[SAC] build server

[Alex Mandel]

On 09/29/2013 11:44 AM, Martin Spott wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 10:49:02AM -0700, Alex Mandel wrote:
> 
>> Well QGIS already has been running all these builds on their VM, with
>> nice.
> 
> The KVM infrastructure as a whole doesn't benefit from stuff running
> with 'nice' on one of the VM's.
> In other words: I observe the QGIS VM doing a lot of writes - the
> entire VM hosting just one single !!  project - while the Projects VM,
> which is supposed to reside on the same KVM host and hosts half a
> dozend projects (or even more) is suffering from considerable I/O
> latency at the same time.
> 

Good Point. I hadn't noticed because no one complained.

> Not only are QGIS receiving preferred treatment by having their own VM,
> no, at the same time they also hurt other projects by consuming more
> ressources than half a dozend projects consume in total - and I'm
> pretty certain that in the earlier days of this infrastructure there
> was general agreement not to allow build services.
> 

Yes, I believe we never intended to host Code/App building on the
current machines.

> Don't get me wrong, I do *not* generally dislike the QGIS folks or
> their project, but when using a common ressource pool, everybody should
> comply with the same rules.
> 
> Cheers,
> 	Martin.
> 

I think building their docs is fairly appropriate. I'll note QGIS did
get it's own VM, 1. because they asked, 2. because we thought by
separating it we could provide better uptime to other Projects (which
has worked out with regards to apache/ram usage), QGIS issues beyond I/O
have not brought other Projects to a halt.

Long term seems Projects are now asking for help organizing some build
resources. So the question is what can be proposed (QGIS has not ruled
out buying hardware). I've heard others suggest there is hardware
available in other locations, and a build master-slave config could happen.

Yes, I too would like to shift QGIS builds, but I haven't wanted to kick
them off without finding a suitable replacement. Launchpad is out
because it only does Ubuntu and not Debian, and can't be relied on for
nightly builds. There is a preference to keep it all in once place, and
I do see the hosting of the actual debs for download on osgeo servers
100% inline with expected usage.

So I guess I'm fishing for possible solutions, hopefully others can
chime in with options.

Thanks,
Alex