What’s New in Workload Automation

Version 3.3.1

Warning

This is the last release supporting Python 3.5 and Python 3.6. Subsequent releases will support Python 3.7+.

New Features:

Commands:

Instruments:

  • perf: Add support for report-sample.

Workloads:

  • PCMark: Add support for PCMark 3.0.

  • Antutu: Add support for 9.1.6.

  • Geekbench: Add support for Geekbench5.

  • gfxbench: Support the non corporate version.

Fixes/Improvements

Framework:

  • Fix installation on systems without git installed.

  • Avoid querying online cpus if hotplug is disabled.

Dockerfile:

  • Update base image to Ubuntu 20.04.

Instruments:

  • perf: Fix parsing csv with using interval-only-values.

  • perf: Improve error reporting of an invalid agenda.

Output Processors:

  • postgres: Fixed SQL command when creating a new event.

Workloads:

  • speedometer: Fix adb reverse when rebooting a device.

  • googleplaybook: Support newer apk version.

  • googlephotos: Support newer apk version.

  • gmail: Support newer apk version.

Other:

  • Upgrade Android Gradle to 7.2 and Gradle plugin to 4.2.

Version 3.3

New Features:

Commands:

  • Add report command to provide a summary of a run.

Instruments:

  • Add proc_stat instrument to monitor CPU load using data from /proc/stat.

Framework:

  • Add support for simulating atomic writes to prevent race conditions when running current instances of WA.

  • Add support file transfer for SSH connections via SFTP and falling back to using SCP implementation.

  • Support detection of logcat buffer overflow and present a warning if this occurs.

  • Allow skipping all remaining jobs if a job had exhausted all of its retires.

  • Add polling mechanism for file transfers rather than relying on timeouts.

  • Add run_completed reboot policy to enable rebooting a target after a run has been completed.

Android Devices:

  • Enable configuration of whether to keep the screen on while the device is plugged in.

Output Processors:

  • Enable the use of cascading deletion in Postgres databases to clean up after deletion of a run entry.

Fixes/Improvements

Framework:

  • Improvements to the process command to correctly handle skipped and in process jobs.

  • Add support for deprecated parameters allowing for a warning to be raised when providing a parameter that will no longer have an effect.

  • Switch implementation of SSH connections to use Paramiko for greater stability.

  • By default use sftp for file transfers with SSH connections, allow falling back to scp by setting use_scp.

  • Fix callbacks not being disconnected correctly when requested.

  • ApkInfo objects are now cached to reduce re-parsing of APK files.

  • Speed up discovery of wa output directories.

  • Fix merge handling of parameters from multiple files.

Dockerfile:

  • Install additional instruments for use in the docker environment.

  • Fix environment variables not being defined in non interactive environments.

Instruments:

  • trace_cmd additional fixes for python 3 support.

Output Processors:

  • postgres: Fixed SQL command when creating a new event.

Workloads:

  • aitutu: Improve reliability of results extraction.

  • androbench: Enabling dismissing of additional popups on some devices.

  • antutu: Now supports major version 8 in additional to version 7.X.

  • exoplayer: Add support for Android 10.

  • googlephotos: Support newer apk version.

  • gfxbench: Allow user configuration for which tests should be ran.

  • gfxbench: Improved score detection for a wider range of devices.

  • gfxbench: Moved results extraction out of run stage.

  • jankbench: Support newer versions of Pandas for processing.

  • pcmark: Add support for handling additional popups and installation flows.

  • pcmark: No longer clear and re-download test data before each execution.

  • speedometer: Enable the workload to run offline and drops requirement for UiAutomator. To support this root access is now required to run the workload.

  • youtube: Update to support later versions of the apk.

Other:

  • cpustates: Improved name handling for unknown idle states.

Version 3.2

Warning

This release only supports Python 3.5+. Python 2 support has now been dropped.

Fixes/Improvements

Framework:

  • TargetInfo now tracks installed modules and will ensure the cache is also updated on module change.

  • Migrated the build scripts for uiauto based workloads to Python 3.

  • Uiauto applications now target SDK version 28 to prevent PlayProtect blocking the installation of the automation apks on some devices.

  • The workload metadata now includes the apk package name if applicable.

Instruments:

  • energy_instruments will now have their teardown method called correctly.

  • energy_instruments: Added a keep_raw parameter to control whether raw files generated during execution should be deleted upon teardown.

  • Update relevant instruments to make use of the new devlib collector interface, for more information please see the devlib documentation.

Output Processors:

  • postgres: If initialisation fails then the output processor will no longer attempt to reconnect at a later point during the run.

  • postgres: Will now ensure that the connection to the database is re-established if it is dropped e.g. due to a long expecting workload.

  • postgres: Change the type of the hostid field to Bigint to allow a larger range of ids.

