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== QualityAssurance ==
== QualityAssurance ==


In this section, we cover the activities of the QA team<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA</ref>.
In this section, we cover the activities of the QA team<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA</ref>. For more information on the work of the QA team and how you can get involved, see the Joining page<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Join</ref>.
 
We apologize for the lack of a QA section for the last few issues of FWN: the QA team was very busy with Fedora 16 validation testing. This issue catches up with the QA team news from the last several weeks.


Contributing Writer: [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]]
Contributing Writer: [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]]
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=== Test Days ===
=== Test Days ===


There was no Test Day last week, as we are deep in the Fedora 11 final release run-up.
In the past few weeks, we finished up the Fedora 16 Test Day schedule, with Graphics Test Week taking place at the start of September<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-06_Nouveau</ref> ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-07_Radeon</ref> ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-07_Radeon</ref>, virtualization test day taking place on 2011-09-15<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-15_Virtualization</ref>, another i18n desktop test day on 2011-09-22<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-22_I18n_Desktop</ref>, an ABRT test day on 2011-09-26<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-26_ABRT</ref>, a power management test day on 2011-09-29<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-29_PowerManagement</ref>, printing test day on 2011-10-06<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-10-06_Printing</ref>, Fedora packager plugin for Eclipse test day on 2011-10-13<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-10-13_Fedora_Packager_for_Eclipse</ref>, and Cloud SIG test day on 2011-10-20<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-10-20_Cloud_SIG_Test_Day</ref>. Most of these test days passed off successfully with the work of the developers behind them, despite the QA team being very busy, so many thanks to those who organized and carried out these events, and those who turned up to do the testing.


Currently, no Test Day is scheduled for next week - it is too close to the scheduled release of Fedora 11 for any testing to produce results directly in Fedora 11 final release, but if you would like to propose a test day which could result in changes for post-release updates, or an early test day for Fedora 12, please contact the QA team via email or IRC, or file a ticket in QA Trac<ref>https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-qa/</ref>.
The Fedora 17 Test Day cycle has not yet started. We welcome proposals for test days for the Fedora 17 cycle, and we usually accept all the proposals that are made. You can propose a test day for almost anything, and organize it yourself following the handy guide we provide<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/SOP_Test_Day_management</ref>, or alternatively we can help out with the organization of the event. Information on how to propose a test day is available on the Wiki<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Test_Days/Create</ref>.


<references/>
<references/>


=== Weekly meetings ===
=== Fedora 16 preparation ===


The QA group weekly meeting<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings</ref> was held on 2009-06-03. The full log is available<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings/20090603</ref>. [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] reported that he had finally remembered to ask the Bugzilla team to add a link to the Fedora bug workflow page<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/BugStatusWorkFlow</ref> from the Bugzilla page<ref>https://bugzilla.redhat.com/page.cgi?id=fields.html</ref>. This has been done, and the link will show up with the next refresh of Bugzilla.
As mentioned above, Fedora 16 release validation took up almost all of the QA team's time during the last few months, with very challenging Beta and Final releases. There were a total of 12 candidate builds for Beta and Final combined, and the whole team put in tireless work running the set of validation tests against each build and then investigating and verifying the large number of blocker bugs identified. The team was able to contribute to the release eventually going ahead with only a one week slip to the Beta schedule and no slip of the Final schedule, a considerable achievement in the light of the many complex changes in the Fedora 16 feature list.


[[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] reported that he has now sent out the survey about Fedora 11 Test Days, asking participants for feedback on how the events went and any possible improvements that could be made<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-June/msg00160.html</ref>. Some feedback had already been received, and much more was expected.
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[[User:Wwoods|Will Woods]] reported that he had added two test cases for preupgrade <ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Testcase_Preupgrade</ref>, <ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Testcase_Preupgrade_from_older_release</ref>, and updated the release candidate test matrix for RC3<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Fedora_11_RC3_Install_Test_Results</ref>.
=== Release criteria updates ===


The group discussed how to handle the installation test result matrix wiki page<ref>https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Fedora_11_RC2_Install_Test_Results</ref> between release candidate revisions. [[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] committed to work out his best solution and send it to the mailing list.
Largely as a result of the Fedora 16 validation process, there were several adjustments and additions to the release criteria in recent weeks. After discussion of the proposed kickstart / unattended installation release criterion concluded, [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] reported that he had committed his proposed modifications<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102599.html</ref>. He also committed a change to reflect the increased priority of EFI installations from Fedora 17 onwards<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102600.html</ref>.


