[cifs-protocol] Test fixtures for the KCC

[Andrew Bartlett]

We are working on making Samba's KCC much, much smarter than the
full-mesh topology we currently have.  (For those familiar with Samba,
the particular task involves finsishing the work on the samba_kcc
script).

One thing that has come to our attention, is the need for really good
and diverse text fixtures, and expected outputs for the KCC algorithm. 

That is, while the docs really are great, they are incredibly detailed
and at points appear to have errors at some point.  To be sure one way
or the other, we need to test a variety of network topologies against
the reference implementation in Windows, or the output thereof. 

The trouble I've got is that unlike so many other aspects of the
protocol, the output isn't a network response, but instead one part of a
distributed algorithm, which the author warns must be implemented
exactly (or else replication will fail in horrible ways). 

So I'm looking for suggestions as to how to handle this, and wondering
if a documented algorithm such as this should have some expected output
values, to validate against.  

In particular, the challenge is how to assert not just by looking at a
running windows server, but to do the same in our as part of our
internal make test.  

I realise this is a little open-ended, but I figured I would ask.

Thanks,

Andrew Bartlett
-- 
Andrew Bartlett
http://samba.org/~abartlet/
Authentication Developer, Samba Team  http://samba.org
Samba Developer, Catalyst IT          http://catalyst.net.nz/services/samba