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# System prepended metadata

title: 2020-02-13 Conformance Test Categories

---

# 2020-02-13 Conformance Test Categories
The CNF Conformance program enables interoperability of CNFs from multiple vendors running on top of Kubernetes supplied by different vendors. The goal is to provide an open source test suite to enable both open and closed source CNFs to demonstrate conformance and implementation of best practices.  For more detailed cli documentation see the [usage document.](https://github.com/cncf/cnf-conformance/blob/master/USAGE.md)
## Compatability Tests 
#### CNFs should work with any Certified Kubernetes product and any CNI-compatible network that meet their functionality requirements.  The CNF Conformance Suite validates this by:
*  Performing K8s conformance testing by running [Sonobuoy](https://github.com/cncf/k8s-conformance/blob/master/instructions.md) on the cluster
*  Performing K8s API testing by running [API snoop](https://github.com/cncf/apisnoop) on the cluster which:
    * Tests Beta endpoint usage
    * Tests for generally available endpoints
*  Performing CNI Plugin testing
    * Test if CNI Plugin follows the [CNI specification](https://github.com/containernetworking/cni/blob/master/SPEC.md)

## Stateless Tests 
#### The CNF conformance suite checks if state is stored in a [custom resource definition](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/extend-kubernetes/api-extension/custom-resources/) or a separate database (e.g. [etcd](https://github.com/etcd-io/etcd)) rather than requiring local storage.  It also checks to see if state is resilient to node failure by:
*  Reseting the container and checking to see if the CNF comes back up
*  Using upstream projects for chaos engineering (e.g [Litmus](//https://github.com/litmuschaos/litmus))

## Security Tests 
#### CNF containers should be isolated from one another and the host.  The CNF Conformance suite uses tools like [OPA Gatekeeper](https://github.com/open-policy-agent/gatekeeper),[Falco](https://github.com/falcosecurity/falco), [Sysdig Inspect](https://github.com/draios/sysdig-inspect) and [gVisor](https://github.com/google/gvisor) to:
*  Check if any containers are running in privileged mode
*  Check if there are any shells
*  Check if any protected directories or files are accessed

## Scaling Tests 
#### The CNF conformance suite checks to see if CNFs support horizontal scaling (across multiple machines) and vertical scaling (between sizes of machines) by using the native K8s [kubectl](https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/kubectl/cheatsheet/#scaling-resources) command to:
*  Test increasing/decreasing capacity
*  Test small scale autoscaling with kubectl
*  Test large scale autoscaling with load test tools like [CNF Testbed](https://github.com/cncf/cnf-testbed)
*  Test if the CNF control layer responds to retries for failed communication? (e.g. using [Pumba](https://github.com/alexei-led/pumba) or [Blockade](https://github.com/worstcase/blockade) for network chaos and [Envoy](https://github.com/envoyproxy/envoy) for retries)

## Configuration and Lifecycle Tests 

#### Configuration and lifecycle should be managed in a declarative manner, using [ConfigMaps](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/configure-pod-container/configure-pod-configmap/), [Operators](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/extend-kubernetes/operator/), or other [declarative interfaces](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/overview/working-with-objects/kubernetes-objects/#understanding-kubernetes-objects).  The Conformance suite checks this by:

*  Testing is CNF installed using a [versioned](https://helm.sh/docs/topics/chart_best_practices/dependencies/#versions) Helm chart?
* Searching for and hardcoded IP addresses or subnets in the configuration
* Checking for a liveness entry in the helm chart and is the container responsive to it after a reset (e.g. by checking the [helm chart entry](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/configure-pod-container/configure-liveness-readiness-startup-probes/))?
*  Checking for a readiness entry in the helm chart and is the container responsive to it after a reset?
*  Can we start the pod/container without mounting a volume (e.g. using [helm configuration](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/configure-pod-container/configure-volume-storage/)) that has configuration files?
*  Testing to see if we can start pods/containers and see that the application continues to perform(e.g. using [Litmus](https://github.com/litmuschaos/litmus))
*  Testing by reseting any child processes, and when the parent process is started, checking to see if those child processes are reaped (ie. monitoring processes with [Falco](https://github.com/falcosecurity/falco) or [sysdig-inspect](https://github.com/draios/sysdig-inspect))?
*  Testing if the CNF can perform a rolling update? (i.e. [kubectl rolling update](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/run-application/rolling-update-replication-controller/))

## Observability Tests 
#### In order to maintain, debug, and have insight into a protected environment, its infrastructure elements must have the property of being observable. This means these elements must externalize their internal states in some way that lends itself to metrics, tracing, and logging.
*  Is [Fluentd](https://github.com/fluent/fluentd) installed in the cluster?
*  Is there traffic to Fluentd?
*  Is [Jaeger](https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger) installed in the cluster?
*  Is there traffic to Jaeger?
*  Is [Prometheus](https://github.com/prometheus/prometheus) installed in the cluster and configured correctly (e.g. using [Promtool](https://prometheus.io/docs/prometheus/latest/configuration/unit_testing_rules/))?
*  Is there traffic to Prometheus?
*  Are the tracing calls [OpenTelemetry](https://opentracing.io/) compatible?
*  Are the monitoring calls [OpenMetric](https://github.com/OpenObservability/OpenMetrics) compatible?

## Installable and Upgradeable 
#### The CNF Conformance suite will check for usage of standard, in-band deployment tools such as Helm (version 3) charts:
* Does the install script use [Helm](https://github.com/helm/)?
*  Is the Helm chart valid (e.g. using the [helm linter](https://github.com/helm/chart-testing))?
*  Can the CNF perform a rolling update (i.e. [kubectl rolling update](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/run-application/rolling-update-replication-controller/))?

## Hardware and Affinity support 
#### The CNF container should access all hardware and schedule to specific worker nodes by using a device plugin.  The CNF Conformance suite checks this by:

*  Checking if the CNF is accessing hardware in its configuration files
*  Testing if the CNF accessess hardware directly during run-time? (e.g. accessing the host /dev or /proc from a mount)
*  Testing if the CNF accessess hugepages directly instead of via [Kubernetes resources](https://github.com/cncf/cnf-testbed/blob/c4458634deca5e8ab73adf118eedde32904c8458/examples/use_case/external-packet-filtering-on-k8s-nsm-on-packet/gateway.yaml#L29)?
*  Testing if the cnf testbed performance output shows adequate throughput and sessions using the [CNF Testbed](https://github.com/cncf/cnf-testbed) (vendor neutral) hardware environment.
