[PATCH net-next] docs: netdev: refine netdevsim testing guidance
From: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>
Date: 2026-03-04 15:16:49
Also in:
linux-doc, workflows
Subsystem:
documentation, documentation process, networking [general], the rest · Maintainers:
Jonathan Corbet, "David S. Miller", Eric Dumazet, Jakub Kicinski, Paolo Abeni, Linus Torvalds
The library to create tests for both NIC HW and netdevsim has existed for almost a year. netdevsim-only tests we get increasingly feel like a waste, we should try to write tests that work both on netdevsim and real HW. Refine the guidance accordingly. Signed-off-by: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org> --- CC: corbet@lwn.net CC: skhan@linuxfoundation.org CC: workflows@vger.kernel.org CC: linux-doc@vger.kernel.org --- Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst | 10 ++++++++-- 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst b/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
index 6bce4507d5d3..3aa13bc2405d 100644
--- a/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst@@ -479,8 +479,14 @@ netdevsim ``netdevsim`` is a test driver which can be used to exercise driver configuration APIs without requiring capable hardware. -Mock-ups and tests based on ``netdevsim`` are strongly encouraged when -adding new APIs, but ``netdevsim`` in itself is **not** considered +Mock-ups and tests based on ``netdevsim`` are encouraged when +adding new APIs with complex logic in the stack. The tests should +be written so that they can run both against ``netdevsim`` and a real +device (see ``tools/testing/selftests/drivers/net/README.rst``). +``netdevsim``-only tests should focus on testing corner cases +and failure paths in the core which are hard to exercise with a real driver. + +``netdevsim`` in itself is **not** considered a use case/user. You must also implement the new APIs in a real driver. We give no guarantees that ``netdevsim`` won't change in the future
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2.53.0