#315 - Add hardware-free configuration validation

[dleshchev]

Summary

Add an installed, hardware-free C++ configuration validator that uses DAQIRI's production YAML parser and the same common semantic checks as daqiri_init(). Validation does not allocate packet memory, initialize a transport engine, or touch a NIC.

Related issue

Closes #315.

This is the validation foundation for #302 and #307.

Changes

• Add daqiri_config_validate <config.yaml> [...], with exit status 0 when every file is valid, 1 when any file is invalid, and 2 for incorrect usage.
• Share hardware-independent semantic validation between the standalone tool and every production engine initialization path.
• Reject unsupported YAML scalar forms and common semantic errors before engine initialization, including malformed queue cores, endpoints, flow targets, and transformed frame sizes.
• Build and install the tool independently of DAQIRI_BUILD_EXAMPLES.
• Validate representative checked-in configurations and focused parser/common-semantic regressions from the local PR and container-release paths.
• Register a hardware-free CTest regression that exercises common validation through daqiri_init() before socket initialization.
• Document the validator and configuration-check workflow.

Validation

• Privileged project-container Release configure/build with DAQIRI_BUILD_EXAMPLES=OFF, DAQIRI_ENGINE="dpdk ibverbs", and GPU/hugepage access: passed.
• Installed daqiri_config_validate presence and execution: passed.
• Production daqiri_init_from_yaml_string() regression for a UDP queue referencing an undefined memory region: 1/1 CTest passed, with rejection before socket initialization.
• Focused valid/invalid parser and semantic cases, including usage exit status, strict booleans and integers, cpu_core: -1, malformed endpoints, missing memory regions, unknown flow queues, unknown reorder flow references, duplicate static flow IDs, per-interface DPDK flow ID 0 compatibility, and oversized transformed frames: passed.
• scripts/check_pr.sh: 9 portable tests, 7 representative checked-in configurations, 1 compatibility case, 14 expected-invalid parser/common-semantic regressions, strict MkDocs build, HTML links, and documentation-reference checks passed.
• Diff-scoped clang-format and test-source clang-format --dry-run --Werror: passed.
• DCO trailers and git diff --check: passed.

Dependencies or follow-up

PR #307 is based on this branch and supplies deterministic configuration generation plus the broader retained/generated configuration matrices. Parser and common-semantic rejection coverage remains in this foundation PR; PR #307 checks that valid generated output crosses the Python/C++ boundary successfully. This PR intentionally contains no Python generator or schema implementation.

[greptile-apps]

Confidence Score: 5/5

[Medium risk] Adds configuration validation tooling and tests.

The PR appears safe to merge; no outstanding finding or new actionable issue was identified.

Summary

The PR adds an installed, hardware-free configuration validator, shares semantic checks with engine initialization, strengthens YAML parsing, and adds configuration and CTest coverage. Since the previous review, the only change clarifies contributor guidance for extending that coverage.

_{Reviews (8) · Last reviewed commit: "#315 - Document configuration validation..."}