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+# Virtual Test Configuration
+
+This readme and the associated bash script, vm_setup.sh, are intended to assist developers in quickly
+preparing a virtual test environment on which to run the SPDK validation tests rooted at autorun.sh.
+This file contains basic information about SPDK environment requirements, an introduction to the
+autorun-spdk.conf files used to moderate which tests are run by autorun.sh, and step-by-step instructions
+for spinning up a VM capable of running the SPDK test suite.
+There is no need for external hardware to run these tests. The linux kernel comes with the drivers necessary
+to emulate an RDMA enabled NIC. NVMe controllers can also be virtualized in emulators such as QEMU.
+
+
+## VM Envronment Requirements (Host):
+- 8 GiB of RAM (for DPDK)
+- Enable intel_kvm on the host machine from the bios.
+- Enable nesting for VMs in kernel command line (for vhost tests).
+  - In `/etc/default/grub` append the following to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX line: intel_iommu=on kvm-intel.nested=1.
+
+## VM Specs
+When creating the user during the fedora installation, it is best to use the name sys_sgsw. Efforts are being made
+to remove all references to this user, or files specific to this user from the codebase, but there are still some
+trailing references to it.
+
+## Autorun-spdk.conf
+Every machine that runs the autotest scripts should include a file titled autorun-spdk.conf in the home directory
+of the user that will run them. This file consists of several lines of the form 'variable_name=0/1'. autorun.sh sources
+this file each time it is run, and determines which tests to attempt based on which variables are defined in the
+configuration file. For a full list of the variable declarations available for autorun-spdk.conf, please see
+`scripts/autotest_common.sh` starting at line 13.
+
+## Steps for Configuring the VM
+1. Download a fresh Fedora 26 image.
+2. Perform the installation of Fedora 26 server.
+3. Create an admin user sys_sgsw (enabling passwordless sudo for this account will make life easier during the tests).
+4. Run the vm_setup.sh script which will install all proper dependencies.
+5. Modify the autorun-spdk.conf file in the home directory.
+6. Reboot the VM.
+7. Run autorun.sh for SPDK. Any output files will be placed in `~/spdk_repo/output/`.
+
+## Additional Steps for Preparing the Vhost Tests
+The Vhost tests also require the creation of a second virtual machine nested inside of the test VM.
+Please follow the directions below to complete that installation. Note that host refers to the Fedora VM
+created above and guest or VM refer to the Ubuntu VM created in this section.
+1. Create an image file for the VM. It does not have to be large, about 3.5G should suffice.
+2. Create an ssh keypair for host-guest communications (performed on the host):
+    - Generate an ssh keypair with the name spdk_vhost_id_rsa and save it in `/root/.ssh`.
+    - Make sure that only root has read access to the private key.
+3. Install the OS in the VM image (performed on guest):
+    - Use the latest Ubuntu server (Currently 16.04 LTS).
+    - When partitioning the disk, make one partion that consumes the whole disk mounted at /. Do not encrypt the disk or enable LVM.
+    - Choose the OpenSSH server packages during install.
+4. Post installation configuration (performed on guest):
+    - Run the following commands to enable all necessary dependencies:
+      ~~~{.sh}
+      sudo apt update
+      sudo apt upgrade
+      sudo apt install fio sg3-utils bc
+      ~~~
+    - Enable the root user: "sudo passwd root -> root".
+    - Enable root login over ssh: vim `/etc/ssh/sshd_config` -> PermitRootLogin=yes.
+    - Disable DNS for ssh: `/etc/ssh/sshd_config` -> UseDNS=no.
+    - Add the spdk_vhost key to root's known hosts: `/root/.ssh/authorized_keys` -> add spdk_vhost_id_rsa.pub key to authorized keys.
+    Remember to save the private key in `~/.ssh/spdk_vhost_id_rsa` on the host.
+    - Change the grub boot options for the guest as follows:
+      - Add "console=ttyS0 earlyprintk=ttyS0" to the boot options in `/etc/default/grub` (for serial output redirect).
