I’m going to start with the one that impressed him the most: qa-regression-testing branch

The QA and security team maintain a test suite to check for regressions in packages they are updating. These tests are written with python unittest. Most of this test suite can be a little harmful for a production system, so it’s recommended to run it using a chroot environment or a virtual machine and to help with that there is a make-test-tarball script. From the script:

export HOSTS=”sec-intrepid-amd64 sec-hardy-amd64 sec-dapper-amd64″
export TEST=test-glibc-security
./make-test-tarball $TEST.py
for i in $HOSTS; do
scp /tmp/qrt-$TEST.tar.gz $i.local:
done
for i in $HOSTS; do
ssh -t $i.local “hostname; rm -rf qrt-$TEST; tar zxf qrt-$TEST.tar.gz; cd qrt-$TEST && ./$TEST.py -v”
done

As you can imagine HOSTS are the hostnames of the virtual machines where the tests are going to run.

Writing those test isn’t rocket science, you just need a little knowledge of the package and the functionality you want to test and python unittesting, there is even a skeleton script that can help you start writing your test.

Hope this information is useful for you! And as usual, patches are welcome!

I can describe this whole year experience in just one word: AMAZING! I’m having so much fun, even if i’m getting out of time for other things i wanted to do, everything has it’s price and working for canonical isn’t an easy task, a lot is expected from you all the time, but the company policy is to be friends more than co-workers, even if we don’t see each other to much.

In this year i’ve had the pleasure of visiting some friends all over the world while traveling for work or escaping a little before or after a work trip, i’ve also had the chance to meet some people i wouldn’t otherwise, like a guy i met in Germany that develops this horrible scripts that learn from my shopping customs and offer me stuff i want to buy (i said that guy that i hate him between jokes , c’mon you hate him as well) and learned things i wouldn’t in a normal local based company, i learned almost the hard way that when you say “Asian people” you are talking about Indians as well (isn’t it Polly?) and also notice how different cultures can be, some things that are completely natural and normal for me can be really disturbing and offensive for others and vice versa.

I’ve also have the joy of seeing some friends join the company and grow our friendship, as well as i’ve seen some good friends leave the company, but the sadness was compensated with the happiness that they are going for something better and that the friendship will continue.

It’s also always fun how when we meet in person is like we have worked in the same office for ever, people is always keen to have some beers, chat and test Pisco (no, i will never get bored of seeing your faces when you try it!). In summary, canonical is like a big family, you know, how people say that there is competition even inside a same company, well, this is not the case, people is always happy to help you and give you a hand when you need it, and even i thought it wasn’t possible to have a weekly meeting with your boss to talk about your personal lives before you start talking about work, it’s always nice to know that they care about you, not only about numbers and results!

That said i wanted to thank everyone in canonical, and the ones that already left for making this company such an amazing place to work! And special thanks for the two guys that helped me had this incredible opportunity (you know who you are!)