
It having been suggested that a buildbot for Windows may be needed, and it being possible that I may receive permission from management for setting one up in my department's server room, I set about attempting to discover what this actually entails. A Google search led me to https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/BuildBot, which tells me that "Buildbot is currently down, and we are working on a replacement. See Builder for more details." If I follow the 'down' link , I get to the GHC status April 2010 page, which says that buildbot has been abandoned, suggesting that the page should be deleted. Could someone confirm before I go ahead and delete it? The Builder page has clear instructions on how to set up a build slave, and a link to the build results. The build results contains an assortment of dud links and builds from August and earlier. What is the current state of automated builds? -- View this message in context: http://haskell.1045720.n5.nabble.com/Buildbots-tp5746770.html Sent from the Haskell - Glasgow-haskell-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Hi, Gabor Pali provides his own builder server infrastructure for now when GHC's HQ is not working. Please have a look at http://haskell.inf.elte.hu/builders/ and contact Gabor for more details (he is cced). Thanks! Karel On 04/ 1/14 09:42 AM, harry wrote:
It having been suggested that a buildbot for Windows may be needed, and it being possible that I may receive permission from management for setting one up in my department's server room, I set about attempting to discover what this actually entails.
A Google search led me to https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/BuildBot, which tells me that "Buildbot is currently down, and we are working on a replacement. See Builder for more details." If I follow the 'down' link , I get to the GHC status April 2010 page, which says that buildbot has been abandoned, suggesting that the page should be deleted. Could someone confirm before I go ahead and delete it?
The Builder page has clear instructions on how to set up a build slave, and a link to the build results. The build results contains an assortment of dud links and builds from August and earlier.
What is the current state of automated builds?
-- View this message in context: http://haskell.1045720.n5.nabble.com/Buildbots-tp5746770.html Sent from the Haskell - Glasgow-haskell-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ Glasgow-haskell-users mailing list Glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-users

We now have a (Linux) travis-ci buildbot so we should be able to use
whatever script that buildbot runs.
To make a full validate you simply check out the source repos and run:
CPUS=N sh validate
(CPUS=N is optional of course.)
On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 9:42 AM, harry
It having been suggested that a buildbot for Windows may be needed, and it being possible that I may receive permission from management for setting one up in my department's server room, I set about attempting to discover what this actually entails.
A Google search led me to https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/BuildBot, which tells me that "Buildbot is currently down, and we are working on a replacement. See Builder for more details." If I follow the 'down' link , I get to the GHC status April 2010 page, which says that buildbot has been abandoned, suggesting that the page should be deleted. Could someone confirm before I go ahead and delete it?
The Builder page has clear instructions on how to set up a build slave, and a link to the build results. The build results contains an assortment of dud links and builds from August and earlier.
What is the current state of automated builds?
-- View this message in context: http://haskell.1045720.n5.nabble.com/Buildbots-tp5746770.html Sent from the Haskell - Glasgow-haskell-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ Glasgow-haskell-users mailing list Glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-users

Johan Tibell-2 wrote
We now have a (Linux) travis-ci buildbot so we should be able to use whatever script that buildbot runs.
Does this mean that the Builder page is also no longer relevant? And if so, how could a Windows buildbot be set up? -- View this message in context: http://haskell.1045720.n5.nabble.com/Buildbots-tp5746770p5746774.html Sent from the Haskell - Glasgow-haskell-users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 10:07 AM, harry
Johan Tibell-2 wrote
We now have a (Linux) travis-ci buildbot so we should be able to use whatever script that buildbot runs.
Does this mean that the Builder page is also no longer relevant? And if so, how could a Windows buildbot be set up?
I don't know whether the old buildbot is still in use. I haven't seen any emails from it in quite a while. I'll wait for some other people on the list to chime in.

