Speaker
Arisu Tachibana
Description
The Kernel Testing & Dependability Micro-Conference (a.k.a. Testing MC) focuses on advancing the current state of testing of the Linux kernel and its related infrastructure.
Building upon the momentum from previous years, the Testing MC's main purpose is to promote collaboration between all communities and individuals involved with kernel testing and dependability. We aim to create connections between people working on related projects across the wider ecosystem and foster their development. This should serve applications and products that require predictability and trust in the kernel.
We ask that all discussions focus on identified issues, aiming to find potential solutions, alternatives, and concrete next steps. The Testing MC is open to all topics related to testing and dependability on Linux, not necessarily limited to the kernel itself.
In particular, topics of interest for Linux Plumbers Conference 2026 include:
- KernelCI and related infrastructure: Maestro, kci-dev, dashboard and API improvements, KCIDB-ng, pull-mode lab support, and integration with Tuxmake, TuxRun, and related tooling
- Expanding production use of testing infrastructure and improving how developers consume, triage, and act on test results
- Improving interoperability between KUnit and kselftest, including UAPI testing, running kernelspace tests from userspace, and unified reporting workflows
- Continued evolution of KUnit itself, including better support for parameterized tests, improved tooling, and broader adoption throughout the kernel
- Improving kselftest and related frameworks, including output consistency, KTAP compliance, parser and tooling improvements, and better handling of skips, nesting, and other real-world test results
- Building, running, and testing in-kernel Rust code, including Rust doctests and other Rust-oriented test workflows
- Improving sanitizers and dynamic analysis tools, including KFENCE, KCSAN, KASAN, UBSAN, and related debugging infrastructure
- Using Clang and compiler-assisted features to improve test coverage, diagnostics, and reproducibility
- Consolidating toolchains, build environments, and reference setups to improve reproducibility, consistency, and quality control
- Targeted fuzzing of internal kernel functions and other techniques to extend coverage beyond traditional syscall fuzzing
- Patch-series fuzzing, regression detection during review, and other ways to shift testing and fuzzing earlier into the development cycle
- Kernel benchmarking, performance evaluation, and shared infrastructure for tracking and bisecting performance regressions
- Determining which test coverage infrastructures are most effective for kernel quality assurance, and how coverage should be measured
- Improving traceability between requirements, code, tests, results, and hardware or lab metadata
- Regression testing for safety and dependability, including prioritization of critical configurations, platforms, and test suites
- Identifying missing features needed to support assurance in safety-critical systems
- Moving toward more test-driven kernel release practices for both mainline and stable trees
- Exploring how SBOMs and related metadata contribute to kernel dependability and assurance
- Better ways to share, normalize, store, and analyze test results across projects, labs, and communities
- AI-assisted testing and review workflows, including patch triage, regression-risk estimation, test selection, test generation, bug localization, and evidence-based validation of LLM-assisted results
Things accomplished since LPC 2025:
- KernelCI reached the last KCIDB-ng milestone, moving KCIDB submission ingestion closer to the Django backend and decoupling the KCIDB schema from the dashboard database
- KernelCI improved project health with API and system-resource monitoring, and increased backend test coverage from about 40% to nearly 70%, including benchmark tests
- Progress was made on pull-mode lab support in Maestro, enabling labs behind firewalls or with different internal setups to participate more easily in KernelCI
- Tuxmake, TuxRun, and TuxSuite/LAVA-related tooling continued to be integrated more closely with KernelCI, with tuxmake, tuxrun, and tuxlava moved under the KernelCI GitHub namespace
- kci-dev continued to mature as a developer-facing CLI, with v0.1.9 and v0.1.10 adding packaging improvements, better regression comparison and issue triage workflows, improved validation and reporting ergonomics, and general workflow fixes
- Continued work on KUnit and kselftest integration was discussed on the linux-kselftest mailing list, including the KUnit UAPI testing framework series for running UAPI-oriented tests under KUnit
- KUnit tooling and parser follow-up also continued on the linux-kselftest mailing list, including fixes for nested test result handling and better parsing of skipped tests from kselftest output
- KTAP standardization work continued, with ongoing discussion around aligning kselftest and KUnit output formats and the KTAP v1 format now documented in the official kernel documentation