Google's KUnit Moving Forward As A Solid Unit Testing Framework For The Linux Kernel

Announced last October by a Google engineer was KUnit as a Linux kernel unit testing framework and a proper solution unlike some of the current in-tree kernel testing facilities. The latest KUnit patches have been volleyed for review while waiting to see if it will be accepted soon into the mainline kernel.

Brendan Higgins sent out the formal "v1" series today for this lightweight unit testing and mocking framework. Higgins provided a refresher on the design of KUnit, "Unlike Autotest and kselftest, KUnit is a true unit testing framework; it does not require installing the kernel on a test machine or in a VM and does not require tests to be written in userspace running on a host kernel. Additionally, KUnit is fast: From invocation to completion KUnit can run several dozen tests in under a second. Currently, the entire KUnit test suite for KUnit runs in under a second from the initial invocation (build time excluded)."

KUnit is complementary to the other in-tree testing solutions. Over recent months KUnit has continued to be revised compared to the original "request for comments" patches from last year.

Those wanting to learn more about the current state of KUnit can do so from this patch series.