Semester of Graduation
Spring 2026
Degree
Master of Science in Computer Science (MSCS)
Department
Computer Science
Document Type
Thesis
Abstract
Modern software development practices, such as Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and Continuous Integration and Delivery (CI/CD), have become industry standard. Through these technologies and practices, large software projects can become maintainable, reliable, and consistent over long periods of time and after significant updates and new features. This thesis demonstrates a newly developed architecture to adopt these practices for cross-platform build and regression testing of specialized software using Terraform, Vagrant, and GitHub Actions. This testing architecture was developed to support Scalpel3, a digital forensics tool that is used to produce complete and accurate file carving to support legal proceedings, such as criminal and civil cases, as well as incident response to support remediation of breaches and ransomware. Scalpel3 has many environmental requirements along with a complex build system and analysis backend. This thesis documents the architecture developed that moves testing such a complex system from a manual, error-prone effort to full automation, including virtual machine provisioning strategies, dependency management across distributions, and integration with provisioning and orchestration providers. The developed system tests several Linux and macOS distributions on every possible code change, reducing manual testing overhead from several hours to a few minutes. This work provides systematic analysis of virtualization approaches and infrastructure requirements and demonstrates how automated testing infrastructure addresses software supply chain vulnerabilities in cybersecurity tools and forensics applications where manual testing proves insufficient for multi-platform validation.
Date
3-25-2026
Recommended Citation
Shinogi, Abby E., "Automated Multi-Platform Testing Infrastructure With Terraform" (2026). LSU Master's Theses. 6325.
https://repository.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/6325
Committee Chair
Richard, Golden G.
LSU Acknowledgement
1
LSU Accessibility Acknowledgment
1