Acceptance Small (acc-sm) Testing on Lustre

The Lustre™ QE group and developers use acceptance-small (acc-sm) tests to catch bugs early in the development cycle. Within the Lustre group, acc-sm tests are run on YALA, an automated test system. This information is being published to describe the steps to perform acceptance small testing and encourage wider acc-sm testing in the Lustre community.

NOTE: For your convenience, this document is also available as a PDF.

What is acc-sm testing and why do we use it for Lustre?
Acceptance small (acc-sm) testing is a suite of test cases used to verify different aspects of Lustre functionality.


 * These tests are run using the acceptance-small.sh script.
 * The script is run from the lustre/tests directory in a compiled Lustre tree.
 * The acceptance-small.sh script runs a number of test scripts that are also run by the ltest (Buffalo) test harness on Lustre test clusters.

What tests comprise the acc-sm test suite?
Each Lustre tree contains a lustre/tests sub-directory; all acc-sm tests are stored here. The acceptance-small.sh file contains a list of all tests in the acc-sm suite. To get the list, run:

$ grep TESTSUITE_LIST acceptance-small.sh

The acc-sm tests are listed below, by branch.

b1_6 branch
This branch includes 17 acc-sm test suites.

$ grep TESTSUITE_LIST acceptance-small.sh export TESTSUITE_LIST="RUNTESTS SANITY DBENCH BONNIE IOZONE FSX SANITYN LFSCK LIBLUSTRE REPLAY_SINGLE CONF_SANITY RECOVERY_SMALL REPLAY_OST_SINGLE REPLAY_DUAL INSANITY SANITY_QUOTA PERFORMANCE_SANITY"

b1_8_gate branch
This branch includes 18 acc-sm test suites.

$ grep TESTSUITE_LIST acceptance-small.sh export TESTSUITE_LIST="RUNTESTS SANITY DBENCH BONNIE IOZONE FSX SANITYN LFSCK LIBLUSTRE REPLAY_SINGLE CONF_SANITY RECOVERY_SMALL REPLAY_OST_SINGLE REPLAY_DUAL REPLAY_VBR INSANITY SANITY_QUOTA PERFORMANCE_SANITY"

HEAD branch
This branch includes 19 acc-sm test suites.

$ grep TESTSUITE_LIST acceptance-small.sh export TESTSUITE_LIST="RUNTESTS SANITY DBENCH BONNIE IOZONE FSX SANITYN LFSCK LIBLUSTRE REPLAY_SINGLE CONF_SANITY RECOVERY_SMALL REPLAY_OST_SINGLE REPLAY_DUAL INSANITY SANITY_QUOTA SANITY_SEC SANITY_GSS PERFORMANCE_SANITY"

To see the test cases in a particular acc-sm test, run:

$ grep run_

For example, to see the last 3 test cases that comprise the SANITY test:

$ grep run_ sanity.sh | tail -3

run_test 130c "FIEMAP (2-stripe file with hole)" run_test 130d "FIEMAP (N-stripe file)" run_test 130e "FIEMAP (test continuation FIEMAP calls)"

What does each acc-sm test measure or show?
The acc-sm test suite are described below.


 * RUNTESTS
 * A basic regression test with unmount/remount.


 * SANITY
 * Verifies Lustre operation under normal operating conditions.


 * DBENCH
 * Dbench benchmark for simulating N clients to produce the filesystem load.


 * BONNIE
 * Bonnie++ benchmark for creation, reading and deleting many small files


 * IOZONE
 * IOzone benchmark for generating and measuring a variety of file operations.


 * FSX
 * Filesystem exerciser.


 * SANITYN
 * Verifies operations from two clients under normal operating conditions.


 * LFSCK
 * Tests e2fsck and lfsck to detect and fix filesystm corruption.


 * LIBLUSTRE
 * Runs a test linked to a liblustre client library.


 * REPLAY_SINGLE
 * Verifies recovery after an MDS failure.


 * CONF_SANITY
 * Verifies various Lustre configurations (including wrong ones), where the system must behave correctly.


 * RECOVERY_SMALL
 * Verifies RPC replay after a communications failure (message loss).