[[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] reported that he had added an entry to the Fedora 11 Common Bugs page<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F11_bugs</ref> for bug #502077<ref>http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=502077</ref>, but that the bug would now be fixed for final release and so the note should be removed. He clarified that issues which will be fixed for final release should just be removed from the page, not moved to the planned 'Resolved Issues' section.
Adam also passed on a suggestion from [[User:Pjones|Peter Jones]] to improve the clarity of the virtualization criteria<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102601.html</ref>. After an extensive discussion, an elegant wording suggestion from Albert Graham<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102636.html</ref> was eventually accepted and committed<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103680.html</ref>.


The group discussed the state of Fedora 11 final release preparation. In general building of release candidates and testing was progressing smoothly. [[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] asked that the group make an effort to confirm the fixes for the nine release-critical issues marked as MODIFIED in Bugzilla.
[[User:Tflink|Tim Flink]] raised the question to what extent support for Xen virtualization should be included in the release criteria<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/103127.html</ref>. After a similarly enthusiastic discussion, it was eventually agreed that Xen DomU support - effectively, the ability to install successfully as a Xen guest - should be a Final release criterion<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103678.html</ref>.


The group then discussed the appropriate way to document bug #503824<ref>http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=503824</ref>, where installation fails in certain circumstances on an x86-64 system with only 512MB of memory. In the end it was decided the most appropriate way to address this would be in the minimum hardware requirements. [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] volunteered to add a request for some appropriate text to be added to an existing bug report on revision of the minimum requirements.
Adam also proposed downgrading some rarely-used kickstart deployment methods from Beta to Final in the criteria, requiring only the most commonly-used to be working at Beta stage<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103557.html</ref>.


[[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] then started a brainstorming session for a general review of QA's role during the Fedora 11 cycle. Many ideas were contributed by the entire group. A summary of these is available on the meeting page<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings/20090603#F-11_QA_Post-mortem_discussion</ref>.
Finally, Adam proposed a criterion for i18n (translation) issues<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103588.html</ref>. After discussion, the proposal was agreed upon at a blocker review meeting later in the week<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103679.html</ref>.


The Bugzappers group weekly meeting<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings</ref> was held on 2009-06-02. The full log is available<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings/Minutes-2009-Jun-02</ref>. [[User:poelstra|John Poelstra]] reported on progress of the housekeeping changes for Fedora 11's release, and the group agreed that he was doing a fine job and should keep it up.
<references/>
 
[[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] reported on the progress of the triage metric system. The system<ref>http://publictest14.fedoraproject.org/triageweb/</ref> is now running on the real Bugzilla data, updated nightly. The system is now in its beta stage, and the developer Brennan Ashton asks that people experiment with it and report bugs or feature requests to trac<ref>http://fedorahosted.org/triage</ref> (component triageweb).
 
[[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] also reported on the progress of the proposal to include setting the priority / severity fields as part of triage. It is now waiting on a change by the Bugzilla maintainers to restrict access to the priority and severity fields. This is being tracked in a bug report<ref>http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=495985</ref>. [[User:arxs | Niels Haase]] noted that he had already begun setting severity on reports he is triaging, according to the policy, and had not yet met with any resistance on the part of reporters. The group agreed that triagers could go ahead and begin setting the severity field ahead of the change to Bugzilla, if they would like to.


