The ci directory contains scripts that aid in the testing of nix both in our continuous integration environment (Travis CI) but also for developers working locally.
Nix interfaces very directly with the underlying platform (usually via libc) and changes need to be tested on a large number of platforms to avoid problems.
Running the tests for one's host architecture can be done by simply doing the following:
$ cargo test
Testing for other architectures is more involved. Currently,
developers may run tests against several architectures and versions of
rust by running the ci/run-all.sh script. This scripts requires
that docker be set up. This will take some time:
$ ci/run-all.sh
The list of versions and architectures tested by this can be determined by looking at the contents of the script. The docker image used is posborne/rust-cross.
Suppose we have a failing test with Rust 1.7 on the raspberry pi. In that case, we can run the following:
$ DOCKER_IMAGE=posborne/rust-cross:arm \
RUST_VERSION=1.7.0 \
RUST_TARGET=arm-unknown-linux-gnueabihf ci/run-docker.sh
Currently, the docker images only support Rust 1.7. To get a better idea of combinations that might work, look at the contents of the travis configuration or run-all.sh.