FreeBSD Manual Pages
TESTS(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual TESTS(7) NAME tests -- introduction to the FreeBSD Test Suite DESCRIPTION The FreeBSD Test Suite provides a collection of automated tests for two major purposes. On one hand, the test suite aids developers to detect bugs and regressions when they modify the source tree. On the other hand, it allows end users (and, in particular, system administrators) to verify that fresh installations of the FreeBSD operating system be- have correctly on their hardware platform and also to ensure that the system does not suffer from regressions during regular operation and maintenance. The FreeBSD Test Suite can be found in the /usr/tests hierarchy. This manual page describes how to run the test suite and how to config- ure some of its optional features. For information on writing the tests, see atf(7). Installing the test suite If the /usr/tests directory is missing, then you will have to enable the build of the test suite, rebuild your system and install the re- sults. You can do so by setting `WITH_TESTS=yes' in your /etc/src.conf file (see src.conf(5) for details) and rebuilding the system as de- scribed in build(7). When to run the tests? Before diving into the details of how to run the test suite, here are some scenarios in which you should run it: • After a fresh installation of FreeBSD to ensure that the sys- tem works correctly on your hardware platform. • After an upgrade of FreeBSD to a different version to ensure that the new code works well on your hardware platform and that the upgrade did not introduce regressions in your con- figuration. • After modifying the source tree to detect any new bugs and/or regressions. • Periodically, maybe from a cron(8) job, to ensure that any changes to the system (such as the installation of third- party packages or manual modifications to configuration files) do not introduce unexpected failures. Running the tests By default, Kyua looks for tests in the current directory. To run the whole test suite, either use the -k option to specify the top-level Kyuafile: $ kyua test -k /usr/tests/Kyuafile or just change to the test suite root before running Kyua: $ cd /usr/tests $ kyua test The above will iterate through all test programs in /usr/tests recur- sively, execute them, store their results and debugging data in Kyua's database (by default in ~/.kyua/store/), and print a summary of the re- sults. This summary includes a brief count of all total tests run and how many of them failed. It is possible to restrict which tests to run by providing their names, or a portion of their path, on the command line. For example, this would execute all of the tests provided for the cp(1) and stat(1) util- ities: $ cd /usr/tests $ kyua test bin/cp usr.bin/stat This would execute only one of the two test programs provided for stat(1): $ cd /usr/tests $ kyua test usr.bin/stat/stat_test This would execute just a single test case: $ cd /usr/tests $ kyua test usr.bin/stat/stat_test:t_flag Finally, this would execute that test case in debug mode: $ cd /usr/tests $ kyua debug -p usr.bin/stat/stat_test:t_flag The -p option tells Kyua to pause before cleanup so you can inspect the temporary directory to better understand why the test failed. Note that some tests may require root privileges to execute: $ cd /usr/tests $ kyua debug usr.bin/stat/stat_test:h_flag usr.bin/stat/stat_test:h_flag -> skipped: Requires root privileges $ sudo kyua debug usr.bin/stat/stat_test:h_flag [...] usr.bin/stat/stat_test:h_flag -> passed Conversely, some tests will only work correctly if run as an unprivi- leged user. This will normally be noted in the test's metadata, caus- ing Kyua to automatically drop privileges before running the test. Obtaining reports of the tests execution Additional information about the test results can be retrieved by using Kyua's various reporting commands. For example, the following would print a plain-text report of the tests executed in the latest test run and show which ones failed: $ kyua report --verbose To show the results of an arbitrary test run, use the -r option to specify which results file to read: $ kyua report --verbose \ -r ~/.kyua/store/results.usr_tests.20260417-173009-335060.db Keep in mind that if the tests were run as root, the results will have been stored in root's kyua directory, and the easiest way to access them will be to run the report command as root as well: $ cd /usr/tests $ sudo kyua test usr.bin/stat $ sudo kyua report --verbose This example would generate an HTML report ready to be published on a web server: $ kyua report-html --output ~/public_html/tests For further details on the command-line interface of Kyua, please refer to its manual page kyua(1). Configuring the tests Some test cases in the FreeBSD Test Suite require manual configuration by the administrator before they can be run. Unless certain properties are defined, the tests that require them will be skipped. Test suites are configured by defining their configuration variables in /etc/kyua/kyua.conf. The format of this file is detailed in kyua.conf(5). The following configuration variables are available in the FreeBSD Test Suite: allow_devfs_side_effects If defined, enables tests that may destroy and recreate semipermanent device nodes, like disk devices. Without this variable, tests may still create and destroy devices nodes that are normally transient, like /dev/tap* and /dev/pts*, as long as they clean them up afterwards. However, tests that require this variable have a relaxed cleanup requirement; they must recreate any devices that they destroyed, but not neces- sarily with the same devnames. allow_sysctl_side_effects Enables tests that change globally signifi- cant sysctl(8) variables. The tests will undo any changes in their cleanup phases. allow_network_access Enables tests that need to access the net- work the test host is connected to. Such tests may require properly configured Inter- net access. disks Must be set to a space delimited list of disk device nodes. Tests that need destruc- tive access to disks must use these devices. Tests are not required to preserve any data present on these disks. fibs Must be set to a space delimited list of FIBs (routing tables). Tests that need to modify a routing table may use any of these. Tests will cleanup any new routes that they create. What to do if something fails? If there is any failure during the execution of the test suite, please consider reporting it to the FreeBSD developers so that the failure can be analyzed and fixed. To do so, either send a message to the appro- priate mailing list or file a problem report. For more details please refer to: • FreeBSD Mailing Lists: https://lists.freebsd.org/ • Problem Reporting: https://www.freebsd.org/support/ FILES /etc/kyua/kyua.conf System-wide configuration file for kyua(1). ~/.kyua/kyua.conf User-specific configuration file for kyua(1); overrides the system file. ~/.kyua/logs/ Default location of Kyua debug logs (one .log file per test run). ~/.kyua/store/ Default location of Kyua test results (one .db file per test run). /usr/tests/ Location of the FreeBSD Test Suite. /usr/tests/Kyuafile Top-level test suite definition file. SEE ALSO kyua(1), atf(7), build(7), development(7) HISTORY The FreeBSD Test Suite first appeared in FreeBSD 10.1 and was installed by default in FreeBSD 11.0. The tests manual page first appeared in NetBSD 6.0 and was later ported to FreeBSD 10.1. The test driver, kyua(1), was imported as part of the base system in FreeBSD 13.0, previously being available only in ports(7). AUTHORS Julio Merino <jmmv@FreeBSD.org> FreeBSD April 17, 2026 TESTS(7)
NAME | DESCRIPTION | FILES | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | AUTHORS
Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=tests&sektion=7&manpath=FreeBSD+15.1-RELEASE>