Re: Attn: CI/Jenkins people; Run bhyve instance for testing pf

On Sun, Jul 16, 2017 at 2:44 PM, Panagiotes Mousikides
<paggas1_at_yandex.com> wrote:
> Hello everybody!
>
> I am working on adding tests to the FreeBSD test suite for testing pf, the
> network packet filter.
>
> These tests need at least two machines running and connected to each other,
> with one machine generating network traffic and the other running pf and
> filtering the traffic.  I am looking for a way to fire off a bhyve instance
> to serve as the second machine, the first being the actual machine I am
> running the tests on. This should be done completely automatically, with
> scripts to configure all network interfaces and to preferably also set up an
> SSH server on the bhyve instance.
>
> This bhyve instance could start off as running the latest stable version of
> FreeBSD, or it could be configured to run a snapshot of the development
> tree.  The aim is to have the desired version of FreeBSD that we want to
> test running on it.  Ideally this would be done in such a way that we can
> reuse the machine for further tests, instead of rebuilding everything from
> scratch for each test.
>
> What I am looking for is the best way to do this, preferably so that it can
> be easily integrated into the CI work being done at Jenkins.  What do you
> think?  Any input is welcome!
>
> All the best,
> Panagiotes

It's possible to setup CI systems that involve multiple machines
networked together.  I've done it.  But it's complicated, fragile, and
slow.  I advise you to consider very carefully whether you truly need
multiple VMs.  What about creating an epair(4)?  You could run pf on
epair0b and generate traffic from epair0a.  That would be faster than
spinning up VMs, and would be very easy to integrate into any other CI
system.  Would that work?

-Alan