selftests: add a simple doc
authorJeremy Kerr <jk@ozlabs.org>
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 01:05:57 +0000 (17:05 -0800)
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Thu, 28 Feb 2013 03:10:24 +0000 (19:10 -0800)
This change adds a little documentation to the tests under
tools/testing/selftests/, based on akpm's explanation.

[akpm@linux-foundation.org: move from Documentation to tools/testing/selftests/README.txt]
Signed-off-by: Jeremy Kerr <jk@ozlabs.org>
Cc: Dave Young <dyoung@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
tools/testing/selftests/README.txt [new file with mode: 0644]

diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/README.txt b/tools/testing/selftests/README.txt
new file mode 100644 (file)
index 0000000..5e2faf9
--- /dev/null
@@ -0,0 +1,42 @@
+Linux Kernel Selftests
+
+The kernel contains a set of "self tests" under the tools/testing/selftests/
+directory. These are intended to be small unit tests to exercise individual
+code paths in the kernel.
+
+Running the selftests
+=====================
+
+To build the tests:
+
+  $ make -C tools/testing/selftests
+
+
+To run the tests:
+
+  $ make -C tools/testing/selftests run_tests
+
+- note that some tests will require root privileges.
+
+
+To run only tests targetted for a single subsystem:
+
+  $  make -C tools/testing/selftests TARGETS=cpu-hotplug run_tests
+
+See the top-level tools/testing/selftests/Makefile for the list of all possible
+targets.
+
+
+Contributing new tests
+======================
+
+In general, the rules for for selftests are
+
+ * Do as much as you can if you're not root;
+
+ * Don't take too long;
+
+ * Don't break the build on any architecture, and
+
+ * Don't cause the top-level "make run_tests" to fail if your feature is
+   unconfigured.