your
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branch started from. Scenarios on this image first `update` it to the commit
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under test. Rebuild it now and then (`smoketest images installed`) so that
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update has less to catch up on.
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Downloaded Arch packages are kept in the cache folder and shared with every
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VM, so they download once. Flatpaks aren't cached.
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To watch a VM's screen, set `SMOKETEST_VNC=1` and connect a VNC viewer to
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`127.0.0.1:5901`.
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The terminal can stay quiet for many minutes while a VM boots or installs. To
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follow along, `tail -f` the logs in `~/.cache/coredesktop-dev/smoketest`:
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- `build-base/` and `build-installed/`, while an image builds: `build.log` is
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what the build printed, and `serial.log` is the VM's console, the place to
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look when a VM doesn't boot or doesn't answer on SSH.
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- `runs/<date>-<time>/<scenario>/`: `scenario.log` for each scenario, and
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`serial.log` for its VM.
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## Developing this project
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```
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make check # shellcheck + bats
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```
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The tests use fake commands, like CoreDesktop's: nothing touches the machine,
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and the smoketest tests use a fake QEMU.
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