test/system: Optimize the networking tests#1637
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debarshiray merged 6 commits intocontainers:mainfrom May 1, 2025
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The system tests can be very I/O intensive, because many of them copy OCI images from the test suite's image cache directory to its local container/storage store, create containers, and then delete everything to run the next test with a clean slate. This makes them slow. The tests for toolbox(1) invocations forwarded to the host, which includes the help tests, are particularly slow because they never skip the I/O. This makes them a good target for optimizations. The help tests for toolbox(1) invocations forwarded to the host use the same default Toolbx container to invoke toolbox(1) from without changing its state. Therefore, a lot of disk I/O can be avoided by creating the default container only once for all those tests. This can reduce the time needed to run the help tests from almost 7 minutes to a few seconds. containers#1635
The system tests can be very I/O intensive, because many of them copy OCI images from the test suite's image cache directory to its local container/storage store, create containers, and then delete everything to run the next test with a clean slate. This makes them slow. The runtime environment tests, which includes the group and user tests, are particularly slow because they don't skip the I/O even when testing error handling. This makes them a good target for optimizations. The group and user tests check the group and user configuration in different containers without changing their state. Therefore, a lot of disk I/O can be avoided by creating these containers only once for all the tests. This can reduce the time needed to run the group and user tests from almost 22 minutes to almost 5 minutes. containers#1635
Use a strings.Builder [1] instance instead of raw string literals for consistency. Fallout from 772b66b [1] https://pkg.go.dev/strings#Builder containers#1636
A subsequent commit will use this to give Toolbx containers access to the certificates from certificate authorities on the host. This commit was kept separate from the changes to toolbox(1) to ensure that the ubuntu-toolbox images are ready before that happens. Unfortunately, Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial Xerus has p11-kit 0.23.2 [1], while p11-kit-client.so was introduced in p11-kit 0.23.10 [2]. Therefore, this feature will be disabled for Ubuntu 16.04. This reverts parts of commit 1e93086 to re-enable building the ubuntu-toolbox:18.04 image. [1] https://code.launchpad.net/~git-ubuntu-import/ubuntu/+source/p11-kit/+git/p11-kit/+ref/ubuntu/xenial-updates [2] p11-kit commit 0684cd7b7f815b41 p11-glue/p11-kit@0684cd7b7f815b41 p11-glue/p11-kit#15 containers#626
The libp11-kit package was added to the arch-toolbox image to ensure the presence of p11-kit-client.so. Currently, the package is already pulled in by various dependencies, like the gnutls and p11-kit packages. Therefore, it doesn't increase the size of the base image, but serves as a safeguard against any inadvertent changes. A subsequent commit will use this to give Toolbx containers access to the certificates from certificate authorities on the host. This commit was kept separate from the changes to toolbox(1) to ensure that the arch-toolbox image is ready before that happens. containers#626
The system tests can be very I/O intensive, because many of them copy OCI images from the test suite's image cache directory to its local container/storage store, create containers, and then delete everything to run the next test with a clean slate. This makes them slow. The runtime environment tests, which includes the networking tests, are particularly slow because they don't skip the I/O even when testing error handling. This makes them a good target for optimizations. The networking tests check the behaviour and configuration of the network in different containers without changing their state. Therefore, a lot of disk I/O can be avoided by creating these containers only once for all the tests. This can reduce the time needed to run the networking tests from almost 15 minutes to almost 6 minutes. containers#1637
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debarshiray
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Jan 27, 2026
The system tests can be very I/O intensive, because many of them copy OCI images from the test suite's image cache directory to its local container/storage store, create containers, and then delete everything to run the next test with a clean slate. This makes them slow. The runtime environment tests, which includes the networking tests, are particularly slow because they don't skip the I/O even when testing error handling. This makes them a good target for optimizations. The networking tests check the behaviour and configuration of the network in different containers without changing their state. Therefore, a lot of disk I/O can be avoided by creating these containers only once for all the tests. This can reduce the time needed to run the networking tests from almost 15 minutes to almost 6 minutes. containers#1637 containers#1746 (cherry picked from commit 1b9dd00)
debarshiray
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Feb 4, 2026
Both the commands and options tests [1,2], and runtime environment tests [3,4,5,6] were optimized by avoiding a lot of disk I/O. Fallout from 40e3c5a [1] Commit adc8650 containers@adc8650660b454f3 containers#1595 [2] Commit 69d6b11 containers@69d6b11a9b91ccbf containers#1635 [3] Commit 3017a46 containers@3017a46c03c963ef containers#1635 [4] Commit 1b9dd00 containers@1b9dd007ea1d0778 containers#1637 [5] Commit 5881bc4 containers@5881bc43f34815b1 containers#1641 [6] Commit 836c055 containers@836c0557f4dc100b containers#1646
debarshiray
added a commit
to debarshiray/toolbox
that referenced
this pull request
Feb 4, 2026
Both the commands and options tests [1,2], and runtime environment tests [3,4,5,6] were optimized by avoiding a lot of disk I/O. Fallout from 40e3c5a [1] Commit adc8650 containers@adc8650660b454f3 containers#1595 [2] Commit 69d6b11 containers@69d6b11a9b91ccbf containers#1635 [3] Commit 3017a46 containers@3017a46c03c963ef containers#1635 [4] Commit 1b9dd00 containers@1b9dd007ea1d0778 containers#1637 [5] Commit 5881bc4 containers@5881bc43f34815b1 containers#1641 [6] Commit 836c055 containers@836c0557f4dc100b containers#1646 containers#1758
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The system tests can be very I/O intensive, because many of them copy
OCI images from the test suite's image cache directory to its local
container/storage store, create containers, and then delete everything
to run the next test with a clean slate. This makes them slow.
The runtime environment tests, which includes the networking tests, are
particularly slow because they don't skip the I/O even when testing
error handling. This makes them a good target for optimizations.
The networking tests check the behaviour and configuration of the
network in different containers without changing their state.
Therefore, a lot of disk I/O can be avoided by creating these containers
only once for all the tests.
This can reduce the time needed to run the networking tests from almost
15 minutes to almost 6 minutes.