Installation
============
.. _Buildbot-Components:
Buildbot Components
-------------------
Buildbot is shipped in two components: the *buildmaster* (called ``buildbot``
for legacy reasons) and the *buildslave*. The buildslave component has far fewer
requirements, and is more broadly compatible than the buildmaster. You will
need to carefully pick the environment in which to run your buildmaster, but
the buildslave should be able to run just about anywhere.
It is possible to install the buildmaster and buildslave on the same system,
although for anything but the smallest installation this arrangement will not
be very efficient.
.. _Requirements:
Requirements
------------
.. _Common-Requirements:
Common Requirements
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
At a bare minimum, you'll need the following for both the buildmaster and a
buildslave:
Python: http://www.python.org
Buildbot requires Python-2.5 or later on the master, although Python-2.7 is
recommended. The slave run on Python-2.4.
Twisted: http://twistedmatrix.com
Buildbot requires Twisted-11.0.0 or later on the master, and Twisted-8.1.0 on the slave.
In upcoming versions of Buildbot, a newer Twisted will also be required on the slave.
As always, the most recent version is recommended.
In some cases, Twisted is delivered as a collection of subpackages. You'll
need at least "Twisted" (the core package), and you'll also want
`TwistedMail`_, `TwistedWeb`_, and `TwistedWords`_ (for sending email,
serving a web status page, and delivering build status via IRC,
respectively). You might also want `TwistedConch`_ (for the encrypted Manhole
debug port). Note that Twisted requires ZopeInterface to be installed as
well.
Of course, your project's build process will impose additional
requirements on the buildslaves. These hosts must have all the tools
necessary to compile and test your project's source code.
Windows Support
'''''''''''''''
Buildbot - both master and slave - runs well natively on Windows. The slave runs
well on Cygwin, but because of problems with SQLite on Cygwin, the master does
not.
Buildbot's windows testing is limited to the most recent Twisted and Python
versions. For best results, use the most recent available versions of these
libraries on Windows.
Pywin32: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/
Twisted requires PyWin32 in order to spawn processes on Windows.
.. _Buildmaster-Requirements:
Buildmaster Requirements
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
sqlite3: http://www.sqlite.org
Buildbot requires SQLite to store its state. Version 3.7.0 or higher is
recommended, although Buildbot will run against earlier versions -- at the
risk of "Database is locked" errors. The minimum version is 3.4.0, below
which parallel database queries and schema introspection fail.
pysqlite: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pysqlite
The SQLite Python package is required for Python-2.5 and earlier (it is already
included in Python-2.5 and later, but the version in Python-2.5 has nasty bugs)
simplejson: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/simplejson
The simplejson package is required for Python-2.5 and earlier (it is already
included as json in Python-2.6 and later)
Jinja2: http://jinja.pocoo.org/
Buildbot requires Jinja version 2.1 or higher.
Jinja2 is a general purpose templating language and is used by Buildbot
to generate the HTML output.
SQLAlchemy: http://www.sqlalchemy.org/
Buildbot requires SQLAlchemy 0.6.0 or higher. SQLAlchemy allows Buildbot to
build database schemas and queries for a wide variety of database systems.
SQLAlchemy-Migrate: http://code.google.com/p/sqlalchemy-migrate/
Buildbot requires one of the following SQLAlchemy-Migrate versions:
0.6.1, 0.7.0, and 0.7.1. Sadly, Migrate's inter-version compatibility is not
good, so other versions - newer or older - are unlikely to work correctly.
Buildbot uses SQLAlchemy-Migrate to manage schema upgrades from version to
version.
Python-Dateutil: http://labix.org/python-dateutil
The Nightly scheduler requires Python-Dateutil version 1.5 (the last version
to support Python-2.x). This is a small, pure-python library. Buildbot will
function properly without it if the Nightlys scheduler is not used.
.. _Installing-the-code:
Installing the code
-------------------
The Distribution Package
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Buildbot comes in two parts: ``buildbot`` (the master) and
``buildbot-slave`` (the slave). The two can be installed individually or
together.
Installation From PyPI
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The preferred way to install Buildbot is using ``pip``. For the master:
.. code-block:: bash
pip install buildbot
and for the slave:
.. code-block:: bash
pip install buildbot-slave
When using ``pip`` to install instead of distribution specific package manangers,
e.g. via `apt-get` or `ports`, it is simpler to choose exactly which version one wants
to use. It may however be easier to install via distribution specific package mangers
but note that they may provide an earlier version than what is available via ``pip``.
