That's not exactly the same as doing it in another client. I don't like the test code in Ping command code. Maybe create a php script that will sleep for a few seconds and then do the metadata update, which you could call using exec() before the Ping request in the test.

Also, it means the test will take 60 seconds (with default ping interval), right?

In D5196#66111, @machniak wrote:

That's not exactly the same as doing it in another client. I don't like the test code in Ping command code. Maybe create a php script that will sleep for a few seconds and then do the metadata update, which you could call using exec() before the Ping request in the test.

I'll try the exec variant. I also don't really like the current solution, but on the other hand tests that sleep are also always bound to break or be super slow (aka. they're brittle), this is at least deterministic.

Also, it means the test will take 60 seconds (with default ping interval), right?

No, we skip the sleep in the first iteration and then detect the change in the next iteration, so we don't actually go to sleep.