The apparmor profile shipped in MariaDB 5.1.39 ubuntu debs prevents mysql-test-run.pl from working (the reason is that /usr/sbin/mysqld needs write permissions to the --vardir directory given by the user to mysql-test-run.pl).

Since I believe apparmor is enabled by default in recent Ubuntu's, this means mysql-test-run.pl fails out-of-the-box on such systems.

I don't think apparmor functionality is critical for MariaDB at this stage. Options for fixes (all ok with me):

1. Move the MariaDB apparmor profile to /usr/share/doc/mariadb-server with comments about the issue (so it is only enabled if users do so explicitly).

2. Document the issue that apparmor needs to be uninstalled/disabled to run the test suite (it is in any case not trivial to run the test suite due to need to pass writable --vardir to mysql-test-run.pl, /usr/share/mysql/mysql-test is usually not writable).

3. Fix the apparmor profile to not restrict /usr/sbin/mysqld from writing files anywhere normal permissions allow.