+      - Add "scsi_mod.use_blk_mq=1" to boot options in `/etc/default/grub`.
+      ~~~{.sh}
+      sudo update-grub
+      ~~~
+    - Reboot the VM.
+    - Remove any unnecessary packages (this is to make booting the VM faster):
+      ~~~{.sh}
+      apt purge snapd
+      apt purge Ubuntu-core-launcher
+      apt purge squashfs-tools
+      apt purge unattended-upgrades
+      ~~~
+5. Copy the fio binary from the guest location `/usr/bin/fio` to the host location `/home/sys_sgsw/fio_ubuntu`.
+6. Place the guest VM in the host at the following location: `/home/sys_sgsw/vhost_vm_image.qcow2`.
+7. On the host, edit the `~/autorun-spdk.conf` file to include the following line: SPDK_TEST_VHOST=1.
diff --git a/test/config/vm_setup.sh b/test/config/vm_setup.sh
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+#! /usr/bin/env bash
+
+# Virtual Machine environment requirements:
+# 8 GiB of RAM (for DPDK)
+# enable intel_kvm on your host machine
+
+# The purpose of this script is to provide a simple procedure for spinning up a new
+# virtual test environment capable of running our whole test suite. This script, when
+# applied to a fresh install of fedora 26 server will install all of the necessary dependencies
+# to run almost the complete test suite. The main exception being VHost. Vhost requires the
+# configuration of a second virtual machine. instructions for how to configure
+# that vm are included in the file TEST_ENV_SETUP_README inside this repository
+
+# it is important to enable nesting for vms in kernel command line of your machine for the vhost tests.
+#     in /etc/default/grub
+#     append the following to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX line
+#     intel_iommu=on kvm-intel.nested=1
+
+# We have made a lot of progress with removing hardcoded paths from the tests,
+# but it may be easiest if you create your user with the name sys_sgsw for now.
+
+set -e
+
+sudo dnf upgrade -y
+sudo dnf install -y git
+sudo dnf install -y jq
+sudo dnf install -y valgrind
+sudo dnf install -y nvme-cli
+sudo dnf install -y ceph
+sudo dnf install -y gdb
+sudo dnf install -y sg3_utils
+sudo dnf install -y fio
+sudo dnf install -y librbd-devel
+sudo dnf install -y kernel-devel
+sudo dnf install -y gflags-devel
+sudo dnf install -y libubsan
+sudo dnf install -y autoconf
+sudo dnf install -y automake
+sudo dnf install -y libtool
+sudo dnf install -y libmount-devel
+sudo dnf install -y isns-utils-devel
+sudo dnf install -y openssl-devel
+sudo dnf install -y numactl-devel
+sudo dnf install -y libaio-devel
+sudo dnf install -y CUnit-devel
+sudo dnf install -y clang-analyzer
+sudo dnf install -y libpmemblk-devel
+sudo dnf install -y libibverbs libibverbs-devel librdmacm librdmacm-devel
+sudo dnf install -y perl-open
+sudo dnf install -y glib2-devel
+sudo dnf install -y pixman-devel
+sudo dnf install -y libiscsi-devel
+sudo dnf install -y doxygen
+
+cd ~
+
+mkdir spdk_repo
+
+# the configurations of username and email are needed later for applying patches to iscsiadm.
+git config --global user.name none
+git config --global user.email none
+
+# The librxe-dev repository provides a command line tool called rxe_cfg which makes it
+# very easy to use Soft-RoCE. The build pool utilizes this command line tool in the absence
+# of any real RDMA NICs to simulate one for the NVMe-oF tests.
+git clone https://github.com/SoftRoCE/librxe-dev.git
+sudo dnf install -y perl-Switch librdmacm-utils libibverbs-utils
+
+cd librxe-dev
+./configure --libdir=/usr/lib64/ --prefix=
+make
+sudo make install
+cd ~
+
+cd spdk_repo
+mkdir output
+git clone https://review.gerrithub.io/spdk/spdk
+cd spdk
+git submodule update --init --recursive
+cd ~
+
+# The version of iscsiadm that ships with fedora 26 was broken as of November 3 2017.
