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authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-27 10:05:51 +0000
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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+=========================================
+KUnit - Unit Testing for the Linux Kernel
+=========================================
+
+.. toctree::
+ :maxdepth: 2
+
+ start
+ usage
+ kunit-tool
+ api/index
+ style
+ faq
+
+What is KUnit?
+==============
+
+KUnit is a lightweight unit testing and mocking framework for the Linux kernel.
+
+KUnit is heavily inspired by JUnit, Python's unittest.mock, and
+Googletest/Googlemock for C++. KUnit provides facilities for defining unit test
+cases, grouping related test cases into test suites, providing common
+infrastructure for running tests, and much more.
+
+KUnit consists of a kernel component, which provides a set of macros for easily
+writing unit tests. Tests written against KUnit will run on kernel boot if
+built-in, or when loaded if built as a module. These tests write out results to
+the kernel log in `TAP <https://testanything.org/>`_ format.
+
+To make running these tests (and reading the results) easier, KUnit offers
+:doc:`kunit_tool <kunit-tool>`, which builds a `User Mode Linux
+<http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net>`_ kernel, runs it, and parses the test
+results. This provides a quick way of running KUnit tests during development,
+without requiring a virtual machine or separate hardware.
+
+Get started now: :doc:`start`
+
+Why KUnit?
+==========
+
+A unit test is supposed to test a single unit of code in isolation, hence the
+name. A unit test should be the finest granularity of testing and as such should
+allow all possible code paths to be tested in the code under test; this is only
+possible if the code under test is very small and does not have any external
+dependencies outside of the test's control like hardware.
+
+KUnit provides a common framework for unit tests within the kernel.
+
+KUnit tests can be run on most architectures, and most tests are architecture
+independent. All built-in KUnit tests run on kernel startup. Alternatively,
+KUnit and KUnit tests can be built as modules and tests will run when the test
+module is loaded.
+
+.. note::
+
+ KUnit can also run tests without needing a virtual machine or actual
+ hardware under User Mode Linux. User Mode Linux is a Linux architecture,
+ like ARM or x86, which compiles the kernel as a Linux executable. KUnit
+ can be used with UML either by building with ``ARCH=um`` (like any other
+ architecture), or by using :doc:`kunit_tool <kunit-tool>`.
+
+KUnit is fast. Excluding build time, from invocation to completion KUnit can run
+several dozen tests in only 10 to 20 seconds; this might not sound like a big
+deal to some people, but having such fast and easy to run tests fundamentally
+changes the way you go about testing and even writing code in the first place.
+Linus himself said in his `git talk at Google
+<https://gist.github.com/lorn/1272686/revisions#diff-53c65572127855f1b003db4064a94573R874>`_:
+
+ "... a lot of people seem to think that performance is about doing the
+ same thing, just doing it faster, and that is not true. That is not what
+ performance is all about. If you can do something really fast, really
+ well, people will start using it differently."
+
+In this context Linus was talking about branching and merging,
+but this point also applies to testing. If your tests are slow, unreliable, are
+difficult to write, and require a special setup or special hardware to run,
+then you wait a lot longer to write tests, and you wait a lot longer to run
+tests; this means that tests are likely to break, unlikely to test a lot of
+things, and are unlikely to be rerun once they pass. If your tests are really
+fast, you run them all the time, every time you make a change, and every time
+someone sends you some code. Why trust that someone ran all their tests
+correctly on every change when you can just run them yourself in less time than
+it takes to read their test log?
+
+How do I use it?
+================
+
+* :doc:`start` - for new users of KUnit
+* :doc:`usage` - for a more detailed explanation of KUnit features
+* :doc:`api/index` - for the list of KUnit APIs used for testing
+* :doc:`kunit-tool` - for more information on the kunit_tool helper script
+* :doc:`faq` - for answers to some common questions about KUnit