Google Engineer Proposes KUnit As New Linux Kernel Unit Testing Framework

Google engineer Brendan Higgins sent out an experimental set of 31 patches today introducing KUnit as a new Linux kernel unit testing framework to help preserve and improve the quality of the kernel's code.

KUnit is a unit testing framework designed for the Linux kernel and inspired by the well known JUnit as well as Googletest and other existing unit testing frameworks for designing unit tests and related functionality.

While the Linux kernel already has Autotest and KSelfTest, Higgins wrote of KUnit, "it does not require installing the kernel on a test machine or in a VM and does not require tests to be written in userspace running on a host kernel. Additionally, KUnit is fast: From invocation to completion KUnit can run several dozen tests in under a second. Currently, the entire KUnit test suite for KUnit runs in under a second from the initial invocation (build time excluded)."

Those wishing to learn more about the proposed KUnit testing framework for the Linux kernel can find the details via this RFC patch series.