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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 ===


Last week's Test Day<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2009-10-08_RAID</ref> was on the the use of software RAID arrays with Anaconda. Our hardened group of install testers worked hard to test as many RAID scenarios as possible. We'd like to send a big thanks to [[User:Atorkhov|Alexey Torkhov (greenlion)]] for contributing so much valuable testing.
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.


Next week's Test Day<ref>https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2009-10-15</ref> will be on internationalization (also known as i18n)<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/I18N</ref> - an event which usually has a strong focus on input methods, but can also cover issues like fonts. The Test Day will run all day on Thursday 2009-10-15 in the #fedora-test-day IRC channel. Please come along and help ensure Fedora works just as well no matter what language you use!
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>.


No Fit and Finish track Test Day is planned for next week.
<references/>


If you would like to propose a main track Test Day for the Fedora 12 cycle, please contact the QA team via email or IRC, or file a ticket in QA Trac<ref>http://fedorahosted.org/fedora-qa/</ref>.
=== 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.


<references/>
<references/>


=== Weekly meetings ===
=== Release criteria updates ===


The QA group weekly meeting<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings</ref> was held on 2009-10-05. The full log is available<ref>http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2009-10-05/fedora-meeting.2009-10-05-16.00.log.html</ref>. [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] asked [[User:jkeating|Jesse Keating]] if there had been any follow-up on the development process issues discussed at the last meeting but one. Jesse explained that he had repeated to Red Hat management that it was too late to land feature changes in Fedora 12, whatever their desirability for Red Hat products.
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:Wwoods|Will Woods]] reported on the progress of the AutoQA project. He had implemented a UI for the israwhidebroken.com project, allowing QA group members to submit results for the manual tests which will form a part of it. Implementing a nicer AJAX UI and automating yum and network tests can be done later, so now only backlinks from israwhidebroken.com to autotest need to be implemented before it can go public. [[User:Kparal|Kamil Paral]] mentioned that he is working on a test for comparing the old and new versions of a package each time a new build is uploaded, looking for important changes such as dependency changes, configuration file changes, and file mode changes. He hopes to integrate this test into AutoQA in future.
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 then looked at the status of Fedora 12 Beta, with regard to the go/no-go decision meeting which would come later that day. There was a broad consensus that the QA team's position would be against shipping the Beta on schedule, due to several blocker bugs still being open and apparently unfixed. The group spent some time discussing individual bugs in detail and agreeing action plans to address several of them.
[[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>.


[[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] summarized upcoming events, including the imminent Beta go/no-go meeting, and the RAID Test Day<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2009-10-08_RAID</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>.


The Bugzappers group weekly meeting<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings</ref> was held on 2009-10-06. The full log is available<ref>http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2009-10-06/fedora-meeting.2009-10-06-15.00.log.html</ref>. The group noted that [[User:Tk009|Edward Kirk]] was absent, so his plans to improve Triage Day events could not be discussed.
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:Rjune|Richard June]] gave an update on the kernel triage project. He had found some bugs where useful triage could be conducted, and would contact [[User:linville|John Linville]] to ensure the information requests he was sending out were sensible. [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] noted that the amount of time it had taken to find a few bugs where triage could be useful might suggest the kernel triage project overall was not worth pursuing, but Richard said it was still too early to tell and he would continue to investigate different types of bugs.
<references/>


[[User:Tk009|Edward Kirk]] also provided a draft of the meeting organization SOP<ref>https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Tk009/meeting-sop</ref> that he had begun work on. The group felt it was a good start. Edward wondered where the page should end up, and [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] suggested it should be a page of its own, linked from the main Meetings page<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/Meetings</ref>, as other SOP pages are. Edward promised to work on finalizing the page for the next meeting. Jeff Hann volunteered to help Richard with the project, and they agreed to co-ordinate after the meeting.
=== Update policy changes ===


[[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] started a discussion on [[User:Johannbg|Jóhann Guðmundsson's]] proposal to standardize the Wiki pages containing instructions on debugging problems in various Fedora components. The group generally agreed that it was a good idea, and Jóhann agreed to work on a proposed standard template for these pages, to be discussed and refined on the mailing list.
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>.


The next QA weekly meeting will be held on 2009-10-12 at 1600 UTC in #fedora-meeting, and the next Bugzappers weekly meeting on 2009-10-13 at 1500 UTC in #fedora-meeting.
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/>


=== Wiki debugging page standardization ===
=== Update candidate notification ===


Following discussion in the meeting, [[User:Johannbg|Jóhann Guðmundsson]] submitted his proposal<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-October/msg00112.html</ref> for standardizing Wiki pages which explain how to debug and file proper bug reports on Fedora components. The proposal was enthusiastically received, with additional suggestions coming from Giovanni Tirloni<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-October/msg00113.html</ref>, [[User:Beland|Christopher Beland]]<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-October/msg00115.html</ref>, [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]]<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-October/msg00123.html</ref> and others. A template page<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Template:How_to_debug</ref> is now in place and being refined, and some debugging pages have already been revised to use the template. The group will convert other pages one by one.
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/>


=== Fedora 12 Beta release process ===
=== 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>.
 
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/>


[[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] represented the QA group at the 2009-10-05 release engineering meeting<ref>http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2009-10-05/fedora-meeting.2009-10-05-18.02.log.txt</ref>. During the discussion of whether or not to release the Fedora 12 Beta according to the original schedule, Adam presented the QA group's position that the Beta release, and all subsequent events, should be delayed by a week due to the fact that all release blocker bugs had not been resolved. Other groups present agreed, and the meeting resulted in an agreement to delay the release due to this wide consensus.
=== QA group representation at FUDCon Pune ===


As a result, the group continued to work on aiding the process of resolving release blocker bugs during the week, and a final blocker bug review meeting was held on Friday 2009-10-09. [[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] provided a recap of this meeting<ref>http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-test-list/2009-October/msg00157.html</ref>.
[[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!