[[User:arxs | Niels Haase]] flagged up a bug<ref>http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=459323</ref> for possible inclusion in the Fedora 11 Common Bugs page. It involves resume from suspend failing when using the nouveau graphics driver. After some discussion, the group agreed it should be added to the list.
=== Update policy changes ===


[[User:poelstra|John Poelstra]] announced that he would be stepping back from some of his leadership role within the BugZappers group, though remaining involved in many ways. The group thanked him for all his efforts so far. [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]], [[User:Tk009|Edward Kirk]] and [[User:arxs | Niels Haase]] will cover meeting arrangements for the foreseeable future.
In September, [[User:Karsten|Karsten Hopp]] raised the issue of a security update for Fedora 14 which had been languishing in the updates-testing repository for some time<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102493.html</ref>. [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] explained that the amount of testers working on older releases was limited, and that the actual karma requirements for updates to be accepted were controlled by FESCo (the Fedora engineering steering committee), not the QA group<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102497.html</ref>. [[User:Cra|Chuck Anderson]] noted that he had the update in question installed, but was struggling for lack of information on how to test it properly<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102503.html</ref>. [[User:Sundaram|Rahul Sundaram]] suggested that Karsten file a ticket with FESCo to raise the issue<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102502.html</ref>, and Karsten did<ref>http://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/664</ref>.


[[User:StevenParrish | Steven Parrish]] mentioned that he intended to go through all still-open Fedora 9 bugs for the components he triages, and try to determine whether they were still valid for a current release (and if so change them to that release), in advance of the automated closing of Fedora 9 bugs for EOL. [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] suggested he also mention this idea on the mailing list.
That ticket was merged with another similar one reported by Doug Ledford<ref>http://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/667</ref>, which became a topic of concern to FESCo. After several rounds of discussions, FESCo first decided to relax the requirements for critical path updates somewhat by allowing them to be sent through to the stable repository without the 'required' karma after a period of two weeks had elapsed<ref>http://fedorahosted.org/bodhi/ticket/642</ref>, and later proposed removing the requirement for critical path updates to receive positive karma from a proven tester<ref>http://fedorahosted.org/fesco/ticket/667#comment:26</ref>, effectively a proposal to end the proven tester system, as this is the only function it serves.


The next QA weekly meeting will be held on 2009-06-10 at 1600 UTC in #fedora-meeting, and the next Bugzappers weekly meeting on 2009-06-09 at 1500 UTC in #fedora-meeting.
The QA group discussed this proposal at the weekly meeting of 2011-11-07<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings/20111107</ref>, agreeing that, while they had some reservations about the proposal, they were not definitely opposed to it, and recognized that critical path updates not receiving the currently-required karma is a significant problem.


<references/>
<references/>


=== Release candidate build availability ===
=== Update candidate notification ===


Following on from last week's discussion of the availability of release candidate builds, Andre Robatino announced<ref>https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-May/msg01372.html</ref> that he had built and made available delta ISOs - files containing the difference between two ISO images, allowing the reconstruction of the latest final image - for RC2, from Fedora 11 Preview. He later made delta ISOs available for RC3 and RC4. The group continued to discuss the feasibility of getting quickly-revised pre-release builds available from the public mirror system using various methods, but no conclusion has yet been reached.
Samuel Greenfeld asked if there was any system to notify testers of new candidate updates for specific packages, and to determine what packages are being actively used on a system<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102981.html</ref>. There were no takers for the second question, but for the first, [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] suggested using yum parameters that would allow one to specify only certain packages be pulled from the updates-testing repository<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102982.html</ref>, and [[User:till|Till Maas]] pointed out that Bodhi can actually provide per-package RSS notifications<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102992.html</ref>.


<references/>
<references/>


=== Bugzilla statistics ===
=== Proven tester meetings ===
 
Brennan Ashton released<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-June/msg00093.html</ref> the first weekly Bugzilla statistics roundup, derived from the new triage metrics system. The response was enthusiastic, with requests and suggestions for more information from [[User:Johannbg|Jóhann Guðmundsson]]<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-June/msg00097.html</ref> and [[User:Beland|Christopher Beland]]<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-June/msg00121.html</ref>. There were also several positive responses on the development mailing list, where the information was also posted.
 
