Re: [PATCH net-next] selftests: rtnetlink: skip ifalias test if uuidgen is missing

[Hangbin Liu]

Hi Darío,
On Thu, Oct 08, 2026 at 08:37:41PM +0200, Darío Hueso Gisbert wrote:
> kci_test_ifalias() uses uuidgen to generate the alias names, but
> uuidgen is not always installed on minimal systems. When it is
> missing, the test fails with "uuidgen: command not found" instead of
> being reported as skipped.
> 
> Check for uuidgen before running the test and return SKIP when it is
> not available, as kci_test_promote_secondaries() already does for
> ifconfig.
> 
> Assisted-by: LLM
> Signed-off-by: Darío Hueso Gisbert <darihueso21@xxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> The commit message and the added check were drafted with the help of
> an LLM (Claude). I reviewed both and tested the script on a kernel
> built from mainline, with uuidgen installed (unchanged behaviour) and
> with it removed (the ifalias test now reports SKIP instead of FAIL).
> 
> On that kernel the unrelated ipsec_offload test fails with and without
> this change.
> 
>  tools/testing/selftests/net/rtnetlink.sh | 7 +++++++
>  1 file changed, 7 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/net/rtnetlink.sh b/tools/testing/selftests/net/rtnetlink.sh
> index 4843d474538f..c758efb734da 100755
> --- a/tools/testing/selftests/net/rtnetlink.sh
> +++ b/tools/testing/selftests/net/rtnetlink.sh
> @@ -412,6 +412,13 @@ kci_test_addrlabel()
>  kci_test_ifalias()
>  {
>  	local ret=0
> +
> +	run_cmd uuidgen
> +	if [ $ret -ne 0 ]; then
> +		end_test "SKIP: uuidgen not installed"
> +		return $ksft_skip
> +	fi

You can use check_command, which will log test and return correctly.

Thanks
Hangbin
> +
>  	namewant=$(uuidgen)
>  	syspathname="/sys/class/net/$devdummy/ifalias"
>  	run_cmd ip link set dev "$devdummy" alias "$namewant"
> -- 
> 2.53.0
>