Friends The nightly-build infrastructure for GHC is in disarray, and we could really do with help. We really want * Continuous integration so that new test failures show up fast * Nightly builds on a variety of platforms, giving snapshots that are easy to install Originally we used Buildbot (http://buildbot.net/). Then in 2010 Ian Lynagh put a lot of work into a build-bot infrastructure, implemented in Haskell as an open-source project, GHC Builder (https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Builder). See https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Status/Apr10#Nightlybuilds for the reasoning at the time. As I understand it, Builder never "caught fire", and now that Ian has moved on I don't know that anyone is maintaining it; nor are the various builders working so far as I know. Perhaps competing technology has moved on, so that the original rationale no longer holds? I'm not sure. Regardless, we lack leadership in this area. Joachim Breitner has set up Travis-CI. (I don't know exactly what that is, but it sounds useful.) Others have indicated interest/willingness. But it would be fantastic to have a person, or (more plausibly) a small group who assumed leadership. An early question would be: to continue to use a DIY system (Builder), or to move to some other better-supported (but perhaps less malleable) system. I don't even know what the options are. Others will be better informed than me about all this... we'd love to hear from you. Thank you! Simon | -----Original Message----- | From: Glasgow-haskell-users [mailto:glasgow-haskell-users- | bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of harry | Sent: 01 April 2014 08:42 | To: glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org | Subject: Buildbots | | It having been suggested that a buildbot for Windows may be needed, and | it | being possible that I may receive permission from management for setting | one | up in my department's server room, I set about attempting to discover | what | this actually entails. | | A Google search led me to https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/BuildBot, | which tells me that "Buildbot is currently down, and we are working on a | replacement. See Builder for more details." If I follow the 'down' link , | I | get to the GHC status April 2010 page, which says that buildbot has been | abandoned, suggesting that the page should be deleted. Could someone | confirm | before I go ahead and delete it? | | The Builder page has clear instructions on how to set up a build slave, | and | a link to the build results. The build results contains an assortment of | dud | links and builds from August and earlier. | | What is the current state of automated builds? | | | | -- | View this message in context: | http://haskell.1045720.n5.nabble.com/Buildbots-tp5746770.html | Sent from the Haskell - Glasgow-haskell-users mailing list archive at | Nabble.com. | _______________________________________________ | Glasgow-haskell-users mailing list | Glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org | http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-users

Hi, Am Dienstag, den 01.04.2014, 10:25 +0000 schrieb Simon Peyton Jones:
Joachim Breitner has set up Travis-CI. (I don't know exactly what that is, but it sounds useful.)
Travis is a free cloud service that runs arbitrary tests (in our case, a stripped version of validate) upon pushes to git repositories on github. I set it up to validate our master, so we get a nice history of successes and failures on https://travis-ci.org/nomeata/ghc-complete/builds and I get mails when things fail; that is when I send hopefully polite enough mails to ghc-dev, asking people to fix their commits. (Unless I broke it myself; then I silently fix it and hide.) It is a makeshift solution until we get our own infrastructure working.
An early question would be: to continue to use a DIY system (Builder), or to move to some other better-supported (but perhaps less malleable) system. I don't even know what the options are.
Sigh, test infrastructure are like content management systems: There are plenty out there to choose from, all can do lots of things one does not need, but none can do all, so one starts writing something selfmade, which eventually evolves in yet another of these beasts, just with fewer users. I’d recommend a move to existing, proven tools. Unfortunately, I cannot give advice as to what tool to move to. But if all these¹ projects are happy with buildbot, it might not be the worst choice. ¹ http://trac.buildbot.net/wiki/SuccessStories Greetings, Joachim -- Joachim “nomeata” Breitner mail@joachim-breitner.de • http://www.joachim-breitner.de/ Jabber: nomeata@joachim-breitner.de • GPG-Key: 0x4743206C Debian Developer: nomeata@debian.org

Hi Joachim: From what I understand Travis CI limits running time for each build. We may be able to create binaries of stage1 and/or stage2 in one build and test them in another. We could also fan out the test process using a Build Matrix to let GHC's full suite fit into the time limit as fragments. That would require some changes to the testsuite or some lengthy build scripts for each segment that explicitly run many "make TEST=sometest" commands. I had to do something similar at Verafin because the whole test suite was taking too long as a whole unit. I split it into builds for each separate module and used more build agents so they could run in parallel. Verafin is using TeamCity, but I think the concepts are achievable in Buildbot or Travis CI. In my opinion, the best build and CI system is the one you can get working. Best, Alain
On Apr 1, 2014, at 10:46, Joachim Breitner
wrote: Hi,
Am Dienstag, den 01.04.2014, 10:25 +0000 schrieb Simon Peyton Jones:
Joachim Breitner has set up Travis-CI. (I don't know exactly what that is, but it sounds useful.)
Travis is a free cloud service that runs arbitrary tests (in our case, a stripped version of validate) upon pushes to git repositories on github. I set it up to validate our master, so we get a nice history of successes and failures on https://travis-ci.org/nomeata/ghc-complete/builds and I get mails when things fail; that is when I send hopefully polite enough mails to ghc-dev, asking people to fix their commits.
(Unless I broke it myself; then I silently fix it and hide.)
It is a makeshift solution until we get our own infrastructure working.
An early question would be: to continue to use a DIY system (Builder), or to move to some other better-supported (but perhaps less malleable) system. I don't even know what the options are.
Sigh, test infrastructure are like content management systems: There are plenty out there to choose from, all can do lots of things one does not need, but none can do all, so one starts writing something selfmade, which eventually evolves in yet another of these beasts, just with fewer users.
I’d recommend a move to existing, proven tools. Unfortunately, I cannot give advice as to what tool to move to. But if all these¹ projects are happy with buildbot, it might not be the worst choice.
¹ http://trac.buildbot.net/wiki/SuccessStories
Greetings, Joachim -- Joachim “nomeata” Breitner mail@joachim-breitner.de • http://www.joachim-breitner.de/ Jabber: nomeata@joachim-breitner.de • GPG-Key: 0x4743206C Debian Developer: nomeata@debian.org _______________________________________________ ghc-devs mailing list ghc-devs@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs

