git annex test is not allowed to make network connections. (It does do some
mocking to eg, test ssh special remotes without actually using ssh.)
git annex testremote is allowed to use the network, but only when the
user has set up a remote to test. Some parts of git-annex involve network
connections, but not as part of accessing a remote, or are specific to a
particular special remote. There outght to be a test suite for that stuff
as well.
A motivating example is git annex p2p --pair, which was
?broken for years due to lack of testing.
Fully testing that would involve setting up tor hidden services which is far
too extreme for a test suite (and needs root), but it should at least be
possible to test the interface to magic-wormhole, allowing it to make a
connection to the wormhole server.
More examples:
- git-annex multicast (would need two hosts on a lan ideally but could at least try to multicast back to the same host)
- git-annex addurl and git-annex importfeed with http urls. And testing the various security configs that affect them.
- The reversions where git-annex forgot to encrypt content stored on gcrypt and git-lfs remotes could have been detected if there was a test suite that tested them.
This could be done as a new command or a flag to git annex test.
In any case, the new test suite would need to be run somewhere;
running it on at least some of the autobuilders might be a good way.
--Joey