[oe] why we don't setup a buildbot for openembedded QA?

[Guo Hongruan]

在 Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:57:33 +0800，Holger Hans Peter Freyther  
<holger+oe at freyther.de> 写道:

> On Monday 04 January 2010 02:42:42 Guo Hongruan wrote:
>> Hi guys,
>>    I think we had better set up a continuous integration tool buildbot  
>> to
>> automate the compile/test cycle required to validate changes to the
>> project code base.
>>
>> It can help openembedded user to save time on failed building.
>
> You make one assumption. You assume that the user config is the same as  
> the
> build slaves (this includes different host distros, host machine, target
> machine, target distro and packages to be built).

Yes, you are right. it is impossible to cover every combinations.
But I think it is better that nothing. We can classify the varioubles  
which affect the building and make a test plan. Of course, we can not make  
it perfect at the first time. But we can make it better and better.

>
>
>> Without buildbot, any volunteers can provide their available machine as
>> buildslave and the continuous integration environment will be really
>> scalable.
>
> This is not different from the tinderbox setup. On top of the buildbot  
> we do
> get much more information about the build, including the log files of  
> each and
> every task.

With buildbot, we can still use tinderbox to record every task and their  
log files. buildbot and tinderbot can work together smoothly.

>
>
> The basic problem is there are so many different possible configurations  
> that
> they can not be tested with each commit. What can be done and is done is  
> that
> the paths that are walked frequently will work better than the paths  
> that are
> not walked as frequently. E.g. creating a new distribution will be a lot
> harder than building Angstrom for the Beagleboard.
>

If there are enough buildslavers, we can test most of different possible  
configurations with each commit. After all, it is distributed and can  
scale dynamically.

> Now what one should do if one is interested in a specific path is to  
> user the
> tinderclient and regularily build, test (and fix) the path one is  
> interested
> in. For me this includes the meta-toolchain-qte target.
>
>
> The other is the tinderbox setup will soon gain a waterfall view and  
> then it
> becomes a s social problem to fix the (selected) builds whenever they  
> break.
>

builtbot can also show a waterfail view and through periodic building, we  
can find the bug as early as possible. everyone can access the buildbot  
website to get to know which building failed and to get to know which how  
to reproduce the failed building. Throught tinderbox, it is difficutl to  
do that, for some developers build openembedded at their own branches, and  
tinderbox can not record the complete local modification and setting.

>
> regards
> 	holger
>
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-- 
Guo Hongruan, Embedded Linux Consultant
Skype: camelguo
Twitter: camelguo
http://www.gulessoft.com