+# There is already a bug report out about it, and hopefully it is fixed soon, but in the event that
+# that version is still broken when you do your setup, the below steps will fix the issue.
+CURRENT_VERSION=$(iscsiadm --version)
+OPEN_ISCSI_VER='iscsiadm version 6.2.0.874'
+if [ "$CURRENT_VERSION" == "$OPEN_ISCSI_VER" ]; then
+    mkdir open-iscsi-install
+    cd open-iscsi-install
+    sudo dnf download --source iscsi-initiator-utils
+    rpm2cpio iscsi-initiator-utils-6.2.0.874-3.git86e8892.fc26.src.rpm | cpio -idmv
+    mkdir patches
+    mv 00* patches/
+    git clone https://github.com/open-iscsi/open-iscsi
+
+    cd open-iscsi
+    git checkout 86e8892
+    for patch in `ls ../patches`; do
+        git am ../patches/$patch
+    done
+    sed -i '427s/.*/-1);/' usr/session_info.c
+    make
+    sudo make install
+    cd ~
+fi
+
+
+sudo mkdir -p /usr/src
+
+# Rocksdb is installed for use with the blobfs tests.
+git clone https://review.gerrithub.io/spdk/rocksdb
+git -C ./rocksdb checkout spdk-v5.6.1
+sudo mv rocksdb /usr/src/
+
+git clone http://git.kernel.dk/fio.git
+sudo mv fio /usr/src/
+(
+    cd /usr/src/fio &&
+    make &&
+    sudo make install
+)
+cd ~
+
+git clone https://github.com/brendangregg/FlameGraph.git
+mkdir -p /usr/local
+sudo mv FlameGraph /usr/local/FlameGraph
+
+
+# The SPDK branch of Qemu contains some extra functionality needed by SPDK. However, that branch is not currently
+# compatible with GCC 7. Some of the SPDK changes are currently out for review on Qemu's main branch. Until those
+# changes are merged, this specific review provides support for both spdk and GCC 7.
+mkdir vhost
+cd vhost
+git clone https://review.gerrithub.io/spdk/qemu
+cd qemu
+./configure --prefix=/home/sys_sgsw/spdk_repo/root --target-list="x86_64-softmmu" --enable-kvm --enable-linux-aio --enable-numa
+sudo make install
+cd ~
+
+# create autorun-spdk.conf in home folder. This is sourced by the autotest_common.sh file.
+# By setting any one of the values below to 0, you can skip that specific test. If you are
+# using your autotest platform to do sanity checks before uploading to the build pool, it is
+# probably best to only run the tests that you believe your changes have modified along with
+# Scanbuild and check format. This is because running the whole suite of tests in series can
+# take ~40 minutes to complete.
+cat > ~/autorun-spdk.conf << EOF
+# assign a value of 1 to all of the pertinent tests
+SPDK_BUILD_DOC=1
+SPDK_BUILD_IOAT_KMOD=1
+SPDK_RUN_CHECK_FORMAT=1
+SPDK_RUN_SCANBUILD=1
+SPDK_RUN_VALGRIND=1
+SPDK_TEST_UNITTEST=1
+SPDK_TEST_ISCSI=1
+SPDK_TEST_NVME=1
+SPDK_TEST_NVMF=1
+SPDK_TEST_RBD=1
+# requires some extra configuration. see TEST_ENV_SETUP_README
+SPDK_TEST_VHOST=0
+SPDK_TEST_BLOCKDEV=1
+# doesn't work on vm
+SPDK_TEST_IOAT=0
+SPDK_TEST_EVENT=1
+SPDK_TEST_BLOBFS=1
+SPDK_TEST_NVML=1
+SPDK_RUN_ASAN=1
+SPDK_RUN_UBSAN=1
+EOF