  • postgres: Bump schema version to 1.5.

  • perf: Added support for the simpleperf profiling tool for android devices.

  • perf: Added support for the perf record command.

  • cpustates: Improve handling of situations where cpufreq and/or cpuinfo data is unavailable.

Workloads:

  • adodereader: Now support apk version 19.7.1.10709.

  • antutu: Supports dismissing of popup asking to create a shortcut on the homescreen.

  • gmail: Now supports apk version 2019.05.26.252424914.

  • googlemaps: Now supports apk version 10.19.1.

  • googlephotos: Now supports apk version 4.28.0.

  • geekbench: Added support for versions 4.3.4, 4.4.0 and 4.4.2.

  • geekbench-corporate: Added support for versions 5.0.1 and 5.0.3.

  • pcmark: Now locks device orientation to portrait to increase compatibility.

  • pcmark: Supports dismissing new Android 10 permission warnings.

Other:

  • Improve documentation to help debugging module installation errors.

Version 3.1.4

Warning

This is the last release that supports Python 2. Subsequent versions will be support Python 3.5+ only.

New Features:

Framework:

  • ApkWorkload: Allow specifying A maximum and minimum version of an APK instead of requiring a specific version.

  • TestPackageHandler: Added to support running android applications that are invoked via am instrument.

  • Directories can now be added as Artifacts.

Workloads:

  • aitutu: Executes the Aitutu Image Speed/Accuracy and Object Speed/Accuracy tests.

  • uibench: Run a configurable activity of the UIBench workload suite.

  • uibenchjanktests: Run an automated and instrument version of the UIBench JankTests.

  • motionmark: Run a browser graphical benchmark.

Other:

  • Added requirements.txt as a reference for known working package versions.

Fixes/Improvements

Framework:

  • JobOuput: Added an augmentation attribute to allow listing of enabled augmentations for individual jobs.

  • Better error handling for misconfiguration job selection.

  • All Workload classes now have an uninstall parameter to control whether any binaries installed to the target should be uninstalled again once the run has completed.

  • The cleanup_assets parameter is now more consistently utilized across workloads.

  • ApkWorkload: Added an activity attribute to allow for overriding the automatically detected version from the APK.

  • ApkWorkload Added support for providing an implicit activity path.

  • Fixed retrieving job level artifacts from a database backend.

Output Processors:

  • SysfsExtractor: Ensure that the extracted directories are added as Artifacts.

  • InterruptStatsInstrument: Ensure that the output files are added as Artifacts.

  • Postgres: Fix missing system_id field from TargetInfo.

  • Postgres: Support uploading directory Artifacts.

  • Postgres: Bump the schema version to v1.3.

Workloads:

  • geekbench: Improved apk version handling.

  • geekbench: Now supports apk version 4.3.2.

Other:

  • Dockerfile: Now installs all optional extras for use with WA.

  • Fixed support for YAML anchors.

  • Fixed building of documentation with Python 3.

  • Changed shorthand of installing all of WA extras to all as per the documentation.

  • Upgraded the Dockerfile to use Ubuntu 18.10 and Python 3.

  • Restricted maximum versions of numpy and pandas for Python 2.7.

Version 3.1.3

Fixes/Improvements

Other:

  • Security update for PyYAML to attempt prevention of arbitrary code execution during parsing.

Version 3.1.2

Fixes/Improvements

Framework:

  • Implement an explicit check for Devlib versions to ensure that versions are kept in sync with each other.

  • Added a View parameter to ApkWorkloads for use with certain instruments for example fps.

  • Added "supported_versions" attribute to workloads to allow specifying a list of supported version for a particular workload.

  • Change default behaviour to run any available version of a workload if a specific version is not specified.

Output Processors:

  • Postgres: Fix handling of screen_resoultion during processing.

Other

  • Added additional information to documentation

  • Added fix for Devlib’s KernelConfig refactor

  • Added a "label" property to Metrics

Version 3.1.1

Fixes/Improvements

Other

  • Improve formatting when displaying metrics

  • Update revent binaries to include latest fixes

  • Update DockerImage to use new released version of WA and Devlib

  • Fix broken package on PyPi

Version 3.1.0

New Features:

Commands

  • create database: Added create subcommand command in order to initialize a PostgresSQL database to allow for storing WA output with the Postgres Output Processor.

Output Processors:

  • Postgres: Added output processor which can be used to populate a Postgres database with the output generated from a WA run.

  • logcat-regex: Add new output processor to extract arbitrary “key” “value” pairs from logcat.

Configuration:

  • Configuration Includes: Add support for including other YAML files inside agendas and config files using "include#:" entries.

  • Section groups: This allows for a group entry to be specified for each section and will automatically cross product the relevant sections with sections from other groups adding the relevant classifiers.

