Running under QEMU

TuxRun allows to run a linux kernel under QEMU.

Note: "Supported devices" See the architecture matrix for the supported devices.

Boot testing

In order to run a simple boot test on arm64:

tuxrun --device qemu-arm64 --kernel http://storage.tuxboot.com/buildroot/arm64/Image

Tip: "Artefact URLs" Artefacts (kernel, dtb, rootfs, ...) can be either local or remote (http/https url). TuxRun will automatically download a remote artefacts.

Modules overlay

TuxRun allows to provide a custom modules.tar.xz archive that will be extracted on top of the rootfs.

tuxrun --device qemu-arm64 \
       --kernel http://storage.tuxboot.com/buildroot/arm64/Image \
       --modules modules.tar.xz

Warning: "Modules format" The modules archive should be a tar archive, compressed with xz.

Tip: "Overlays" Any overlay can be applied to the rootfs with the --overlay option. This option can be specified multiple times. Each overlay should be a tar archive compressed with xz.

Custom script(s) overlay

#!/bin/sh

# Enable the events you want to trace
echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/events/sched/enable
# Enable tracer
echo 1 > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/tracing_on

# Run whatever userspace tool you want to trace.
cd /arm64
./sve_regs
./sve_vl
./tpidr2_siginfo
./za_no_regs
./zt_no_regs
./zt_regs
./pac
./fp-stress

# Disable tracer
echo 0 > /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/tracing_on

cat /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace

Tar the custom-script scripts together

chmod +x *.sh
tar cJf ../custom-scripts.tar.xz .

Building an ftrace prepared kernel with tuxmake

cd /to/your/kernel/tree
tuxmake --runtime podman --target-arch arm64 --toolchain gcc-12 --kconfig defconfig \
        --kconfig-add https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Linaro/meta-lkft/kirkstone/meta/recipes-kernel/linux/files/systemd.config \
        --kconfig-add CONFIG_KFENCE=y --kconfig-add CONFIG_FTRACE=y dtbs dtbs-legacy headers kernel kselftest modules

Running with the custom scripts

tuxrun --runtime docker --device qemu-arm64 --boot-args rw --tuxmake /home/anders/.cache/tuxmake/builds/1490 \
       --rootfs https://storage.tuxboot.com/debian/bookworm/arm64/rootfs.ext4.xz \
       --overlay file:///home/anders/.cache/tuxmake/builds/1490/kselftest.tar.xz \
       --overlay file:///home/anders/src/tmp/custom-scripts.tar.xz --timeouts boot=60 \
       --save-outputs --log-file - --timeouts commands=40 -- /custom-script.sh

Boot arguments

You can specify custom boot arguments with:

tuxrun --device qemu-arm64 \
       --kernel http://storage.tuxboot.com/buildroot/arm64/Image \
       --boot-args "initcall_debug"

Running tests

You can run a specific test with:

tuxrun --device qemu-arm64 \
       --kernel http://storage.tuxboot.com/buildroot/arm64/Image \
       --tests ltp-smoke

Tip: "Multiple tests" Multiple tests can be specified after --tests. The tests will be executed one by one, in the order specified on the command-line.

Custom qemu version

You can provide a container with qemu already installed. TuxRun will use qemu from this container:

tuxrun --device qemu-armv5 \
       --qemu-image docker.io/qemu/qemu:latest

Custom command

You can run any command inside the VM with:

tuxrun --device qemu-arm64 \
       --kernel http://storage.tuxboot.com/buildroot/arm64/Image \
       -- cat /proc/cpuinfo

Tip: "Command and tests" When combining a custom command and tests, the custom command will be ran after all the tests.

Timeouts

You can override the default timeouts with:

tuxrun --device qemu-armv5 \
       --tests ltp-smoke
       --timeouts deploy=10 boot=12 ltp-smoke=32

This will set the timeouts to:

• deploy: 10 minutes
• boot: 12 minutes
• ltp-smoke: 32 minutes

TuxMake and TuxBuild

You can run tests against TuxMake or TuxBuild artefacts with --tuxmake or --tuxbuild:

tuxrun --tuxmake ~/.cache/tuxmake/builds/1
tuxrun --tuxbuild https://builds.tuxbuild.com/<ksuid>/

Tip: "default device" For some architectures (like ARM), the tuxrun device should be specified with --device.

Mounting host directory

You can mount a host directory into the qemu vm using the 9p protocol.

Start tuxrun with --shared:

tuxrun --device qemu-arm64 --shared /home/user/shared

--shared <src> <dst> accepts zero, one or two parameters. The defaults are:

• src: the cache directory (in ~/.cache/tuxrun/tests/<id>) on the host
• dst: /mnt/tuxrun in the VM

Warning: Device support This feature is only supported on qemu devices

Warning: Kernel support The Qemu kernel should be compiled with the support for 9p, PCI and virtio:

CONFIG_NET_9P=y
CONFIG_NET_9P_VIRTIO=y
CONFIG_9P_FS=y
CONFIG_PCI=y
CONFIG_VIRTIO_PCI=y
CONFIG_PCI_HOST_GENERIC=y (only needed for the QEMU Arm 'virt' board)