 * REPLAY_OST_SINGLE
 * Verifies recovery after an OST failure.


 * REPLAY_DUAL
 * Verifies recovery from two clients after a server failure.


 * INSANITY
 * Tests multiple concurrent failure conditions.


 * SANITY_QUOTA
 * Verifies filesystem quotas.

How do you get the acc-sm tests?
The acc-sm test suite is stored in the lustre/tests subdirectory.

Do you have to run every acc-sm test?
No. You can choose to run only specified acc-sm tests. Tests can be run either with or without the acceptance-sm.sh (acc-sm.sh) wrapper script. Here are several examples:

To only run the RUNTESTS and SANITY tests:

ACC_SM_ONLY=”RUNTESTS SANITY” sh acceptance-small.sh

To only run test_1 and test_2 of the SANITYN tests:

ACC_SM_ONLY=”SANITYN” ONLY=”1 2” sh acceptance-small.sh

To only run the replay-single.sh test and except (not run) the test_3* and test_4* tests:

ACC_SM_ONLY=”REPLAY_SINGLE” REPLAY_SINGLE_EXCEPT=”3 4” sh acceptance-small.sh

To only run conf-sanity.sh tests after #15 (without the acceptance-small.sh wrapper script):

CONF_SANITY_EXCEPT=”$(seq 15)“ sh conf-sanity.sh

Do the acc-sm tests have to be run in a specific order?
The test order is defined in the acceptance-small.sh script and in each test script. Users do not have to (and should not) do anything to change the order of tests.

Who runs the acc-sm tests?
Currently, the QE group and Lustre developers run acc-sm as the main test suite for Lustre testing. Acc-sm tests are run on YALA, the automated test system, with test reports submitted to Buffalo (a web interface that allows for browsing various Lustre test results). We welcome external contributions to the Lustre acc-sm test efforts – either of the Lustre code base or new testing platforms.

What type of Lustre environment is needed to run the acc-sm tests? Is anything special needed?
The default Lustre configuration for acc-sm testing is a single node setup with one MDS and two OSTs. All devices are loop-back devices. YALA, the automated test system, uses a non-default configuration.

To run the acc-sm test suite on a non-default Lustre configuration, you have to modify the default settings in the acc-sm configuration file, lustre/tests/cfg/local.sh. The configuration variables include mds_HOST, ost_HOST, OSTCOUNT, MDS_MOUNT_OPTS and OST_MOUNT_OPTS, among others.

To create your own configuration file, copy cfg/local.sh to cfg/my_config.sh:

cp cfg/local.sh cfg/my_config.sh

Edit the necessary variables in the configuration file (my_config.sh) and run acc-sm as: NAME=my_config sh acceptance-small.sh

What are the steps to run acc-sm?
There are two methods to run the acc-sm tests.

1. Check out a Lustre branch (b1_6, b1_8 or HEAD).

2. Change directory to lustre/tests:

cd lustre/tests

3. Build lustre/tests.

4. Run acc-sm on a local, default Lustre configuration (1 MGS/MDT, 1 OST and 1 client):

sh acceptance-small.sh 2>&1 | tee /tmp/output

- OR -

1. Install the lustre-tests RPM (available at lts-head:/var/cache/cfs/PACKAGE/rpm/lustre).

2. Change directory to lustre/tests:

cd /usr/lib/lustre/tests

3. Create your own configuration file and edit it for your configuration.

cp cfg/local.sh cfg/my_config.sh

4. Run acc-sm on a local Lustre configuration.

Here is an example of running acc-sm on a non-default Lustre configuration (MDS is sfire7, OST is sfire8, OSCOUNT=1, etc). In this example, only the SANITY test cases are being run.

ACC_SM_ONLY=SANITY mds_HOST=sfire7 ost8_HOST=sfire8 MDSDEV1=/dev/sda1 OSTCOUNT=1 OSTDEV1=/dev/sda1 MDSSIZE=5000000 OSTSIZE=5000000 MDS_MOUNT_OPTS="-o user_xattr" OST_MOUNT_OPTS=" -o user_xattr" REFORMAT="--reformat" PDSH="pdsh -S -w" sh acceptance-small.sh

What if I hit a failure on an acc-sm test?

