Virter – How the "Docker for VMs" Can Help You Test the Linux Kernel
summary
Virter automates provisioning, cloning and running VMs via libvirt/qemu using cloud images and qcow2 layering, with images pushable to Docker registries. Test orchestration uses VM-shed and GitLab CI to build test images, start up to 24 VMs in parallel, and run 102 integration tests in about 7 minutes; nightly stability runs repeat tests thousands of times (roughly 4,000 repeats) to catch flakiness. The system supports custom kernels and enterprise distros and scales to roughly 40,000 VM instances per day for DRBD testing.
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chapters (22)
- 0:00Virter introduction
- 1:02Why we built Virter
- 3:48Linux kernel driver testing
- 5:14VMs aren't enough
- 7:02Docker inspired Virter
- 7:43What is Virter
- 10:12Virter dependencies
- 13:03What Virter is not despite the name
- 14:07Pulling images with Virter
- 15:53Running VMs with Virter
- 17:38Multiple VMs setup
- 19:26Provisioning images
- 21:56Virter features demo
- 22:19Daily kernel driver tests
- 25:11Building test images
- 27:20Virter with GitLab CI
- 28:23Stability tests
- 30:06Conclusion and getting started
- 30:26Q&A: Custom kernels
- 32:14Q&A: Contributing
- 33:37Q&A: Virter vs Vagrant
- 35:00Q&A: Firecracker and licenses
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