[Buildbot-devel] How to add a reboot step?

[Niklaus Giger]

Hi

For the Xenomai project (RealTime extensions to the Linux kernel) I am
setting up a buildbot at ngiger.dyndns.org/buildbot.

So far it is working great and the project seems to like this idea.

To push the testing farther than just recompiling the source for different
architecture/subprojects etc, we would like to test the resulting kernel. I
think I will not have a lot of problems when we cross-compile for a
separate target board which we can reboot by shutting the power off and on
again by using a network controlled power switch.

I have however targets which compile the kernel for themselves, install it
and then reboot.

But I have no ideas how I can integrate the following step namely waiting
for the new kernel to start up (I assume that the buildbot slave is
automatically started on reboot) and then execute the unit tests for the
new kernel. Also it would be nice to detect that the new kernel didn't
start up at all.

Is it possible to dump the state of the buildbot slave and pick it up on a
fresh start? Would this be hard to add in python?

Any ideas?

(I will be off for about a week, so do not expect an answer from me in the
next days.)

Best regards

Niklaus Giger