 * If you regularly hit a failure in any of these tests, check if a bug has been reported on the failure or file a new bug if one has not yet been opened.
 * If the bug prevents you from completing the tests, set the environment variables to skip the specific test(s) until you or someone else fixes them.
 * For example, to skip sanity.sh subtest 36g and 65, replay-single.sh subtest 42, and all of insanity.sh set in your environment:




 * export SANITY_EXCEPT="36g 65"
 * export REPLAY_SINGLE_EXCEPT=42
 * export INSANITY=no


 * You can also skip tests on the command line. For example, when running acceptance-small:




 * SANITY_EXCEPT="36g 65" REPLAY_SINGLE_EXCEPT=42 INSANITY=no ./acceptance-small.sh


 * The test framework is very flexible, and it is a very easy "hands-off" way of running testing while you are doing other things, like coding.
 * Questions/problems with the test framework should be emailed to the lustre-discuss mailing list, so all Lustre users can benefit from improving and documenting it.


 * If you do not run the entire test suite regularly, you will have no idea whether a bug is added from your code or not, and you will waste a lot of time looking.

How do you run acc-sm on a mounted Lustre system?
To run acc-sm on a Lustre system that is already mounted, you need to use the correct configuration file (according to the mounted Lustre system) and run acc-sm as:

SETUP=: CLEANUP=: FORMAT=: NAME= sh acceptance-small.sh

How do you run acc-sm with and without reformat?
By default, the acc-sm test suite does not reformat Lustre. If this is a new system or if you are using new devices and want to reformat Lustre, run acc-sm with REFORMAT="--reformat":

REFORMAT="--reformat" sh acceptance-small.sh

If needed, you can specify WRITECONF="writeconf", and then run acc-sm with WRITECONF="writeconf":

WRITECONF="writeconf" sh acceptance-small.sh

How do you run acc-sm in a Lustre configuration with several clients?
The default configuration file for acc-sm is cfg/local.sh, which uses only one client (local). To use additional remote clients, specify the RCLIENTS list and use the cfg/ncli.sh configuration file (or your own copy of ncli configuration).

NAME=ncli RCLIENT= sh acceptance-small.sh

For example:

NAME=ncli RCLIENT="client2 client3 client11" sh acceptance-small.sh

What is the SLOW variable and how is it used with acc-sm?
The SLOW variable is used to run a subset of acc-sm tests. By default, the variable is set to SLOW=no, which causes some of the longer acc-sm tests to be skipped and acc-sm test run to complete in less than 2 hours. To run all of the acc-sm tests, set the variable to SLOW=yes:

SLOW=yes sh acceptance-small.sh

What is the FAIL_ON_ERROR variable and how is it used with acc-sm?
The FAIL_ON_ERROR variable is used to "stop" or "continue" running acc-sm tests after a test failure occurs. If the variable is set to "true" (FAIL_ON_ERROR=true), then acc-sm stops after test_N fails and test_N+1 does not run. If the variable is set to "false" (FAIL_ON_ERROR=false), then acc-sm continues after test_N fails and test_N+1 does run.

FALSE_ON_ERROR=false, by default, for the sanity, sanityn and sanity-quota tests. FALSE_ON_ERROR=true for the replay/recovery tests.

What is the PDSH variable and how it is used with acc-sm?
The PDSH variable is used to provide remote shell access. If acc-sm is run on a Lustre configuration with remote servers, specify PDSH like this:

PDSH="pdsh -S w" sh acceptance-small.sh

If the client has no access to the servers, you can run acc-sm without PDSH, but the tests which need PDSH access are skipped. A summary report is generated which lists the skipped tests.

What is the LOAD_MODULES_REMOTE variable and how is it used with acc-sm?
The LOAD_MODULES_REMOTE variable is used to load/unload modules on remote nodes. By default, the variable is set to LOAD_MODULES_REMOTE=false, and modules are not loaded or unloaded on remote nodes during acceptance small testing.

