[Python-buildbots] Preparing for the GitHub migration

[David Edelsohn]

On Mon, Nov 21, 2016 at 11:27 AM, Zachary Ware
<zachary.ware+pydev at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 10:21 PM, R. David Murray <rdmurray at bitdance.com> wrote:
>> On Fri, 18 Nov 2016 23:52:34 +0000, "Gregory P. Smith" <greg at krypto.org> wrote:
>>> I *believe* where and how the buildbots pull code from is controlled
>>> entirely by the buildbot master/server based on what I see my my own build
>>> slave's log.  So switching is likely easy from that standpoint.
>>
>> Correct, the slave polls the master for jobs, but the master tells
>> the slave exactly what to do.  So either Zach or I need to rewrite
>> the master.cfg on the buildbot master to use git instead of hg.
>
> Yep.  I think buildbot has something specifically for tying into
> GitHub, but I'm not sure if our master is new enough to have it.
> We're a bit past due for an update there anyway, so I'm going to try
> to find time this weekend to both upgrade our master and try out
> GitHub integration.  Changing the source for the builders will be
> simple once the master is looking at GitHub instead of hg.python.org.
>
> As a side note here, how interested are we in upgrading to buildbot
> 0.9.x?  (See https://nine.buildbot.net/ for an example testing
> itself.)  That upgrade will be a much larger project than the GitHub
> switch, but I've been wanting to rewrite the master anyway, and that
> would be a good opportunity to do the 0.9 upgrade.
>
>> However, I don't actually remember how the master finds out about
>> changes, so I'd have to look that up.  Maybe Zach remembers.
>
> We have a hook on hg.python.org that pings the build master when
> changes are pushed.  I'm not sure exactly how GitHub integration will
> work, but since buildbot itself is on GitHub I'm sure it's
> well-supported.

Note that GDB tried to upgrade to the latest builtbot and it was a
spectacular disaster.  The new master is much more complicated and
computationally-expensive in an effort to provide a more beautiful UI.
Without a much more powerful system on which to run master, the
information from the buildbot became useless.  The buildbot also
started to fall behind.

Sergio started to discuss these problems with the buildbot developers.

Please approach a general upgrade to the latest and greatest release
of Buildbot master with a LOT of caution.

Thanks, David