Framework:

  • Added support for using the OutputAPI with a Postgres Database backend. Used to retrieve and process run data uploaded by the Postgres output processor.

Workloads:

  • gfxbench-corporate: Execute a set of on and offscreen graphical benchmarks from GFXBench including Car Chase and Manhattan.

  • glbench: Measures the graphics performance of Android devices by testing the underlying OpenGL (ES) implementation.

Fixes/Improvements

Framework:

  • Remove quotes from sudo_cmd parameter default value due to changes in devlib.

  • Various Python 3 related fixes.

  • Ensure plugin names are converted to identifiers internally to act more consistently when dealing with names containing -‘s etc.

  • Now correctly updates RunInfo with project and run name information.

  • Add versioning support for POD structures with the ability to automatically update data structures / formats to new versions.

Commands:

  • Fix revent target initialization.

  • Fix revent argument validation.

Workloads:

  • Speedometer: Close open tabs upon workload completion.

  • jankbench: Ensure that the logcat monitor thread is terminated correctly to prevent left over adb processes.

  • UiAutomator workloads are now able to dismiss android warning that a workload has not been designed for the latest version of android.

Other:

  • Report additional metadata about target, including: system_id, page_size_kb.

  • Uses cache directory to reduce target calls, e.g. will now use cached version of TargetInfo if local copy is found.

  • Update recommended installation commands when installing from github due to pip not following dependency links correctly.

  • Fix incorrect parameter names in runtime parameter documentation.

Version 3.0.0

WA3 is a more or less from-scratch re-write of WA2. We have attempted to maintain configuration-level compatibility wherever possible (so WA2 agendas should mostly work with WA3), however some breaks are likely and minor tweaks may be needed.

It terms of the API, WA3 is completely different, and WA2 extensions will not work with WA3 – they would need to be ported into WA3 plugins.

For more information on migrating from WA2 to WA3 please see the Migration Guide.

Not all of WA2 extensions have been ported for the initial 3.0.0 release. We have ported the ones we believe to be most widely used and useful. The porting work will continue, and more of WA2’s extensions will be in the future releases. However, we do not intend to port absolutely everything, as some things we believe to be no longer useful.

Note

If there a particular WA2 extension you would like to see in WA3 that is not yet there, please let us know via the GitHub issues. (And, of course, we always welcome pull requests, if you have the time to do the port yourselves :-) ).

New Features

  • Python 3 support. WA now runs on both Python 2 and Python 3.

    Warning

    Python 2 support should now be considered deprecated. Python 2 will still be fully supported up to the next major release (v3.1). After that, Python 2 will be supported for existing functionality, however there will be no guarantee that newly added functionality would be compatible with Python 2. Support for Python 2 will be dropped completely after release v3.2.

  • There is a new Output API which can be used to aid in post processing a run’s output. For more information please see Output.

  • All “augmentations” can now be enabled on a per workload basis (in WA2 this was available for instruments, but not result processors).

  • More portable runtime parameter specification. Runtime parameters now support generic aliases, so instead of specifying a73_frequency: 1805000 in your agenda, and then having to modify this for another target, it is now possible to specify big_frequency: max.

  • -c option can now be used multiple times to specify several config files for a single run, allowing for a more fine-grained configuration management.

  • It is now possible to disable all previously configured augmentations from an agenda using ~~.

  • Offline output processing with wa process command. It is now possible to run processors on previously collected WA results, without the need for a target connection.

  • A lot more metadata is collected as part of the run, including much more detailed information about the target, and MD5 hashes of all resources used during the run.

  • Better show command. wa show command now utilizes pandoc and man to produce easier-to-browse documentation format, and has been enhanced to include documentation on general settings, runtime parameters, and plugin aliases.

  • Better logging. The default stdout output is now more informative. The verbose output is much more detailed. Nested indentation is used for different phases of execution to make log output easier to parse visually.

  • Full ChromeOS target support. Including support for the Android container apps.

  • Implemented on top of devlib. WA3 plugins can make use of devlib’s enhanced target API (much richer and more robust than WA2’s Device API).

  • All-new documentation. The docs have been revamped to be more useful and complete.

Changes

  • Configuration files config.py are now specified in YAML format in config.yaml. WA3 has support for automatic conversion of the default config file and will be performed upon first invocation of WA3.

  • The “config” and “global” sections in an agenda are now interchangeable so can all be specified in a “config” section.

  • “Results Processors” are now known as “Output Processors” and can now be ran offline.

  • “Instrumentation” is now known as “Instruments” for more consistent naming.

  • Both “Output Processor” and “Instrument” configuration have been merged into “Augmentations” (support for the old naming schemes have been retained for backwards compatibility)