Mailing-List: contact dev-help@couchdb.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: dev@couchdb.apache.org
From: Jan Lehnardt <jan@apache.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Subject: Continuous Integration Redux
Message-Id: <26A44728-ADDB-463E-BAE1-6FE9BD3D5C57@apache.org>
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2015 23:21:46 +0200
To: "dev@couchdb.apache.org Developers" <dev@couchdb.apache.org>,
 Bastian Krol <bastian.krol@tu-dortmund.de>,
 wizard@roborooter.com,
 dominik@brugger.org
Mime-Version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 8.2 \(2098\))

Hey all,

last week I did a bit of outreach on Twitter, trying to grow our CI =
team. =E2=80=9CWhat CI team?=E2=80=9D you ask. =E2=80=94 Exactly.

CouchDB needs world-class continuous integration in order to guarantee =
that we deliver quality software across many platforms and configuration =
without wasting too much time.

In the past, I=E2=80=99ve handled the CI setup =
(http://ci.couchdb.org:8888 / rough docs at: =
http://wiki.apache.org/couchdb/CI where you see that we are a little out =
of date ;) on a Mac Mini in my home. It was meant as a temporary measure =
until a larger team could take over. This never happened and we are =
trying to revive the effort now for the upcoming 2.0 release.

Before you ask: we are already using Travis CI, and it is really nice to =
do baseline checks for ongoing development and Pull Requests, but it is =
inadequate to satisfy all our testing needs. In particular testing on =
multiple operating systems, different operating system versions, =
dependency versions and configurations (and Windows!) =E2=80=94 I=E2=80=99=
m very good personal friends with the Travis team, and they want to work =
towards supporting these things, but it=E2=80=99s nowhere near on their =
roadmap, and we need better CI now.


## There are a bunch of things to do

Before I go into details, I=E2=80=99d like to point out that the most =
important thing we need here is someone, or better a group of people =
that are *interested in assuming ownership of the CouchDB Continuous =
Integration operations*.=20

You=E2=80=99ll be part of a uniquely friendly community and would work =
on something, while sometimes thankless, that would be of incredible =
benefit to the project. And we are here to hold your hands getting =
started. :)

Also, nothing here requires any specific Erlang knowledge. Any test =
suites are up to the Erlang devs in the community and other than that, =
Erlang is just another Unix/Windows binary, nothing special required, =
*and* you have a bunch of experts eager to help you at your disposal :)

And one final prelude item: While these things might seem overly =
specific, it doesn=E2=80=99t really matter how you arrive at what we =
need. One of the appeals of Open Source is to do your own thing and see =
that it helps, so if you have a completely different vision for CI that =
would give us the same or even better benefits, by all means, it=E2=80=99s=
 your show :)

With all that out of the way, there are multiple areas that need =
tackling:

- Coordination with the ASF Infra/CI team for the existing Jenkins setup =
and build-machine configuration (we can continue to use =
ci.couchdb.org:8888 for a while but eventually, this should live on =
ci.apache.org)
- Automation of build-machine configuration with Ansible or whatever =
else floats your boat / is required by ASF Infra.
- Invent system to maintain and extend this going forward, with new =
operating system releases and Erlang versions being released.
- Set up newly minted build-machines with either ci.apache.org or =
ci.couchdb.org:8888 Jenkins installs (ci.apache.org preferred)

This is already a bit of work. I=E2=80=99d recommend to start small:

1. Get one OS in a single configuration going (maybe even just current =
Ubuntu and latest-ish Erlang).
2. Go through the whole process and see it running on master and our =
test branches, set up all the integrations (Github/IRC/Email) etc. just =
to see that we have a full system running, from build-machine config to =
succeeding builds.
3. Only then, start extending to multiple OSs and configurations (of =
course, if you can roll some work for this into step 1., don=E2=80=99t =
hold off on it, but this is only crucial at a later state).


* * *=20

## Configurations

A small sidebar on configurations: the most interesting build variation =
is different Erlang versions. CouchDB supports quite a wide range of =
Erlang versions (R14B01|R14B03|R14B04|R16B02|R16B03-1|17), and =
eventually it=E2=80=99d be nice to test against the whole range, or at =
least the last in a major release line. Erlang also releases preview =
versions of upcoming major versions frequently and being up to speed =
what is going to happen would be nice.

Most other CouchDB dependencies are rather stable. At this point we =
mostly run on SpiderMonkey 1.8.5 and whatever is the latest ICU (icu4c) =
release, but some variation there would be nice as well. Other devs, =
what am I missing?

As for operating systems, like mentioned in the wiki link above, it=E2=80=99=
d be nice to arrive at a policy where we support all current and LTS =
releases of Linux distros/FreeBSD/*BSD/{Solaris,Illumos}/Windows/etc. If =
we get to it, even latest-1 versions. Also interesting are non-x86/ia64 =
architectures, especially embedded ARM things like RasPI. All this is =
nice to have for *way* later, just so you have an idea where this is =
going.

* * *

One last thing that we also want to get going eventually is release =
channels for the various package management systems where the Apache =
CouchDB Project maintains releases in that channel. Ideally, they are =
built and tested on our CI infrastructure on each platform/version =
configuration and ideally of of this is automated, with testing and =
stable channels, so people can test in-development versions for CouchDB =
really easily. All this should make CouchDB a lot easier to install on =
various platforms. But again, this is a little off, and not a primary =
goal just yet.

* * *

Okay, that=E2=80=99s it for now. I hope you are still with me! :)

Thank you Francis and Bastian (in CC) for responding to the call to =
action last week and Dominik, who voiced interest in this at the CouchDB =
Day in Hamburg earlier this year. I=E2=80=99ll be pointing more folks to =
this mailing list post, so I hope we=E2=80=99ll get some more to join.

If you know anyone partial to these topics, please point them here as =
well!

If you have any questions, feel free to ask here or on Freenode IRC =
#couchdb or #couchdb-dev, but for now, the mailing list is probably =
best, with IRC being reserved for hashing out details that need higher =
bandwidth.

Thanks for reading and I hope we can get this off the ground! :)

Best
Jan
--=20
Professional Support for Apache CouchDB:
http://www.neighbourhood.ie/couchdb-support/