Installation From Tarballs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Buildbot and Buildslave are installed using the standard Python
`distutils <http://docs.python.org/library/distutils.html>`_ process. For either
component, after unpacking the tarball, the process is:
.. code-block:: bash
python setup.py build
python setup.py install
where the install step may need to be done as root. This will put the bulk of
the code in somewhere like :file:`/usr/lib/pythonx.y/site-packages/buildbot`. It
will also install the :command:`buildbot` command-line tool in
:file:`/usr/bin/buildbot`.
If the environment variable ``$NO_INSTALL_REQS`` is set to ``1``, then
:file:`setup.py` will not try to install Buildbot's requirements. This is
usually only useful when building a Buildbot package.
To test this, shift to a different directory (like :file:`/tmp`), and run:
.. code-block:: bash
buildbot --version
# or
buildslave --version
If it shows you the versions of Buildbot and Twisted, the install went
ok. If it says "no such command" or it gets an ``ImportError``
when it tries to load the libraries, then something went wrong.
``pydoc buildbot`` is another useful diagnostic tool.
Windows users will find these files in other places. You will need to
make sure that Python can find the libraries, and will probably find
it convenient to have :command:`buildbot` on your :envvar:`PATH`.
.. _Installation-in-a-Virtualenv:
Installation in a Virtualenv
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you cannot or do not wish to install the buildbot into a site-wide
location like :file:`/usr` or :file:`/usr/local`, you can also install
it into the account's home directory or any other location using a tool like
`virtualenv <http://pypi.python.org/pypi/virtualenv>`_.
.. _Running-Buildbots-Tests-optional:
Running Buildbot's Tests (optional)
-----------------------------------
If you wish, you can run the buildbot unit test suite. First, ensure you have
the `mock <http://pypi.python.org/pypi/mock>`_ Python module installed from
PyPi. This module is not required for ordinary Buildbot operation - only to
run the tests. Note that this is not the same as the Fedora ``mock``
package! You can check with
.. code-block:: bash
python -mmock
Then, run the tests:
.. code-block:: bash
PYTHONPATH=. trial buildbot.test
# or
PYTHONPATH=. trial buildslave.test
Nothing should fail, although a few might be skipped.
If any of the tests fail for reasons other than a missing ``mock``, you
should stop and investigate the cause before continuing the installation
process, as it will probably be easier to track down the bug early. In most
cases, the problem is incorrectly installed Python modules or a badly
configured ``PYTHONPATH``. This may be a good time to contact the Buildbot
developers for help.
.. _Creating-a-buildmaster:
Creating a buildmaster
----------------------
As you learned earlier (:ref:`System-Architecture`), the buildmaster
runs on a central host (usually one that is publicly visible, so
everybody can check on the status of the project), and controls all
aspects of the buildbot system
You will probably wish to create a separate user account for the buildmaster,
perhaps named ``buildmaster``. Do not run the buildmaster as ``root``!
You need to choose a directory for the buildmaster, called the
``basedir``. This directory will be owned by the buildmaster. It will
contain configuration, the database, and status information - including
logfiles. On a large buildmaster this directory will see a lot of activity, so
it should be on a disk with adequate space and speed.
Once you've picked a directory, use the ``buildbot
create-master`` command to create the directory and populate it with
startup files:
.. code-block:: bash
buildbot create-master -r basedir
You will need to create a :ref:`configuration file <Configuration>`
before starting the buildmaster. Most of the rest of this manual is
dedicated to explaining how to do this. A sample configuration file is
placed in the working directory, named :file:`master.cfg.sample`, which
can be copied to :file:`master.cfg` and edited to suit your purposes.
(Internal details: This command creates a file named
:file:`buildbot.tac` that contains all the state necessary to create
the buildmaster. Twisted has a tool called ``twistd`` which can use
this .tac file to create and launch a buildmaster instance. twistd
takes care of logging and daemonization (running the program in the
background). :file:`/usr/bin/buildbot` is a front end which runs `twistd`
for you.)
Using A Database Server
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you want to use a database server (e.g., MySQL or Postgres) as the database
backend for your Buildbot, add the ``--db`` option to the ``create-master``
invocation to specify the :ref:`connection string <Database-Specification>` for
the database, and make sure that the same URL appears in the ``db_url`` of the
:bb:cfg:`db` parameter in your configuration file.
Additional Requirements
'''''''''''''''''''''''
Depending on the selected database, further Python packages will be required.
Consult the SQLAlchemy dialect list for a full description. The most common
choice for MySQL is
MySQL-python: http://mysql-python.sourceforge.net/
To communicate with MySQL, SQLAlchemy requires MySQL-python. Any reasonably
recent version of MySQL-python should suffice.
