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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 finally released Fedora 11.
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 still very early in the Fedora 12 cycle. If you would like to propose a test day which could result in changes for post-release updates for Fedora 11, 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 ===
 
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.


The QA group weekly meeting<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings</ref> was held on 2009-06-17. The full log is available<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings/20090617</ref>. [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] reported that he had added a suggested draft for the previously agreed change to the minimum hardware requirements to an existing bug report<ref>http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=499585</ref>.
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[[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] reported on the Fedora 11 retrospective meeting which had taken place the previous day, and which he, [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]], [[User:jkeating|Jesse Keating]] and [[User:Tk009|Edward Kirk]] had attended to represent the QA and BugZappers groups. All agreed that the meeting had been well-run and productive. Jesse pointed out that the real test of its success would be if any of the items discussed had led to actual changes within the next month or two. James promised to update the QA team's Goals page<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Goals</ref> to incorporate the lessons learned from the Fedora 11 release cycle.
=== Release criteria updates ===


The group discussed whether some kind of voice format for the meeting would be better than IRC, but in the end there was wide agreement that it would not be.
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:Jlaska|James Laska]] mentioned that the period for open feedback on proposals stemming from the earlier Fedora Development Cycle Activity Day<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Activity_Day_Fedora_Development_Cycle_2009</ref> was nearing an end: feedback on these proposals will be accepted up to June 30th. The proposals can be found in an email from [[User:jkeating|Jesse Keating]]<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-June/msg00385.html</ref>. Anyone interested is encouraged to read the proposals and provide feedback.
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>.


[[User:Wwoods|Will Woods]] reported on progress of the AutoQA project. He noted that one of the FAD proposals, israwhidebroken.com<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Israwhidebroken.com_Proposal</ref>, is essentially an AutoQA project, and so he has established it as the first AutoQA milestone, with a set of tickets<ref>http://fedorahosted.org/autoqa/milestone/israwhidebroken.com</ref>. He noted that [[User:jkeating|Jesse Keating]] is working on packaging autotest<ref>http://autotest.kernel.org/</ref>, which will be the harness used to create the automated tests for this project. Jesse pointed out that autotest required Google Web Toolkit, which is not yet packaged either, so packaging autotest is a big project, but he was confident that he will be successful.
[[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 Bugzappers group weekly meeting<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings</ref> was held on 2009-06-16. The full log is available<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings/Minutes-2009-Jun-16</ref>. [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] reported that Brennan Ashton is working on having a components page as part of the triage metrics system<ref>http://publictest14.fedoraproject.org/triageweb/</ref>.
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:Tk009|Edward Kirk]] reported on his attempts to find out how the critical component list was generated so it can be accurately updated. He later spoke with [[User:Jstanley| Jon Stanley]] and [[User:jkeating|Jesse Keating]] and was advised to use the critical path packages proposal<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Critical_Path_Packages_Proposal</ref> to help re-generate the list. He will report further next week.
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>.


[[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] reported on the progress of the kernel triage project. He had sent an email to all interested parties, asking the kernel team to provide information on the current workflow used for kernel bugs, but had not yet received a reply, so this project is currently waiting on that important information from the kernel team.
<references/>


[[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] also reported on a request received from the EPEL team<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL</ref> for some help with a Bug Day they have planned for July 11th<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL_Bug_Day_July_2009</ref>. [[User:Kevin|Kevin Fenzi]], who is part of the EPEL project, provided some explanations: a copy of RHEL is not required to help, Bugzappers could help with only a CentOS box, or even just Fedora in some cases. Help asked of the Bugzappers team is mostly in typical Bugzappers tasks of triaging and pinging dormant bugs for further information. The EPEL project follows the Fedora bug workflow. The group agreed that they would be happy to help out with the Bug Day, and asked the EPEL project to provide more information closer to the date.
=== Update policy changes ===


The next QA weekly meeting will be held on 2009-06-24 at 1600 UTC in #fedora-meeting, and the next Bugzappers weekly meeting on 2009-06-23 at 1500 UTC in #fedora-meeting.
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>.
 
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 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/>


=== Improved and more detailed QA / Release Engineering scheduling for Fedora 12 ===
=== Update candidate notification ===


[[User:poelstra|John Poelstra]] announced<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-June/msg00507.html</ref> that he had worked on a draft for an improved and more detailed schedule for release engineering tasks for Fedora 12, which also affects QA. He suggested that "we should move to more of a standard software model (just as we did with the naming of the schedule, etc.) where there is more separation between Releng and QA. IOW, Releng provides the service of packing the bits and composing an installable distro and QA provides the service of testing them and giving a thumbs up/down on them", and asked "What tweaks should I make to better reflect QA's needs?" The proposed schedule has blocker bug reviews happening the Friday before key freezes, exact dates for release engineering composes, and exact dates for compose testing. [[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] replied<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-June/msg00513.html</ref> with broad support for each of the proposals.
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/>


=== Installer test plan ===
=== Proven tester meetings ===
 
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:Liam|Liam Li]] announced<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-June/msg00529.html</ref> a test plan for installation for Fedora 12<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/TestPlans/Fedora12Install</ref>, and asked for feedback. [[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] replied<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-June/msg00538.html</ref>, noting that he had made some minor changes to the Wiki page, and providing some comments on the plan. He pointed out that it may be a good idea to consider the yum install cleanup feature<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda/Features/YuminstallCleanup</ref> in the plan, and suggested only listing the test priority order once.
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/>


=== Rawhide acceptance test plan ===
=== QA group representation at FUDCon Pune ===


[[User:Wwoods|Will Woods]] announced<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-June/msg00547.html</ref> the creation of a Rawhide acceptance test plan<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Rawhide_Acceptance_Test_Plan</ref>, which is part of the israwhidebroken.com proposal discussed during the weekly meeting (see above). This outlines the overall set of features which should be tested to determine if Rawhide is currently in a usable state or not. [[User:Johannbg|Jóhann Guðmundsson]] suggested<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-June/msg00552.html</ref> a test for whether a basic wired network connection could be established. [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] suggested<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-June/msg00549.html</ref> a test for whether basic input (keyboard and mouse) are working. Tom London suggested<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-June/msg00565.html</ref> a test for encrypted root filesystems, but Will explained<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-June/msg00566.html</ref> that this was beyond the scope of basic functionality testing.
[[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!