Re: [Qemu-devel] [PULL 10/19] tests/boot_linux_console: increase timeout

[Gerd Hoffmann]

  Hi,

> > Tests can also timeout due to slow downloads of test kernels.
> > Any chance to run the downloads without timeout?
> 
> I acknowledge this is an issue, and have thought about two possible
> ways to solve it:
> 
>  1) Downloading/caching/checking all the test assets in a job "pre-tests"
>     plugin.

>  2) Report the test phase (say, setUp()) to the test runner, which
>     would allow the runner to:

> I'm very much interested in your opinion so we can evolve the idea into
> implementation.

(1) is the better approach I think.  That way you can give better
feedback to the user, along the lines of "download 2 of 5 in progress".
Also it allows for better management of the assets, you can have tools
to list them / fetch them / copy them from one to another test machine
/ find & cleanup obsolete assets (i.e. Fedora 28 kernel after switching
tests to Fedora 29).

(2) is probably still useful, to report phases of longer running
tests and maybe have separate timeouts for each phase.  But for
assets I think approach (1) is better than a "download asset"
phase.

cheers,
  Gerd