canonical-ci-engineering team mailing list archive

[Vincent Ladeuil <vila+ci@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>>>> Michał Sawicz <michal.sawicz@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

    > On 05.11.2013 23:47, Francis Ginther wrote:
    >> Once we have MP testing via click packages working, we should be able
    >> to get back to a clean environment without flashing (although I'm not
    >> fully confident this will actually work). We will still need to flash
    >> for some projects which are not delivered via click.

    > One thing I've been doing recently is, instead of flashing, executing

    > $ system-image-cli --build 0 --verbose

    > as root on the device. This results in downloading the latest full image and
    > upgrading through the image-based upgrade system.

*upgrading* is key here.

What we need is the ability to restore an arbitrary image so that
includes *downgrading* as well. Is there a way to use system-image for
that ? Does it need to be modified ?

I.e.: is there a way to "upgrade" to an arbitrary image to get a phone
in a pristine state as far as tests are concerned ?

If ~phablet requires a different approach that's fine too, it's probably
easier to reset a user home directory than the system itself and can be
handled separately.

    > For me this means I'm not losing any data (other than stuff
    > modified directly on the made-writable rootfs), and feels like a
    > safer solution than flashing everything every time.

Yup, safety matters more than being sure to start with a clean slate
but we'll have to monitor for possible leaks that could lead to test
passing when they should fail. If tests fail when they should pass we'll
know soon enough ;)

    > It seems somewhat more sensitive to network issues, but other than that has
    > been great. Maybe that's something that would increase the stability?

Do we have a way to run isolated tests for this approach before
deploying to production ?

          Vincent