Files
scylladb/test/boost
Michał Chojnowski 0fd1050784 utils: add advanced_rpc_compressor
Adds glue needed to pass lz4 and zstd with streaming and/or dictionaries
as the network traffic compressors for Seastar's RPC servers.

The main jobs of this glue are:
1. Implementing the API expected by Seastar from RPC compressors.
2. Expose metrics about the effectiveness of the compression.
3. Allow dynamically switching algorithms and dictionaries on a running
   connection, without any extra waits.

The biggest design decision here is that the choice of algorithm and dictionary
is negotiated by both sides of the connection, not dictated unilaterally by the
sender.

The negotiation algorithm is fairly complicated (a TLA+ model validating
it is included in the commit). Unilateral compression choice would be much simpler.
However, negotiation avoids re-sending the same dictionary over every
connection in the cluster after dictionary updates (with one-way communication,
it's the only reliable way to ensure that our receiver possesses the dictionary
we are about to start using), lets receivers ask for a cheaper compression mode
if they want, and lets them refuse to update a dictionary if they don't think
they have enough free memory for that.

In hindsight, those properties probably weren't worth the extra complexity and
extra development effort.

Zstd can be quite expensive, so this patch also includes a mechanism which
temporarily downgrades the compressor from zstd to lz4 if zstd has been
using too much CPU in a given slice of time. But it should be noted that
this can't be treated as a reliable "protection" from negative performance
effects of zstd, since a downgrade can happen on the sender side,
and receivers are at the mercy of senders.
2024-12-23 23:37:02 +01:00
..
2024-12-23 23:37:02 +01:00
2024-12-22 15:15:23 +02:00
2024-11-06 16:48:36 +02:00

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:

  1. Some simple tests that check stand-alone C++ functions or classes use Boost's BOOST_AUTO_TEST_CASE.

  2. Some tests require Seastar features, and need to be declared with Seastar's extensions to Boost.Test, namely SEASTAR_TEST_CASE.

  3. 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() or do_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.

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.