The most common choice for Postgres is
Psycopg: http://initd.org/psycopg/
SQLAlchemy uses Psycopg to communicate with Postgres. Any reasonably
recent version should suffice.
Buildmaster Options
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This section lists options to the ``create-master`` command.
You can also type ``buildbot create-master --help`` for an up-to-the-moment summary.
``--force``
With this option, @command{create-master} will re-use an existing master
directory.
``--no-logrotate``
This disables internal buildslave log management mechanism. With this option
buildslave does not override the default logfile name and its behaviour giving
a possibility to control those with command-line options of twistd daemon.
``--relocatable``
This creates a "relocatable" buildbot.tac, which uses relative paths instead
of absolute paths, so that the buildmaster directory can be moved about.
``--config``
The name of the configuration file to use. This configuration file need not
reside in the buildmaster directory.
``--log-size``
This is the size in bytes when to rotate the Twisted log files. The default is
10MiB.
``--log-count``
This is the number of log rotations to keep around. You can either
specify a number or ``None`` to keep all @file{twistd.log} files
around. The default is 10.
``--db``
The database that the Buildmaster should use. Note that the same value must be
added to the configuration file.
.. _Upgrading-an-Existing-Buildmaster:
Upgrading an Existing Buildmaster
---------------------------------
If you have just installed a new version of the Buildbot code, and you
have buildmasters that were created using an older version, you'll
need to upgrade these buildmasters before you can use them. The
upgrade process adds and modifies files in the buildmaster's base
directory to make it compatible with the new code.
.. code-block:: bash
buildbot upgrade-master basedir
This command will also scan your :file:`master.cfg` file for
incompatibilities (by loading it and printing any errors or deprecation
warnings that occur). Each buildbot release tries to be compatible
with configurations that worked cleanly (i.e. without deprecation
warnings) on the previous release: any functions or classes that are
to be removed will first be deprecated in a release, to give you a
chance to start using the replacement.
The ``upgrade-master`` command is idempotent. It is safe to run it
multiple times. After each upgrade of the buildbot code, you should
use ``upgrade-master`` on all your buildmasters.
In general, Buildbot slaves and masters can be upgraded independently, although
some new features will not be available, depending on the master and slave
versions.
Beyond this general information, read all of the sections below that apply to
versions through which you are upgrading.
.. _Buildmaster-Version-specific-Notes:
Version-specific Notes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Upgrading a Buildmaster to Buildbot-0.7.6
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
The 0.7.6 release introduced the :file:`public_html/` directory, which
contains :file:`index.html` and other files served by the
``WebStatus`` and ``Waterfall`` status displays. The
``upgrade-master`` command will create these files if they do not
already exist. It will not modify existing copies, but it will write a
new copy in e.g. :file:`index.html.new` if the new version differs from
the version that already exists.
Upgrading a Buildmaster to Buildbot-0.8.0
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Buildbot-0.8.0 introduces a database backend, which is SQLite by default. The
``upgrade-master`` command will automatically create and populate this
database with the changes the buildmaster has seen. Note that, as of this
release, build history is *not* contained in the database, and is thus not
migrated.
The upgrade process renames the Changes pickle (``$basedir/changes.pck``) to
``changes.pck.old`` once the upgrade is complete. To reverse the upgrade,
simply downgrade Buildbot and move this file back to its original name. You
may also wish to delete the state database (``state.sqlite``).
Upgrading into a non-SQLite database
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
If you are not using sqlite, you will need to add an entry into your
:file:`master.cfg` to reflect the database version you are using. The upgrade
process does *not* edit your :file:`master.cfg` for you. So something like:
.. code-block:: python
# for using mysql:
c['db_url'] = 'mysql://bbuser:<password>@localhost/buildbot'
Once the parameter has been added, invoke ``upgrade-master``.
This will extract the DB url from your configuration file.
.. code-block:: bash
buildbot upgrade-master
See :ref:`Database-Specification` for more options to specify a database.
Change Encoding Issues
######################
The upgrade process assumes that strings in your Changes pickle are encoded in
UTF-8 (or plain ASCII). If this is not the case, and if there are non-UTF-8
characters in the pickle, the upgrade will fail with a suitable error message.
If this occurs, you have two options. If the change history is not important
to your purpose, you can simply delete :file:`changes.pck`.
If you would like to keep the change history, then you will need to figure out
which encoding is in use, and use
:file:`contrib/fix_changes_pickle_encoding.py` (:ref:`Contrib-Scripts`)
to rewrite the changes pickle into Unicode before upgrading the master. A
typical invocation (with Mac-Roman encoding) might look like:
.. code-block:: bash
$ python $buildbot/contrib/fix_changes_pickle_encoding.py changes.pck macroman
decoding bytestrings in changes.pck using macroman
converted 11392 strings
backing up changes.pck to changes.pck.old
If your Changes pickle uses multiple encodings, you're on your own, but the
script in contrib may provide a good starting point for the fix.
