When a malformed sstable error occurs, it is usually caused by actual sstable corruption — a cosmic ray, a bad disk write, etc. However, it can also be caused by memory corruption, where a data structure in memory happens to be read as sstable data. In the latter case, having a coredump of the process at the moment of the error is invaluable for post-mortem debugging, since the exception throwing/catching machinery destroys the stack frames that would point to the corruption site. This patch series introduces `--abort-on-malformed-sstable-error`, a new command-line option (with `LiveUpdate` support) that, when set, causes the server to call `std::abort()` instead of throwing an exception whenever any sstable parse error is detected. This covers all code paths: - Direct `throw malformed_sstable_exception(...)` sites (migrated to `throw_malformed_sstable_exception()`) - Direct `throw bufsize_mismatch_exception(...)` sites (migrated to `throw_bufsize_mismatch_exception()`) - `parse_assert()` failures (via `on_parse_error()`) - BTI parse errors (via `on_bti_parse_error()`) The implementation places the flag and helper functions in `sstables/sstables.cc`, next to the existing `on_parse_error()` / `on_bti_parse_error()` infrastructure. The flag defaults to `false`, preserving current behaviour. It is intended to be enabled temporarily when investigating suspected memory corruption. **Commit breakdown:** 1. Infrastructure: flag, getter/setter, and throw helpers in `sstables/sstables.cc`; config option wired up in `main.cc` 2. `on_parse_error()` and `on_bti_parse_error()` check the new flag 3. All ~50 `throw malformed_sstable_exception(...)` sites migrated 4. Both `throw bufsize_mismatch_exception(...)` sites migrated Refs: SCYLLADB-1087 Backport: new feature, no backport Closes scylladb/scylladb#29324 * github.com:scylladb/scylladb: sstables: migrate all bufsize_mismatch_exception throw sites to throw_bufsize_mismatch_exception() sstables: migrate all malformed_sstable_exception throw sites to throw_malformed_sstable_exception() sstables: make on_parse_error() and on_bti_parse_error() respect --abort-on-malformed-sstable-error sstables: disable abort-on-malformed-sstable-error in tests that corrupt sstables on purpose sstables: introduce --abort-on-malformed-sstable-error infrastructure sstables: refactor parse_path() to return std::expected<> instead of throwing
Scylla unit tests using C++ and the Boost test framework
The source files in this directory are Scylla unit tests written in C++ using the Boost.Test framework. These unit tests come in three flavors:
-
Some simple tests that check stand-alone C++ functions or classes use Boost's
BOOST_AUTO_TEST_CASE. -
Some tests require Seastar features, and need to be declared with Seastar's extensions to Boost.Test, namely
SEASTAR_TEST_CASE. -
Even more elaborate tests require not just a functioning Seastar environment but also a complete (or partial) Scylla environment. Those tests use the
do_with_cql_env()ordo_with_cql_env_thread()function to set up a mostly-functioning environment behaving like a single-node Scylla, in which the test can run.
While we have many tests of the third flavor, writing new tests of this type should be reserved to white box tests - tests where it is necessary to inspect or control Scylla internals that do not have user-facing APIs such as CQL. In contrast, black-box tests - tests that can be written only using user-facing APIs, should be written in one of newer test frameworks that we offer - such as test/cqlpy or test/alternator (in Python, using the CQL or DynamoDB APIs respectively) or test/cql (using textual CQL commands), or - if more than one Scylla node is needed for a test - using the test/topology* framework.
Running tests
Because these are C++ tests, they need to be compiled before running.
To compile a single test executable row_cache_test, use a command like
ninja build/dev/test/boost/row_cache_test
You can also use ninja dev-test to build all C++ tests, or use
ninja deb-build to build the C++ tests and also the full Scylla executable
(however, note that full Scylla executable isn't needed to run Boost tests).
Replace "dev" by "debug" or "release" in the examples above and below to use the "debug" build mode (which, importantly, compiles the test with ASAN and UBSAN enabling on and helps catch difficult-to-catch use-after-free bugs) or the "release" build mode (optimized for run speed).
To run an entire test file row_cache_test, including all its test
functions, use a command like:
build/dev/test/boost/row_cache_test -- -c1 -m1G
to run a single test function test_reproduce_18045() from the longer test
file, use a command like:
build/dev/test/boost/row_cache_test -t test_reproduce_18045 -- -c1 -m1G
In these command lines, the parameters before the -- are passed to
Boost.Test, while the parameters after the -- are passed to the test code,
and in particular to Seastar. In this example Seastar is asked to run on one
CPU (-c1) and use 1G of memory (-m1G) instead of hogging the entire
machine. The Boost.Test option -t test_reproduce_18045 asks it to run just
this one test function instead of all the test functions in the executable.
Unfortunately, interrupting a running test with control-C while doesn't
work. This is a known bug (#5696). Kill a test with SIGKILL (-9) if you
need to kill it while it's running.
Boost tests can also be run using test.py - which is a script that provides a uniform way to run all tests in scylladb.git - C++ tests, Python tests, etc.
Execution with pytest
To run all tests with pytest execute
pytest test/boost
To execute all tests in one file, provide the path to the source filename as a parameter
pytest test/boost/aggregate_fcts_test.cc
Since it's a normal path, autocompletion works in the terminal out of the box.
To execute only one test function, provide the path to the source file and function name
pytest --mode dev test/boost/aggregate_fcts_test.cc::test_aggregate_avg
To provide a specific mode, use the next parameter --mode dev,
if parameter isn't provided pytest tries to use ninja mode_list to find out the compiled modes.
Parallel execution is controlled by pytest-xdist and the parameter -n auto.
This command starts tests with the number of workers equal to CPU cores.
The useful command to discover the tests in the file or directory is
pytest --collect-only -q --mode dev test/boost/aggregate_fcts_test.cc
That will return all test functions in the file.
To execute only one function from the test, you can invoke the output from the previous command.
However, suffix for mode should be skipped.
For example,
output shows in the terminal something like this test/boost/aggregate_fcts_test.cc::test_aggregate_avg.dev.
So to execute this specific test function, please use the next command
pytest --mode dev test/boost/aggregate_fcts_test.cc::test_aggregate_avg
Writing tests
Because of the large build time and build size of each separate test executable, it is recommended to put test functions into relatively large source files. But not too large - to keep compilation time of a single source file (during development) at reasonable levels.
When adding new source files in test/boost, don't forget to list the new source file in configure.py and also in CMakeLists.txt. The former is needed by our CI, but the latter is preferred by some developers.