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== QualityAssurance ==
== QualityAssurance ==


In this section, we cover the activities of the QA team<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA</ref>. This week, we are trying out a new topic-focused layout, without the topic-by-topic weekly meeting recaps. Please let [[User:Adamwill|me]] know if you particularly like or dislike the new layout!
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:2010-03-18_Palimpsest</ref> was on Fedora 13 changes to disk management, via the udisks (previously DeviceKit-disks) backend and the Palimpsest front end<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/UdisksImprovements</ref>. The turnout was solid and resulted in 12 bugs being filed, of which two have already been fixed. [[User:Davidz|David Zeuthen]] was there to help with testing throughout the test day and will be working to fix the remaining bugs.
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>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:2010-03-25_Printing</ref> will be on printing, including the implementation of automatic print driver installation<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/AutomaticPrintDriverInstallation</ref>in Fedora 13. This is a nice mix of making sure the existing printer support is working well and testing out a shiny new feature. Printing is important to nearly everyone, so if you've got a printer, please come along and help test! As usual, you can test with an installed Fedora 13 or Rawhide system, or a live image which is available on the Test Day page. [[User:twaugh|Tim Waugh]] has been working hard to arrange the test day, and he and Jiri Popelka, along with QA's [[User:Ykopkova|Yulia Kopkova]], will be on hand to help with any questions or problems. The Test Day will run all day on Thursday 2010-03-25 in the #fedora-test-day IRC channel.
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>.


If you would like to propose a main track Test Day for the Fedora 13 cycle, please contact the QA team via email or IRC, or file a ticket in QA Trac<ref>http://fedorahosted.org/fedora-qa/</ref>.
<references/>
 
=== 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/>


=== Fedora 13 testing ===
=== Release criteria updates ===


The first acceptance test plan<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA:Rawhide_Acceptance_Test_Plan</ref> run of the Beta period was performed on the Fedora 13 tree of 2010-03-15<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Results:Fedora_13_Pre-Beta_Acceptance_Test_1</ref>, resulting in a pass, with two incidental issues noted and reported.  
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>.


During the weekly QA meeting<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/QA/Meetings/20100315</ref>, [[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] noted that release engineering should be working on the first Beta test compose for 2010-03-18, but it did not arrive during the week. [[User:Rhe|Rui He]] announced<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2010-March/089340.html</ref> the installation and desktop acceptance testing matrices for the candidate in preparation for its expected arrival.
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 second blocker bug review meeting for Fedora 13 Beta was held on 2010-03-19<ref>http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-bugzappers/2010-03-19/f13beta-blocker-review.2010-03-19-16.04.html</ref>. All outstanding Beta blocker bugs were reviewed, and developers were consulted on the remaining open bugs to ensure fixes should be available in time for the release candidate process to begin the following week.
[[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>.


Robert P.J. Day<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2010-March/089175.html</ref> and Felix Miata<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2010-March/089297.html</ref> noted issues with the package customization choices in the Fedora 13 installation process. Robert noticed that the package group customization screen only allowed one major package group to be chosen, leading to a discussion on whether this was a sensible decision or whether it should be possible to select multiple high-level groups. [[User:dcantrel|David Cantrell]] explained<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2010-March/089213.html</ref> that the Anaconda team had noticed that, in previous releases where multiple selections were allowed, "most users would either (a) leave the default
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>.
choices in place and continue or (b) check them all for fear of missing something". However, he was still open to the possibility of changing to multiple selection after "look[ing] at the tasks as
defined now [to] see if they should be changed, expanded, or reduced".


Felix noticed that the minimal installation option resulted in a non-working network connection on first boot. [[User:jkeating|Jesse Keating]] explained<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2010-March/089307.html</ref> that this is because the minimal install does not include NetworkManager, and the installer does not have code to detect when this is the case and enable the traditional-style ''network'' service instead. Some debate ensued over whether this feature should be implemented, and about whether minimal installations had had working network connections or not on earlier Fedora releases.
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>.


Several group members, including Jim Haynes<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2010-March/089210.html</ref>, Tom Horsley<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2010-March/089223.html</ref> and Robert Lightfoot<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2010-March/089385.html</ref>, were engaged in testing Fedora 13 images and gave some valuable feedback on the issues they encountered.
<references/>


<references/>
=== Update policy changes ===
 
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>.


=== Update acceptance testing ===
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.


During the weekly QA meeting, [[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] noted that the group needed to make progress on defining a process for update acceptance testing. Packages intended for Fedora 13 were already being held in the updates-testing repository for testing, and FESCo had agreed to a policy requiring proposed updates for critical path packages in stable releases to be held for testing as well. The QA group had the responsibility to decide how the group of trusted testers whose feedback would be used to approve updates should be defined. [[User:maxamillion|Adam Miller]] had already provided an initial draft policy<ref>http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/test/2010-March/088980.html</ref>, but this was waiting on feedback from the rest of the group.
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/>


=== Privilege escalation testing ===
=== Update candidate notification ===


During the weekly QA meeting, [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] noted that, since the privilege escalation policy<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Privilege_escalation_policy</ref> which the group had worked on had been accepted, no progress had yet been made on implementing testing. He felt that the logical next step would be to produce the planned script to identify packages which potentially perform privilege escalation; this would give an idea of the problem space and potentially allow basic manual testing during the Fedora 13 cycle. He planned to talk to [[User:Wwoods|Will Woods]] to see if this could be implemented quickly.
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/>


=== New release process Wiki documentation ===
=== 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>.


During the weekly Bugzappers meeting<ref>http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2010-03-16/fedora-meeting.2010-03-16-15.03.log.html</ref>, [[User:Beland|Christopher Beland]] announced that he had revised several pages on the Wiki to reflect the new, No Frozen Rawhide-based<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/No_Frozen_Rawhide_Proposal</ref> release process. He had updated the Rawhide<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/Rawhide</ref> and Fedora Release Life Cycle<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_Release_Life_Cycle</ref> pages, and created a new Branched page<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/Branched</ref> to document the ''Branched'' release (which will always be the upcoming stable Fedora release, so is currently Fedora 13). [[User:Jlaska|James Laska]] noted that he had an older proposal<ref>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Jlaska/Draft</ref> to split the Rawhide page into several smaller pages. James, Christopher and [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] discussed whether this would be a good idea, and eventually agreed that the Rawhide and Branched pages could benefit from streamlining and possibly from splitting, but detailed proposals should be sent to the mailing list.
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/>


=== Target bug trackers ===
=== QA group representation at FUDCon Pune ===
 
During the weekly Bugzappers meeting, [[User:Beland|Christopher Beland]] raised the question of what should be done with the Target bug trackers - F12Target, F13Target and so on. These are intended to track bugs which are not quite release blockers but are important and should receive greater developer attention in a best effort to resolve them before release. However, the group felt that they are not serving this purpose, and are mostly ignored by developers. They also noted that there was significant overlap with the ''severity'' field, since the group had defined a policy for the use of that field and begun to implement it in triaging. As no-one had ideas for reviving the usefulness of the Target trackers, the group agreed that [[User:Adamwill|Adam Williamson]] should draft a proposal to drop them, to be forward to the development group.


Later in the week, at the blocker bug review meeting, [[User:jkeating|Jesse Keating]] suggested the Target tracker could be used during tight freeze periods to track bugs which were not strictly release blockers, but which QA and release engineering would accept fixes for, through the freeze.
[[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!