Re: [PATCH] selftests: rtnetlink: add checks for ifconfig and iproute2

On Thu, 21 Aug 2025 at 10:25, Hangbin Liu [off-list ref] wrote:

On Thu, Aug 21, 2025 at 09:43:11AM +0200, Alessandro Ratti wrote:

quoted

On systems where `ifconfig` is not available (e.g., modern Debian), the
`kci_test_promote_secondaries` test fails. Wrap the call in a check.

Additionally, `do_test_address_proto` fails on iproute2 versions that
lack support for `proto` in `ip address` commands. Add a minimal feature
check and skip the test with a proper message if unsupported.

These changes allow the tests to run and report SKIP instead of FAIL on
platforms with older tools.

Signed-off-by: Alessandro Ratti <redacted>
---
 tools/testing/selftests/net/rtnetlink.sh | 10 +++++++++-
 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/net/rtnetlink.sh b/tools/testing/selftests/net/rtnetlink.sh
index d6c00efeb664..9bff620ef595 100755
--- a/tools/testing/selftests/net/rtnetlink.sh
+++ b/tools/testing/selftests/net/rtnetlink.sh

@@ -330,7 +330,9 @@ kci_test_promote_secondaries()
      for i in $(seq 2 254);do
              IP="10.23.11.$i"
              ip -f inet addr add $IP/16 brd + dev "$devdummy"
-             ifconfig "$devdummy" $IP netmask 255.255.0.0
+             if command -v ifconfig >/dev/null 2>&1; then
+                     ifconfig "$devdummy" $IP netmask 255.255.0.0
+             fi

Maybe just skip the promote_secondaries test if ifconfig is not available?

Thank you for your review and comment.

My takeaway here is that the test works because the IP addresses are set on the
$devdummy by the previous ip(8) command, and ifconfig seems a bit redundant.

Also, considering we are testing netlink, I was baffled to see ifconfig there
that, if I'm not mistaken, uses ioctl(); but I might be missing
something obvious
here, considering I'm looking at these tests for the first time, so bear with
me :)

If it's better to skip the test altogether when ifconfig is missing, I'll
submit another patch to do so.

Thank you

Best regards,
Alessandro