[U-Boot] [PATCH] test/py: support running sandbox under gdbserver

[Stephen Warren]

On 02/06/2016 01:30 PM, Simon Glass wrote:
> On 4 February 2016 at 16:11, Stephen Warren <swarren at wwwdotorg.org> wrote:
>> Implement command--line option --gdbserver COMM, which does two things:
>>
>> a) Run the sandbox process under gdbserver, using COMM as gdbserver's
>>    communication channel.
>>
>> b) Disables all timeouts, so that if U-Boot is halted under the debugger,
>>    tests don't fail. If the user gives up in the middle of a debugging
>>    session, they can simply CTRL-C the test script to abort it.
>>
>> This allows easy debugging of test failures without having to manually
>> re-create the failure conditions. Usage is:
>>
>> Window 1:
>> ./test/py/test.py --bd sandbox --gdbserver localhost:1234
>>
>> Window 2:
>> gdb ./build-sandbox/u-boot -ex 'target remote localhost:1234'
>>
>> When using this option, it likely makes sense to use pytest's -k option
>> to limit the set of tests that are executed.
>>
>> Simply running U-Boot directly under gdb (rather than gdbserver) was
>> also considered. However, this was rejected because:
>>
>> a) gdb's output would then be processed by the test script, and likely
>>    confuse it causing false failures.
>>
>> b) pytest by default hides stdout from tests, which would prevent the
>>    user from interacting with gdb.
>>
>>    While gdb can be told to redirect the debugee's stdio to a separate
>>    PTY, this would appear to leave gdb's stdio directed at the test
>>    scripts and the debugee's stdio directed elsewhere, which is the
>>    opposite of the desired effect. Perhaps some complicated PTY muxing
>>    and process hierarchy could invert this. However, the current scheme
>>    is simple to implement and use, so it doesn't seem worth complicating
>>    matters.
>>
>> c) Using gdbserver allows arbitrary debuggers to be used, even those with
>>    a GUI. If the test scripts invoked the debugger themselves, they'd have
>>    to know how to execute arbitary applications. While the user could hide
>>    this all in a wrapper script, this feels like extra complication.
>>
>> An interesting future idea might be a --gdb-screen option, which could
>> spawn both U-Boot and gdb separately, and spawn the screen into a newly
>> created window under screen. Similar options could be envisaged for
>> creating a new xterm/... too.
>>
>> --gdbserver  currently only supports sandbox, and not real hardware.
>> That's primarily because the test hooks are responsible for all aspects of
>> hardware control, so there's nothing for the test scripts themselves can
>> do to enable gdbserver on real hardware. We might consider introducing a
>> separate --disable-timeouts option to support use of debuggers on real
>> hardware, and having --gdbserver imply that option.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Stephen Warren <swarren at nvidia.com>
>> ---
>>  test/py/conftest.py               |  8 ++++++++
>>  test/py/tests/test_sleep.py       |  7 ++++---
>>  test/py/u_boot_console_base.py    |  3 ++-
>>  test/py/u_boot_console_sandbox.py |  5 ++++-
>>  test/py/u_boot_spawn.py           | 12 ++++++++----
>>  5 files changed, 26 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)
> 
> Can you please add info about this to the docs?
> 
> Also for me this worked up to the point where it ran the
> test_sandbox_exit.py test. Then the gdb process said that U-Boot
> exited normally. Is that test not compatible with this feature?

The sandbox_exit test deliberately causes the sandbox process to exit,
to make sure that the "reset" command and "typing" Ctrl-C work. To
continue the test, simply re-run gdb to re-attach to the new gdbserver
and U-Boot process.