TESTS(7) FreeBSD Miscellaneous Information Manual TESTS(7)
NAME
tests - introduction to the FreeBSD Test Suite
DESCRIPTION
The FreeBSD Test Suite provides a collection of automated tests for two
major purposes. On one hand, the test suite aids developers to detect
bugs and regressions when they modify the source tree. On the other
hand, it allows end users (and, in particular, system administrators) to
verify that fresh installations of the FreeBSD operating system behave
correctly on their hardware platform and also to ensure that the system
does not suffer from regressions during regular operation and
maintenance.
The FreeBSD Test Suite can be found in the /usr/tests hierarchy.
This manual page describes how to run the test suite and how to configure
some of its optional features. For information on writing the tests, see
atf(7).
Installing the test suite
If the /usr/tests directory is missing, then you will have to enable the
build of the test suite, rebuild your system and install the results.
You can do so by setting `WITH_TESTS=yes' in your /etc/src.conf file (see
src.conf(5) for details) and rebuilding the system as described in
build(7).
When to run the tests?
Before diving into the details of how to run the test suite, here are
some scenarios in which you should run it:
o After a fresh installation of FreeBSD to ensure that the system
works correctly on your hardware platform.
o After an upgrade of FreeBSD to a different version to ensure
that the new code works well on your hardware platform and that
the upgrade did not introduce regressions in your
configuration.
o After modifying the source tree to detect any new bugs and/or
regressions.
o Periodically, maybe from a cron(8) job, to ensure that any
changes to the system (such as the installation of third-party
packages or manual modifications to configuration files) do not
introduce unexpected failures.
Running the tests
By default, Kyua looks for tests in the current directory. To run the
whole test suite, either use the -k option to specify the top-level
Kyuafile:
$ kyua test -k /usr/tests/Kyuafile
or just change to the test suite root before running Kyua:
$ cd /usr/tests
$ kyua test
The above will iterate through all test programs in /usr/tests
recursively, execute them, store their results and debugging data in
Kyua's database (by default in ~/.kyua/store/), and print a summary of
the results. This summary includes a brief count of all total tests run
and how many of them failed.
It is possible to restrict which tests to run by providing their names,
or a portion of their path, on the command line. For example, this would
execute all of the tests provided for the cp(1) and stat(1) utilities:
$ cd /usr/tests
$ kyua test bin/cp usr.bin/stat
This would execute only one of the two test programs provided for
stat(1):
$ cd /usr/tests
$ kyua test usr.bin/stat/stat_test
This would execute just a single test case:
$ cd /usr/tests
$ kyua test usr.bin/stat/stat_test:t_flag
Finally, this would execute that test case in debug mode:
$ cd /usr/tests
$ kyua debug -p usr.bin/stat/stat_test:t_flag
The -p option tells Kyua to pause before cleanup so you can inspect the
temporary directory to better understand why the test failed.
Note that some tests may require root privileges to execute:
$ cd /usr/tests
$ kyua debug usr.bin/stat/stat_test:h_flag
usr.bin/stat/stat_test:h_flag -> skipped: Requires root privileges
$ sudo kyua debug usr.bin/stat/stat_test:h_flag
[...]
usr.bin/stat/stat_test:h_flag -> passed
Conversely, some tests will only work correctly if run as an unprivileged
user. This will normally be noted in the test's metadata, causing Kyua
to automatically drop privileges before running the test.
Obtaining reports of the tests execution
Additional information about the test results can be retrieved by using
Kyua's various reporting commands. For example, the following would
print a plain-text report of the tests executed in the latest test run
and show which ones failed:
$ kyua report --verbose
To show the results of an arbitrary test run, use the -r option to
specify which results file to read:
$ kyua report --verbose \
-r ~/.kyua/store/results.usr_tests.20260417-173009-335060.db
Keep in mind that if the tests were run as root, the results will have
been stored in root's kyua directory, and the easiest way to access them
will be to run the report command as root as well:
$ cd /usr/tests
$ sudo kyua test usr.bin/stat
$ sudo kyua report --verbose
This example would generate an HTML report ready to be published on a web
server:
$ kyua report-html --output ~/public_html/tests
For further details on the command-line interface of Kyua, please refer
to its manual page kyua(1).
Configuring the tests
Some test cases in the FreeBSD Test Suite require manual configuration by
the administrator before they can be run. Unless certain properties are
defined, the tests that require them will be skipped.
Test suites are configured by defining their configuration variables in
/etc/kyua/kyua.conf or on the command line. The format of the
configuration file is detailed in kyua.conf(5).
The following configuration variables are available in the FreeBSD Test
Suite; all of the variable names are prefixed with test_suites.FreeBSD..
allow_sysctl_side_effects Enables tests that change globally significant
sysctl(8) variables. The tests will undo any
changes in their cleanup phases.
allow_network_access Enables tests that need to access the network
the test host is connected to. Such tests may
require properly configured Internet access.
disks Must be set to a space delimited list of disk
device nodes. Tests that need destructive
access to disks must use these devices. Tests
are not required to preserve any data present
on these disks.
fibs Must be set to a space delimited list of FIBs
(routing tables). Tests that need to modify a
routing table may use any of these. Tests
will cleanup any new routes that they create.
What to do if something fails?
If there is any failure during the execution of the test suite, please
consider reporting it to the FreeBSD developers so that the failure can
be analyzed and fixed. To do so, either send a message to the
appropriate mailing list or file a problem report. For more details
please refer to:
o FreeBSD Mailing Lists: https://lists.freebsd.org/
o Problem Reporting: https://www.freebsd.org/support/
FILES
/etc/kyua/kyua.conf System-wide configuration file for kyua(1).
~/.kyua/kyua.conf User-specific configuration file for kyua(1);
overrides the system file.
~/.kyua/logs/ Default location of Kyua debug logs (one .log file
per test run).
~/.kyua/store/ Default location of Kyua test results (one .db file
per test run).
/usr/tests/ Location of the FreeBSD Test Suite.
/usr/tests/Kyuafile Top-level test suite definition file.
SEE ALSO
kyua(1), atf(7), build(7), development(7)
HISTORY
The FreeBSD Test Suite first appeared in FreeBSD 10.1 and was installed
by default in FreeBSD 11.0.
The tests manual page first appeared in NetBSD 6.0 and was later ported
to FreeBSD 10.1.
The test driver, kyua(1), was imported as part of the base system in
FreeBSD 13.0, previously being available only in ports(7).
AUTHORS
Julio Merino <jmmv@FreeBSD.org>
FreeBSD 15.1-STABLE-HBSD April 17, 2026 TESTS(7)