Missing, Outdated OS Tests

[pranavmarla]

Hi, I noticed that there don't appear to be any tests for the following OSs:

• Ubuntu 18
• Ubuntu 20
• Ubuntu 22
• RHEL 8
• Amazon Linux (2018)
• Amazon Linux 2

In addition, although there are tests for the following OSs, they appear to be either outdated or wrong:

• RHEL 7

I am hoping to fix these myself but, before I do so, I thought I'd open this issue first -- this will be my first time contributing to this repo, so please feel free to let me know if you have any tips, suggestions, etc. 🙂

[HorlogeSkynet]

Good idea ! Also see #77, #81 and #79. There is also a TODO-list in the sources (to be cleaned).
No particular tips, but if your "real world examples" (rootfs) contain symbolic links, it is a good thing to populate distro test cases with them too (e.g. /etc/os-release -> /usr/lib/os-release), as Git supports them.

Good luck 🙏

[pranavmarla]

Thanks @HorlogeSkynet -- I had no idea the symlinks mattered, that's good to know!

When you get a chance, I'd appreciate it if you could clarify the following:

1. Going through the repo, I've seen some offhand comments implying that distro does not consider/care about the /etc/system-release file:
   Eg.

   • PR:

     ... This is the first time the exclusion of system-release hurts.

   • Code comment:

     # Amazon Linux 2014 only contains a system-release file.
     # distro doesn't currently handle it.
     

   • Documentation:

     The distro release file is found by using the first match in the alphabetically sorted list of the files matching the following path name patterns:
     ...
     where the following special path names are excluded:
     /etc/debian_version
     /etc/system-release
     /etc/os-release

   However, I also see that some of the existing OS tests do in fact contain the /etc/system-release file -- eg. RHEL 6.

   So, would you mind clarifying what the current distro policy is towards the /etc/system-release file? Do we consider it or ignore it -- i.e. when I create the new OS test folders, should I upload the /etc/system-release file or not ?

2. I'm not sure what I should do regarding RHEL 7, and would appreciate your advice.

   In addition, although there are tests for the following OSs, they appear to be either outdated or wrong:

   • RHEL 7

   The issue I was referring to above is that the /etc/os-release file in the current RHEL 7 test folder does not contain the same fields as the RHEL 7 /etc/os-release file from my test VM. Specifically, my os-release file contains two fields (VARIANT, VARIANT_ID) that are not present in distro's /etc/os-release file -- however, I also noticed that my /etc/os-release file is from RHEL 7.9, while distro's is from RHEL 7.0. This suggests to me that one of the following is true:

   • Distro's /etc/os-release file is wrong: In this case, it seems like I should just delete distro's existing /etc/os-release file and replace it with my /etc/os-release file.
   • Distro's /etc/os-release file is correct, but outdated -- in other words, RHEL changed the structure of their /etc/os-release file (added the two new fields) some time between versions 7.0 and 7.9: In this case, it seems like I should not modify distro's existing 7.0 /etc/os-release file but, instead, save my updated file in a new folder -- i.e. create a new test case for RHEL 7.9.
     The problem here is that I'm not sure what I should name this new folder of mine, since it seems like the current test folder naming convention assumes that there will only be 1 folder for each major version: eg. rhel5, rhel6, rhel7. If, instead, I need to create a new folder for the same major version but a different minor version (i.e. 7.9), what naming convention should I use: rhel79, rhel7.9, rhel7_9, rhel7-9, etc.?
     • Also, would I then need to rename the existing rhel7 folder to something like rhel7.0?

[HorlogeSkynet]

Hey @pranavmarla 🙏

So, would you mind clarifying what the current distro policy is towards the /etc/system-release file? Do we consider it or ignore it -- i.e. when I create the new OS test folders, should I upload the /etc/system-release file or not ?

Actually, whether current distro implementation is broken or not, you should include in the "rootfs" each file that should be ignored, or must be parsed.
It would be simpler for you, closer to the "reality" and eventually will trigger some bugs.

For your point 2, I would opt for a specific new folder for RHEL 7.9, with rhel79 as a naming convention.
distro ignores VARIANT and VARIANT_ID fields so I guess it's OK if RHEL 7.0 folder stays like this.

I hope I've not missed one of your points.
Cheers 👋

[pranavmarla]

Thank you @HorlogeSkynet -- appreciate the speedy response!

Also, would I then need to rename the existing rhel7 folder to something like rhel7.0?

Would you mind clarifying this as well?

[HorlogeSkynet]

Yes sorry, why not, renaming the test folder to rhel70 if you opt for rhel79 creation looks OK 👍

[pranavmarla]

Perfect, thanks!

[HorlogeSkynet]

Any news on this @pranavmarla ? 🙂

[pranavmarla]

Any news on this @pranavmarla ? 🙂

@HorlogeSkynet I'm afraid I haven't had a chance to work on this since my last update -- I'm hoping to get back into it next year, but unfortunately can't give an estimate of when that will be