[tbot] Question regarding BBB (beagle bone black) tbot deployment

[Harald Seiler]

Hi Lukasz,

On Tue, 2019-01-15 at 11:58 +0100, Lukasz Majewski wrote:
> Hi Harald,
> 
> > Hi Lukasz,
> > 
> > On Tue, 2019-01-15 at 11:37 +0100, Lukasz Majewski wrote:
> > > On Tue, 15 Jan 2019 10:56:51 +0100
> > > Lukasz Majewski <lukma at denx.de> wrote:
> > >   
> > 
> > [...]
> > > 
> > > I think that I would be enough to run remotely tbot test case from
> > > the host on which buildbot/jenkins is running:
> > > 
> > > ssh -o PreferredAuthentications=password -o PubkeyAuthentication=no
> > > root at bbb "tbot -T /root/tbot-tests -v my_awesome_testcase"
> > > echo $?
> > > 
> > > And use return code.
> > > 
> > > Or maybe there is other, better way ?
> > >   
> > 
> > Why not run tbot directly inside jenkins? 
> 
> No. Please no.
> 
> Maybe things have changed now, but 2+ years ago it was just a PAIN to
> run any HW related tests with its internal shell.
> 
> > tbot is designed to do
> > all its work remotely anyway, which means you can just run it inside
> > jenkins and configure your BBB as the lab-host.  This would also
> > mean you don't need python on the BBB ...
> 
> But as I use BBB to control power and receive serial console, I need to
> have tbot instance there? Or am I missing something?

I think you might have misunderstood how tbot works.  I'll link this
diagram: https://rahix.de/tbot/_images/tbot.svg

As you can see, the machine running tbot does nothing more than connect
to the lab-host via ssh.  It will then send shell commands via this ssh
connection to interact with the board/its power.  There are *no* inherent
dependencies on the lab-host (apart from a few coreutils).

> Maybe things have changed now, but 2+ years ago it was just a PAIN to
> run any HW related tests with its internal shell.

I am not sure if this applies to tbot.  Technically, you just have to call
tbot from a build-step and let it do its thing.  The entire HW interaction
is done remotely using the lab-host, which tbot connects to via SSH.

Hope this clears things up a little ...

> 
[...]
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Lukasz Majewski
> 

-- 
Harald

DENX Software Engineering GmbH,      Managing Director: Wolfgang Denk
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