To load/unload modules on remote nodes, set the variable to LOAD_MODULES_REMOTE=true when running the acc-sm tests:

LOAD_MODULES_REMOTE=true sh acceptance-small.sh

What is the EXCEPT_LIST_FILE variable and how is it used with acc-sm?
In Lustre 1.8.2 and later, the EXCEPT_LIST_FILE variable can be used to specify the tests-to-skip file, which tracks the tests to skip during acc-sm runs. To specify the EXCEPT_LIST_FILE parameter, set the following in your Lustre environment:

EXCEPT_LIST_FILE=/full/path/to/skip/file #

The tests-to-skip file can also be specified by having a file named tests-to-skip.sh in the LUSTRE/tests/cfg directory. The EXCEPT_LIST_FILE variable will be used if it is defined. Otherwise, the script looks for LUSTRE/tests/cfg/tests-to-skip.sh and uses this file, if it exists.

If a tests-to-skip file is found, its contents are dumped to stdout before it is read into the t-f environment so the file's contents are visible in the rest results. By following a structured format of commenting skip entries, the tests-to-skip.sh file can serve as a log of test failures and help track bugs associated with those failures (for easy reference).

This is a sample tests-to-skip file:

export SANITY_EXCEPT="${SANITY_EXCEPT} 71" # requires dbench export SANITY_EXCEPT="${SANITY_EXCEPT} 117" # bz-21361 crashes on raven, single-node acc-sm export SANITY_EXCEPT="${SANITY_EXCEPT} 900" # does not seem to work on raven export SANITYN_EXCEPT="${SANITYN_EXCEPT} 16" # bz-21173 test_16 fails with 120 running fsx export REPLAY_SINGLE_EXCEPT="${REPLAY_SINGLE_EXCEPT} 70b" # bz-19480 - hitting on raven export OST_POOLS_EXCEPT="${OST_POOLS_EXCEPT} 23"       # bz-21224 - uses lfs quotacheck which crashes the node export SLOW="no" export LFSCK="no"              # 1.8.1: bz 19477 export SANITY_QUOTA="no"       # bz-21224
 * 1) SAMPLES for ONLYs
 * 2) export ACC_SM_ONLY="METADATA_UPDATES"
 * 3) export ONLY="25 26 27 28 29"
 * 1) entries may be commented out to test fixes when available like this line below
 * 2) export REPLAY_DUAL_EXCEPT="${REPLAY_DUAL_EXCEPT} 14b" # bz-19884
 * 1) the lines above turn on/off individual test cases
 * 2) the lines below turn on/off entire test suites
 * 3) lines preceded by comments will be run
 * 4) lines which are not commented and set the name of the test suite to "no" will be skipped.
 * 1) export RUNTESTS="no"
 * 2) export SANITY="no"
 * 3) export FSX="no"
 * 4) export DBENCH="no"
 * 5) export BONNIE="no"
 * 6) export IOZONE="no"
 * 7) export SANITYN="no"
 * 1) export LIBLUSTRE="no"
 * 2) export RACER="no"
 * 3) export REPLAY_SINGLE="no"
 * 4) export CONF_SANITY="no"
 * 5) export RECOVERY_SMALL="no"
 * 6) export REPLAY_OST_SINGLE="no"
 * 7) export REPLAY_DUAL="no"
 * 8) export REPLAY_VBR="no"
 * 9) export INSANITY="no"
 * 10) export LARGE_SCALE="no"
 * 1) export RECOVERY_MDS_SCALE="no"
 * 2) export RECOVERY_DOUBLE_SCALE="no"
 * 3) export RECOVERY_RANDOM_SCALE="no"
 * 4) export PARALLEL_SCALE="no"
 * 5) export METADATA_UPDATES="no"
 * 6) export OST_POOLS="no"

What is the CMD configuration for HEAD?
For the HEAD branch, specify the MDSCOUNT variable (number of MDTs). By default, the variable is set to 1. If you have a Lustre configuration with several MDT nodes, they need to be specified in the configuration file as mds1_HOST, mds2_HOST, ...

By default, all of these variables are set to the mds_HOST value.

What do we do with the acc-sm test results?
If an acc-sm test fails, the failure is investigated. If the investigation reveals there is a Lustre defect, a bug is opened in Bugzilla to fix the problem and also the acc-sm issue.