.. _Upgrading-a-Buildmaster-to-Later-Version:
Upgrading a Buildmaster to Later Versions
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Up to Buildbot version |version|, no further steps beyond those described
above are required.
.. _Creating-a-buildslave:
Creating a buildslave
---------------------
Typically, you will be adding a buildslave to an existing buildmaster,
to provide additional architecture coverage. The buildbot
administrator will give you several pieces of information necessary to
connect to the buildmaster. You should also be somewhat familiar with
the project being tested, so you can troubleshoot build problems
locally.
The buildbot exists to make sure that the project's stated ``how to
build it`` process actually works. To this end, the buildslave should
run in an environment just like that of your regular developers.
Typically the project build process is documented somewhere
(:file:`README`, :file:`INSTALL`, etc), in a document that should
mention all library dependencies and contain a basic set of build
instructions. This document will be useful as you configure the host
and account in which the buildslave runs.
Here's a good checklist for setting up a buildslave:
1. Set up the account
It is recommended (although not mandatory) to set up a separate user
account for the buildslave. This account is frequently named
``buildbot`` or ``buildslave``. This serves to isolate your
personal working environment from that of the slave's, and helps to
minimize the security threat posed by letting possibly-unknown
contributors run arbitrary code on your system. The account should
have a minimum of fancy init scripts.
2. Install the buildbot code
Follow the instructions given earlier (:ref:`Installing-the-code`).
If you use a separate buildslave account, and you didn't install the
buildbot code to a shared location, then you will need to install it
with ``--home=~`` for each account that needs it.
3. Set up the host
Make sure the host can actually reach the buildmaster. Usually the
buildmaster is running a status webserver on the same machine, so
simply point your web browser at it and see if you can get there.
Install whatever additional packages or libraries the project's
INSTALL document advises. (or not: if your buildslave is supposed to
make sure that building without optional libraries still works, then
don't install those libraries).
Again, these libraries don't necessarily have to be installed to a
site-wide shared location, but they must be available to your build
process. Accomplishing this is usually very specific to the build
process, so installing them to :file:`/usr` or :file:`/usr/local` is
usually the best approach.
4. Test the build process
Follow the instructions in the :file:`INSTALL` document, in the buildslave's
account. Perform a full CVS (or whatever) checkout, configure, make,
run tests, etc. Confirm that the build works without manual fussing.
If it doesn't work when you do it by hand, it will be unlikely to work
when the buildbot attempts to do it in an automated fashion.
5. Choose a base directory
This should be somewhere in the buildslave's account, typically named
after the project which is being tested. The buildslave will not touch
any file outside of this directory. Something like :file:`~/Buildbot`
or :file:`~/Buildslaves/fooproject` is appropriate.
6. Get the buildmaster host/port, botname, and password
When the buildbot admin configures the buildmaster to accept and use
your buildslave, they will provide you with the following pieces of
information:
* your buildslave's name
* the password assigned to your buildslave
* the hostname and port number of the buildmaster, i.e. buildbot.example.org:8007
7. Create the buildslave
Now run the 'buildslave' command as follows:
:samp:`buildslave create-slave {BASEDIR} {MASTERHOST}:{PORT} {SLAVENAME} {PASSWORD}`
This will create the base directory and a collection of files inside,
including the :file:`buildbot.tac` file that contains all the
information you passed to the :command:`buildbot` command.
8. Fill in the hostinfo files
When it first connects, the buildslave will send a few files up to the
buildmaster which describe the host that it is running on. These files
are presented on the web status display so that developers have more
information to reproduce any test failures that are witnessed by the
buildbot. There are sample files in the :file:`info` subdirectory of
the buildbot's base directory. You should edit these to correctly
describe you and your host.
:file:`{BASEDIR}/info/admin` should contain your name and email address.
This is the ``buildslave admin address``, and will be visible from the
build status page (so you may wish to munge it a bit if
address-harvesting spambots are a concern).
:file:`{BASEDIR}/info/host` should be filled with a brief description of
the host: OS, version, memory size, CPU speed, versions of relevant
libraries installed, and finally the version of the buildbot code
which is running the buildslave.
The optional :file:`{BASEDIR}/info/access_uri` can specify a URI which will
connect a user to the machine. Many systems accept ``ssh://hostname`` URIs
for this purpose.
If you run many buildslaves, you may want to create a single
:file:`~buildslave/info` file and share it among all the buildslaves
with symlinks.
