Protocol/agent for WiFi tests automation

[jerome-pouiller]

Problem Description

Currently, it is not easy to automate the WiFi tests with real hardware. Currently the only options are:

1. creating sample applications with hardcoded behavior/credential/values
2. automate wifi shell application with a tool like Robot Framework

The first option does definitely not scale. The second options suffer of multiple issues:

• wifi shell API is not backward compatible (and we don't want change that)
• the traces can be interleaved
• some features are not present or difficult to implement (ie: provisioning of TLS certificates)

To summary, wifi-shell has not been designed for automation.

Proposed Change (Summary)

The idea would be create a new sample apps a bit similar to wifi shell but dedicated to automation.

Proposed Change (Detailed)

After a first brainstorm, the main ideas are:

• use of zephyr,pipe for the communication, so the protocol is well separated from the traces
• JSON protocol looks like a good candidate (ascii, extensible, widely used, rich framework)
• a python library to communicate with the devices would be probably useful

Dependencies

No response

Concerns and Unresolved Questions

No response

Alternatives Considered

No response

[jerome-pouiller]

For information, Bluetooth has this kind of protocol (BTP) to do their tests. It is described here:

https://github.com/auto-pts/auto-pts/blob/master/doc/overview.txt