<references/>


=== 'How to report bugs' page revised ===
As a response to the concerns about candidate updates not receiving enough karma, [[User:Kevin|Kevin Fenzi]] ran a series of weekly proven tester meetups<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/102869.html</ref> from 2011-09-21 to 2011-10-26. Recaps of these meetings are available in the mailing list archives<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/103000.html</ref> <ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103341.html</ref> <ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103585.html</ref> <ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103840.html</ref> <ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/104043.html</ref>.


[[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] announced<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-June/msg00137.html</ref> that he had made some changes to the main Wiki page on how to report bugs<ref>https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bugs_and_feature_requests</ref>. In particular, he had revised the section providing advice on what information to include in particular types of bug report to be more consistent. He encouraged everyone to contribute this type of information: if you know of specific information which is usually required when filing a particular type of bug (or a bug on a particular component), add this information following the layout used in the appropriate section of the page<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bugs_and_feature_requests#Tips_by_Type_of_Bug</ref>.
Kevin also proposed an updates-testing-info mailing list, containing only the mails about new packages in updates-testing<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-September/103163.html</ref>. However, the consensus was against the idea, as it was felt that it was easy enough to simply filter the desired mails from the test mailing list for those who did not want to read the other traffic.


<references/>
<references/>


=== Fedora 11 Test Day survey ===
=== QA group representation at FUDCon Pune ===


[[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] posted a survey<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-June/msg00160.html</ref> on the Fedora 11 Test Day process, asking for feedback on various facets of the process and suggestions for future improvements. The response was wide and enthusiastic, across both the QA and the development mailing lists, with many useful and constructive suggestions from testers and developers alike. James and [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] responded to several of the suggestions, affirming that many would be considered for implementation during the Fedora 12 Test Day cycle.
[[User:Ankursinha|Ankur Sinha]] asked whether anyone from the QA team would be present at the upcoming FUDCon in Pune, India and able to do a presentation on the group's activities<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103712.html</ref>. [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] replied that unfortunately none of the Red Hat team would be at the conference, but encouraged Ankur to take a shot at giving a presentation himself<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103728.html</ref>. A S Alam then stepped up to volunteer to lead a QA session<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2011-October/103739.html</ref>. His session was scheduled for 2011-11-04<ref>http://fudcon.in/sessions/fedora-testing</ref>, but we have no report on the event - if you were present, please write to the mailing list and let us know how it went!


<references/>
<references/>

Latest revision as of 05:10, 17 November 2011

QualityAssurance

In this section, we cover the activities of the QA team[1]. For more information on the work of the QA team and how you can get involved, see the Joining page[2].

We apologize for the lack of a QA section for the last few issues of FWN: the QA team was very busy with Fedora 16 validation testing. This issue catches up with the QA team news from the last several weeks.

Contributing Writer: Adam Williamson

Test Days

In the past few weeks, we finished up the Fedora 16 Test Day schedule, with Graphics Test Week taking place at the start of September[1] ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-07_Radeon</ref> ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2011-09-07_Radeon</ref>, virtualization test day taking place on 2011-09-15[2], another i18n desktop test day on 2011-09-22[3], an ABRT test day on 2011-09-26[4], a power management test day on 2011-09-29[5], printing test day on 2011-10-06[6], Fedora packager plugin for Eclipse test day on 2011-10-13[7], and Cloud SIG test day on 2011-10-20[8]. Most of these test days passed off successfully with the work of the developers behind them, despite the QA team being very busy, so many thanks to those who organized and carried out these events, and those who turned up to do the testing.

The Fedora 17 Test Day cycle has not yet started. We welcome proposals for test days for the Fedora 17 cycle, and we usually accept all the proposals that are made. You can propose a test day for almost anything, and organize it yourself following the handy guide we provide[9], or alternatively we can help out with the organization of the event. Information on how to propose a test day is available on the Wiki[10].

