[Infrastructures] Testing general system functionality via user simulation

[Marc Chiarini (Tufts)]

Hello All,

I am trying to analyze program dependencies in Linux.  Does anyone know 
of any suite/testbed/infrastructure that would allow me to create 
"automated virtual users" that would run on real (or virtual systems), 
exercising various large subsets of software in a reasonable, if not 
realistic fashion?  I'm not sure that simulation of the systems and 
users will get me what I want.  I think I need something that sits on  a 
machine and pretends to be  something like a user, running various 
applications in different classes (I will settle for non-GUI ;).  There 
needs to be at least some minor variability to these virtual users' 
behaviors.  It is not important to my research that they be anywhere 
near realistic, as long as they are executing commands with reasonable 
parameters.

Another way that I might accomplish part of my goal is to utilize a test 
suite that runs (with a variety, but obviously not all parameters) as 
many non-root commands on a system as possible.  It seems that autoconf 
provides a limited infrastructure for doing something like this, but I 
haven't investigated it thoroughly.

If any or all of this seems laughable, please laugh away.  Sometimes 
it's all about the comedy.

Regards,
Marc