Hi, Am Dienstag, den 01.04.2014, 11:08 +0000 schrieb Alain O'Dea:
From what I understand Travis CI limits running time for each build. We may be able to create binaries of stage1 and/or stage2 in one build and test them in another. We could also fan out the test process using a Build Matrix to let GHC's full suite fit into the time limit as fragments. That would require some changes to the testsuite or some lengthy build scripts for each segment that explicitly run many "make TEST=sometest" commands.
The main problem with Travis is that it only tests on one architecture. There are more (e.g. very undetailed reporting compared to a buildbot waterfall/grid) Hence: Travis is _not_ going to be a solution for us; we will want our own infrastructure. Greetings, Joachim -- Joachim “nomeata” Breitner mail@joachim-breitner.de • http://www.joachim-breitner.de/ Jabber: nomeata@joachim-breitner.de • GPG-Key: 0x4743206C Debian Developer: nomeata@debian.org

Hi,
On Apr 1, 2014, at 11:11, Joachim Breitner
wrote: Hi,
Am Dienstag, den 01.04.2014, 11:08 +0000 schrieb Alain O'Dea:
From what I understand Travis CI limits running time for each build. We may be able to create binaries of stage1 and/or stage2 in one build and test them in another. We could also fan out the test process using a Build Matrix to let GHC's full suite fit into the time limit as fragments. That would require some changes to the testsuite or some lengthy build scripts for each segment that explicitly run many "make TEST=sometest" commands.
The main problem with Travis is that it only tests on one architecture. There are more (e.g. very undetailed reporting compared to a buildbot waterfall/grid)
Good points.
Hence: Travis is _not_ going to be a solution for us; we will want our own infrastructure.
I'm happy to assist with getting whatever system fits the bill working. It seems like Buildbot should. Where can we get infrastructure on multiple architectures easily? I imagine we may need to mix and match.
Greetings, Joachim
-- Joachim “nomeata” Breitner mail@joachim-breitner.de • http://www.joachim-breitner.de/ Jabber: nomeata@joachim-breitner.de • GPG-Key: 0x4743206C Debian Developer: nomeata@debian.org

Hi, I'm curious why not to use what's already written by Ian and others and which is currently running again? E.g. Janos Gabor Pali was so nice to start and keep builder server running on http://haskell.inf.elte.hu/builders/ Just few are there, but others may be added. Just send email to Janos to get the credentials and more information about what to get from where (recent builder client is needed). Perhaps we shall more advertise this option on GHC's builder wiki page? Thanks, Karel On 04/ 1/14 01:11 PM, Joachim Breitner wrote:
Hence: Travis is _not_ going to be a solution for us; we will want our own infrastructure.

Indeed, there is no reason not to use Ian et al's Builder stuff. It's one of the options. But it depends on a critical evaluation of what the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches are Simon | -----Original Message----- | From: Glasgow-haskell-users [mailto:glasgow-haskell-users- | bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Karel Gardas | Sent: 01 April 2014 12:46 | To: Joachim Breitner; ghc-devs@haskell.org; Páli Gábor János | Cc: glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org | Subject: Re: Buildbots | | | Hi, | | I'm curious why not to use what's already written by Ian and others and | which is currently running again? E.g. Janos Gabor Pali was so nice to | start and keep builder server running on | http://haskell.inf.elte.hu/builders/ | | Just few are there, but others may be added. Just send email to Janos to | get the credentials and more information about what to get from where | (recent builder client is needed). | | Perhaps we shall more advertise this option on GHC's builder wiki page? | | Thanks, | Karel | | | On 04/ 1/14 01:11 PM, Joachim Breitner wrote: | > Hence: Travis is _not_ going to be a solution for us; we will want our | > own infrastructure. | _______________________________________________ | Glasgow-haskell-users mailing list | Glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org | http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-users