Fedora 16 preparation

As mentioned above, Fedora 16 release validation took up almost all of the QA team's time during the last few months, with very challenging Beta and Final releases. There were a total of 12 candidate builds for Beta and Final combined, and the whole team put in tireless work running the set of validation tests against each build and then investigating and verifying the large number of blocker bugs identified. The team was able to contribute to the release eventually going ahead with only a one week slip to the Beta schedule and no slip of the Final schedule, a considerable achievement in the light of the many complex changes in the Fedora 16 feature list.


Release criteria updates

Largely as a result of the Fedora 16 validation process, there were several adjustments and additions to the release criteria in recent weeks. After discussion of the proposed kickstart / unattended installation release criterion concluded, Adam Williamson reported that he had committed his proposed modifications[1]. He also committed a change to reflect the increased priority of EFI installations from Fedora 17 onwards[2].

Adam also passed on a suggestion from Peter Jones to improve the clarity of the virtualization criteria[3]. After an extensive discussion, an elegant wording suggestion from Albert Graham[4] was eventually accepted and committed[5].

Tim Flink raised the question to what extent support for Xen virtualization should be included in the release criteria[6]. After a similarly enthusiastic discussion, it was eventually agreed that Xen DomU support - effectively, the ability to install successfully as a Xen guest - should be a Final release criterion[7].

Adam also proposed downgrading some rarely-used kickstart deployment methods from Beta to Final in the criteria, requiring only the most commonly-used to be working at Beta stage[8].

Finally, Adam proposed a criterion for i18n (translation) issues[9]. After discussion, the proposal was agreed upon at a blocker review meeting later in the week[10].

Update policy changes

In September, Karsten Hopp raised the issue of a security update for Fedora 14 which had been languishing in the updates-testing repository for some time[1]. Adam Williamson explained that the amount of testers working on older releases was limited, and that the actual karma requirements for updates to be accepted were controlled by FESCo (the Fedora engineering steering committee), not the QA group[2]. Chuck Anderson noted that he had the update in question installed, but was struggling for lack of information on how to test it properly[3]. Rahul Sundaram suggested that Karsten file a ticket with FESCo to raise the issue[4], and Karsten did[5].

That ticket was merged with another similar one reported by Doug Ledford[6], which became a topic of concern to FESCo. After several rounds of discussions, FESCo first decided to relax the requirements for critical path updates somewhat by allowing them to be sent through to the stable repository without the 'required' karma after a period of two weeks had elapsed[7], and later proposed removing the requirement for critical path updates to receive positive karma from a proven tester[8], effectively a proposal to end the proven tester system, as this is the only function it serves.

The QA group discussed this proposal at the weekly meeting of 2011-11-07[9], agreeing that, while they had some reservations about the proposal, they were not definitely opposed to it, and recognized that critical path updates not receiving the currently-required karma is a significant problem.

Update candidate notification

Samuel Greenfeld asked if there was any system to notify testers of new candidate updates for specific packages, and to determine what packages are being actively used on a system[1]. There were no takers for the second question, but for the first, Adam Williamson suggested using yum parameters that would allow one to specify only certain packages be pulled from the updates-testing repository[2], and Till Maas pointed out that Bodhi can actually provide per-package RSS notifications[3].

Proven tester meetings

As a response to the concerns about candidate updates not receiving enough karma, Kevin Fenzi ran a series of weekly proven tester meetups[1] from 2011-09-21 to 2011-10-26. Recaps of these meetings are available in the mailing list archives[2] [3] [4] [5] [6].

Kevin also proposed an updates-testing-info mailing list, containing only the mails about new packages in updates-testing[7]. However, the consensus was against the idea, as it was felt that it was easy enough to simply filter the desired mails from the test mailing list for those who did not want to read the other traffic.

QA group representation at FUDCon Pune

Ankur Sinha asked whether anyone from the QA team would be present at the upcoming FUDCon in Pune, India and able to do a presentation on the group's activities[1]. Adam Williamson replied that unfortunately none of the Red Hat team would be at the conference, but encouraged Ankur to take a shot at giving a presentation himself[2]. A S Alam then stepped up to volunteer to lead a QA session[3]. His session was scheduled for 2011-11-04[4], but we have no report on the event - if you were present, please write to the mailing list and let us know how it went!