Hardware testing (snap/2.8/UI)

If you wish, you can tell MAAS to test machine hardware using well-known Linux utilities. MAAS can test machines that have a status of Ready, Broken, or Deployed. You can include testing as part of the commissioning process. When you choose the ‘Commission’ action, MAAS will display the dialog described below. Be aware, though, that if the hardware tests fail, the machine will become unavailable for Deployment.

The majority of testing scripts only work with machines that are backed by physical hardware (e.g. they may be incompatible with VM-based machines).

Two questions you may have:

  1. How do I apply a hardware test?
  2. What scripts are available for testing?

Apply a hardware test

To launch a test, select the target machine from the ‘Machines’ page and use the ‘Take action’ drop-down menu to select ‘Test hardware’. When ready, hit the ‘Test machine’ button. Here, a test is applied to a deployed machine:

There is the option of not powering off the machine and to allow SSH access.

A default test will be selected (smartctl-validate, a hard drive test) but you can choose others by clicking the ‘Select scripts’ label. Doing so will reveal the following choices:

Scripts available for testing

The following hardware testing scripts can be selected from the web UI:

Name Category Tags Description
smartctl-short storage Run the short SMART self-test and validate SMART health on all drives in parallel
smartctl-long storage Run the long SMART self-test and validate SMART health on all drives in parallel
smartctl-conveyance storage Run the conveyance SMART self-test and validate SMART health on all drives in parallel
memtester memory Run memtester against all available userspace memory.
internet-connectivity network, internet, node Check if the system has access to the internet.
stress-ng-cpu-long cpu Run stress-ng memory tests for 12 hours.
stress-ng-cpu-short cpu Run stress-ng memory tests for 5 minutes.
stress-ng-memory-long memory Run stress-ng memory tests for 12 hours.
stress-ng-memory-short memory Run stress-ng memory tests for 5 minutes.
ntp network, ntp, node Run ntp clock set to verify NTP connectivity.
badblocks storage Run badblocks on disk in read-only mode.
badblocks-destructive destructive, storage Run badblocks on a disk in read/write destructive mode.
7z cpu Run 7zip CPU benchmarking.
fio storage, destructive Run Fio benchmarking against selected storage devices.

After either commissioning, testing, or installation has started, MAAS reports in real-time which script is running.

You can access the verbatim output from any test by selecting a machine, selecting the ‘Hardware tests’ page and clicking on the ‘Log view’ link in the ‘Results’ column for the specific test.

See Commissioning and Hardware Testing Scripts for more details on how these scripts work and how you can write your own.