[Box-Admins] Proposed week-long shutdown of Jenkins

Chris Muller asqueaker at gmail.com
Fri Feb 21 02:23:45 UTC 2014


No conflicts here.  I didn't use the Jenkins builds the last couple of
times because it seemed to have 13352, plus I'm hoping we're done with
4.5 now that 13680 was released (final).


On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 4:34 PM, Frank Shearar <frank.shearar at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 20 February 2014 22:30, Chris Cunnington <websela at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> OK, well, nobody thinks that's a good idea, so it probably isn't.
>>
>> And yet box2 runs a version of Linux from 2006 or something like that.
>>
>> Sooo, perhaps there's a season for upgrades and I posit that after version of Squeak has been released may be that time.
>> When Frank goes on his trip he knows Jenkins maybe a bit odd because it's been upgraded to a new version? No?
>>
>> In the seasons that are Squeak there probably needs to be a window for this kind of thing.
>
> Maybe run the idea past Chris Muller, because CI impacts 4.5's release
> process. But maybe not heavily: I _think_ I remember Chris & I
> agreeing that a human would take a ReleaseSqueakTrunk artifact and
> give it a final polish anyway, and we do have a release candidate out
> that hasn't had any reported problems...
>
> If Chris is OK with it, and releases 4.5, I think that's a fine time
> to upgrade bits that need upgrading. We froze Jenkins' auto-upgrading
> for a time, but it was a stopgap measure. I just won't be able to help
> out with anything until March.
>
> frank
>
>> Chris
>>
>>
>> On Feb 20, 2014, at 3:51 PM, David T. Lewis <lewis at mail.msen.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Ken, thanks for the explanation. I recognize all of those issues.
>>>
>>> I do think it is more appropriate to use the Jenkins UI to turn off the
>>> problematic jobs until the issues can be addressed, as opposed to shutting
>>> down the whole Jenkins system.
>>>
>>> Yes, some of our Jenkins jobs are wasting a lot of space. Yes, that is a
>>> fixable problem. No I don't think that a bigger disk drive will fix it ;-)
>>>
>>> Dave
>>>
>>>> Let me just list the issues I'm aware of, not that these can all be
>>>> fixed in the same way or require any significant overall downtime.
>>>>
>>>> 1. Jenkins broke some of our build processes with a release months ago.
>>>>  Since that time we have been pinned to a specific release and have not
>>>> updated.  Initially the plan was to be agile and keep up to date with
>>>> Jenkins releases, but no one has found the time to figure out why the
>>>> builds broke or at least the proper way to address the problem.  I know
>>>> Frank tried but he has only so much time and other fish to fry.  I
>>>> approached Chris C as he was the original instigator for Jenkins to try
>>>> to see if he had the interest to help Frank out.
>>>>
>>>> 2. The issue I have harped on about in the past about filling up the
>>>> filesystem on box3.  I'm convinced that Jenkins jobs are wasting space
>>>> somewhere or that maybe there are some jobs that can be deleted?  I'm
>>>> just speculating, but there are a number of jobs that have not succeeded
>>>> in months.  By the way growth has been generally slow of late but we are
>>>> at 97%, no immediate fear but 'vigilance!'.  If ultimately
>>>> build.squeak.org is as big as it is because it has to be, then we
>>>> probably need to approach SFC and see if there is budget to upgrade the
>>>> disk space on box3.  That's not my first choice however.
>>>>
>>>> 3. The issue that Chris has referred to which is that we still get jobs
>>>> stuck fairly regularly that have to be killed manually.
>>>>
>>>> Ken
>>>>
>>>> On 02/20/2014 11:11 AM, David T. Lewis wrote:
>>>>> What problem are we trying to solve here?
>>>>>
>>>>> If there are Jenkins jobs that cause problems, and if those problems
>>>>> cannot be addressed right away, then the appropriate thing to do is
>>>>> disable them using the normal Jenkins console. If an explanation is
>>>>> needed, just update the job description to say what is going on.
>>>>>
>>>>> A little bit of updating of the Jenkins job descriptions would do no
>>>>> harm
>>>>> in any case. Sort of like a class comment: "I am a Jenkins job that
>>>>> tests
>>>>> the FreebleBaz package. If I stop working, please contact
>>>>> bilbo at baggins.org".
>>>>>
>>>>> :)
>>>>>
>>>>> Dave
>>>>>
>>>>>> Ken and I have been thinking of shutting down Jenkins (OK, it was my
>>>>>> idea)
>>>>>> for a week after 4.5 is released. The aim is to address hanging issues.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A week is a long time from a technical point of view, but it allows
>>>>>> people
>>>>>> using it to take a break. Mainly we're thinking of Frank here.
>>>>>> We're thinking of upgrades, disk usage, necessary and un-necessary
>>>>>> builds
>>>>>> (if there are any). Basically stopping that world for a week.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What do you think, Frank? If you are opposed, then we'll chuck this
>>>>>> idea.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Chris
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>


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