I'm going to read up on Ian's Buildbot work and experiment with that in the meantime. If other challenges come up I'm glad to dive in and help.
On Apr 1, 2014, at 12:03, Simon Peyton Jones
wrote: Indeed, there is no reason not to use Ian et al's Builder stuff. It's one of the options. But it depends on a critical evaluation of what the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches are
Simon
| -----Original Message----- | From: Glasgow-haskell-users [mailto:glasgow-haskell-users- | bounces@haskell.org] On Behalf Of Karel Gardas | Sent: 01 April 2014 12:46 | To: Joachim Breitner; ghc-devs@haskell.org; Páli Gábor János | Cc: glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org | Subject: Re: Buildbots | | | Hi, | | I'm curious why not to use what's already written by Ian and others and | which is currently running again? E.g. Janos Gabor Pali was so nice to | start and keep builder server running on | http://haskell.inf.elte.hu/builders/ | | Just few are there, but others may be added. Just send email to Janos to | get the credentials and more information about what to get from where | (recent builder client is needed). | | Perhaps we shall more advertise this option on GHC's builder wiki page? | | Thanks, | Karel | | | On 04/ 1/14 01:11 PM, Joachim Breitner wrote: | > Hence: Travis is _not_ going to be a solution for us; we will want our | > own infrastructure. | _______________________________________________ | Glasgow-haskell-users mailing list | Glasgow-haskell-users@haskell.org | http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-users _______________________________________________ ghc-devs mailing list ghc-devs@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs

2014-04-01 14:03 GMT+02:00 Simon Peyton Jones
Indeed, there is no reason not to use Ian et al's Builder stuff. It's one of the options. But it depends on a critical evaluation of what the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches are
I found Ian's buildbot an appealing alternative as it does a full build, including testing, and uploads the resulting binaries to a common place where anybody can access them (but it can be configured to do almost anything). The builders may be configured individually from a single (Haskell-language) configuration file and they are run on various volunteer-supplied systems so it is also distributed. I use this to keep track of the status of the FreeBSD builds to make my work easier on building the releases and maintaining the associated ports in the FreeBSD Ports Collection, while offering regular developer snapshots for the users. This approach also allows me to control and maintain the builder environment too as it may require minor or major changes and fixes over time that I can do myself as a FreeBSD developer. In the past, there were cases where the build was failing due to bugs in the kernel or the userland, so this is not purely about GHC itself (unfortunately). In my humble opinon, there are merits for the Travis-based Continuous Integration, so as for the daily snapshot building on each supported platform. I do not care if it is not Haskell-based or it is hosted at a central place with individual Virtual Machines for each platform -- until I can keep doing what I have been doing for 4 years now.

hey all, I just exported the igloo builder code from darcs to git, and put
it here https://github.com/cartazio/ghc-builder
would this be something worth adding to github.com/haskell ? (i can easily
add it if other folks it should be surfaced more visibly)
On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 11:04 AM, Páli Gábor János
2014-04-01 14:03 GMT+02:00 Simon Peyton Jones
: Indeed, there is no reason not to use Ian et al's Builder stuff. It's one of the options. But it depends on a critical evaluation of what the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches are
I found Ian's buildbot an appealing alternative as it does a full build, including testing, and uploads the resulting binaries to a common place where anybody can access them (but it can be configured to do almost anything). The builders may be configured individually from a single (Haskell-language) configuration file and they are run on various volunteer-supplied systems so it is also distributed.
I use this to keep track of the status of the FreeBSD builds to make my work easier on building the releases and maintaining the associated ports in the FreeBSD Ports Collection, while offering regular developer snapshots for the users. This approach also allows me to control and maintain the builder environment too as it may require minor or major changes and fixes over time that I can do myself as a FreeBSD developer. In the past, there were cases where the build was failing due to bugs in the kernel or the userland, so this is not purely about GHC itself (unfortunately).
In my humble opinon, there are merits for the Travis-based Continuous Integration, so as for the daily snapshot building on each supported platform. I do not care if it is not Haskell-based or it is hosted at a central place with individual Virtual Machines for each platform -- until I can keep doing what I have been doing for 4 years now. _______________________________________________ ghc-devs mailing list ghc-devs@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs

Thank you Carter. I think it's reasonable to incubate it on your Github profile for now until we are certain it is fully working again. Either way works though :) Best, Alain
On Apr 1, 2014, at 17:45, Carter Schonwald
wrote: hey all, I just exported the igloo builder code from darcs to git, and put it here https://github.com/cartazio/ghc-builder would this be something worth adding to github.com/haskell ? (i can easily add it if other folks it should be surfaced more visibly)
On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 11:04 AM, Páli Gábor János
wrote: 2014-04-01 14:03 GMT+02:00 Simon Peyton Jones : Indeed, there is no reason not to use Ian et al's Builder stuff. It's one of the options. But it depends on a critical evaluation of what the advantages and disadvantages of different approaches are
I found Ian's buildbot an appealing alternative as it does a full build, including testing, and uploads the resulting binaries to a common place where anybody can access them (but it can be configured to do almost anything). The builders may be configured individually from a single (Haskell-language) configuration file and they are run on various volunteer-supplied systems so it is also distributed.
I use this to keep track of the status of the FreeBSD builds to make my work easier on building the releases and maintaining the associated ports in the FreeBSD Ports Collection, while offering regular developer snapshots for the users. This approach also allows me to control and maintain the builder environment too as it may require minor or major changes and fixes over time that I can do myself as a FreeBSD developer. In the past, there were cases where the build was failing due to bugs in the kernel or the userland, so this is not purely about GHC itself (unfortunately).
In my humble opinon, there are merits for the Travis-based Continuous Integration, so as for the daily snapshot building on each supported platform. I do not care if it is not Haskell-based or it is hosted at a central place with individual Virtual Machines for each platform -- until I can keep doing what I have been doing for 4 years now. _______________________________________________ ghc-devs mailing list ghc-devs@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs
_______________________________________________ ghc-devs mailing list ghc-devs@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs

2014-04-01 20:15 GMT+02:00 Alain O'Dea
until we are certain it is fully working again.
In what sense? I have been using the latest checkout from the darcs repository for both the server and the clients, I seldom experienced any serious problems. Of course, there is place for improvements and there are some rough edges, but I think it is quite usable, even in its current state.

good to know (i assumed it was in working order from your remarks)
I think making it more surfaced / discoverable might enable a lot more
volunteer build bots (which is an issue aside from maintaining it)
of course, officially moving it to github should be with ian's blessing,
its mostly his work afaik :)
On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 2:45 PM, Páli Gábor János
2014-04-01 20:15 GMT+02:00 Alain O'Dea
: until we are certain it is fully working again.
In what sense? I have been using the latest checkout from the darcs repository for both the server and the clients, I seldom experienced any serious problems. Of course, there is place for improvements and there are some rough edges, but I think it is quite usable, even in its current state. _______________________________________________ ghc-devs mailing list ghc-devs@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs

2014-04-01 20:50 GMT+02:00 Carter Schonwald
I think making it more surfaced / discoverable might enable a lot more volunteer build bots (which is an issue aside from maintaining it)
As Karel has indicated, I have been already running an instance of the server and I am generally open to adding further clients, if you think this would be useful. Perhaps the only limitation would be the disk space for storing all the snapshots builds for all the all clients, but I could easily solve this problem :-) Or, if you want to move the whole service to some more official place, e.g. under the haskell.org infrastructure, I am happy to help with restarting the service, I already earned some experience in running both sides over the years.

On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 12:46 PM, Joachim Breitner
Hi,
Am Dienstag, den 01.04.2014, 10:25 +0000 schrieb Simon Peyton Jones:
Joachim Breitner has set up Travis-CI. (I don't know exactly what that is, but it sounds useful.)
Travis is a free cloud service that runs arbitrary tests (in our case, a stripped version of validate) upon pushes to git repositories on github. I set it up to validate our master, so we get a nice history of successes and failures on https://travis-ci.org/nomeata/ghc-complete/builds and I get mails when things fail; that is when I send hopefully polite enough mails to ghc-dev, asking people to fix their commits.
(Unless I broke it myself; then I silently fix it and hide.)
If the false positive rate is low, feel free to automatically have the emails sent to ghc-devs@. We want to know when we broke stuff ASAP.

On Tue, Apr 01, 2014 at 12:46:05PM +0200, Joachim Breitner wrote:
happy with buildbot, it might not be the worst choice.
For reference, the reason we moved away from buildbot is that it needs to maintain a TCP connection for the duration of the build. With some builds taking many hours (either on old platforms, or on modern hardware but with a full testsuite run and nofib etc) it was common that a brief network glitch caused a build to not finish. Thanks Ian
participants (9)
-
Alain O'Dea
-
Carter Schonwald
-
harry
-
Ian Lynagh
-
Joachim Breitner
-
Johan Tibell
-
Karel Gardas
-
Páli Gábor János
-
Simon Peyton Jones