.. _Buildslave-Options:
Buildslave Options
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are a handful of options you might want to use when creating the
buildslave with the :samp:`buildslave create-slave <options> DIR <params>`
command. You can type ``buildslave create-slave --help`` for a summary.
To use these, just include them on the ``buildslave create-slave``
command line, like this
.. code-block:: bash
buildslave create-slave --umask=022 ~/buildslave buildmaster.example.org:42012 {myslavename} {mypasswd}
.. program:: buildslave create-slave
.. option:: --no-logrotate
This disables internal buildslave log management mechanism. With this option
buildslave does not override the default logfile name and its behaviour giving
a possibility to control those with command-line options of twistd
daemon.
.. option:: --usepty
This is a boolean flag that tells the buildslave whether to launch child
processes in a PTY or with regular pipes (the default) when the master does not
specify. This option is deprecated, as this particular parameter is better
specified on the master.
.. option:: --umask
This is a string (generally an octal representation of an integer)
which will cause the buildslave process' ``umask`` value to be set
shortly after initialization. The ``twistd`` daemonization utility
forces the umask to 077 at startup (which means that all files created
by the buildslave or its child processes will be unreadable by any
user other than the buildslave account). If you want build products to
be readable by other accounts, you can add ``--umask=022`` to tell
the buildslave to fix the umask after twistd clobbers it. If you want
build products to be *writable* by other accounts too, use
``--umask=000``, but this is likely to be a security problem.
.. option:: --keepalive
This is a number that indicates how frequently ``keepalive`` messages
should be sent from the buildslave to the buildmaster, expressed in
seconds. The default (600) causes a message to be sent to the
buildmaster at least once every 10 minutes. To set this to a lower
value, use e.g. ``--keepalive=120``.
If the buildslave is behind a NAT box or stateful firewall, these
messages may help to keep the connection alive: some NAT boxes tend to
forget about a connection if it has not been used in a while. When
this happens, the buildmaster will think that the buildslave has
disappeared, and builds will time out. Meanwhile the buildslave will
not realize than anything is wrong.
.. option:: --maxdelay
This is a number that indicates the maximum amount of time the
buildslave will wait between connection attempts, expressed in
seconds. The default (300) causes the buildslave to wait at most 5
minutes before trying to connect to the buildmaster again.
.. option:: --log-size
This is the size in bytes when to rotate the Twisted log files.
.. option:: --log-count
This is the number of log rotations to keep around. You can either
specify a number or ``None`` to keep all :file:`twistd.log` files
around. The default is 10.
.. option:: --allow-shutdown
Can also be passed directly to the BuildSlave constructor in buildbot.tac. If
set, it allows the buildslave to initiate a graceful shutdown, meaning that it
will ask the master to shut down the slave when the current build, if any, is
complete.
Setting allow_shutdown to ``file`` will cause the buildslave to watch
:file:`shutdown.stamp` in basedir for updates to its mtime. When the mtime changes,
the slave will request a graceful shutdown from the master. The file does not
need to exist prior to starting the slave.
Setting allow_shutdown to ``signal`` will set up a SIGHUP handler to start a
graceful shutdown. When the signal is received, the slave will request a
graceful shutdown from the master.
The default value is ``None``, in which case this feature will be disabled.
Both master and slave must be at least version 0.8.3 for this feature to work.
.. _Other-Buildslave-Configuration:
Other Buildslave Configuration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
``unicode_encoding``
This represents the encoding that buildbot should use when converting unicode
commandline arguments into byte strings in order to pass to the operating
system when spawning new processes.
The default value is what Python's :func:`sys.getfilesystemencoding()` returns, which
on Windows is 'mbcs', on Mac OSX is 'utf-8', and on Unix depends on your locale
settings.
If you need a different encoding, this can be changed in your build slave's
:file:`buildbot.tac` file by adding a ``unicode_encoding``
argument to the BuildSlave constructor.
.. code-block:: python
s = BuildSlave(buildmaster_host, port, slavename, passwd, basedir,
keepalive, usepty, umask=umask, maxdelay=maxdelay,
unicode_encoding='utf-8', allow_shutdown='signal')
.. _Upgrading-an-Existing-Buildslave:
Upgrading an Existing Buildslave
--------------------------------
If you have just installed a new version of Buildbot-slave, you may need to
take some steps to upgrade it. If you are upgrading to version 0.8.2 or later,
you can run
.. code-block:: bash
buildslave upgrade-slave /path/to/buildslave/dir
.. _Buildslave-Version-specific-Notes:
Version-specific Notes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Upgrading a Buildslave to Buildbot-slave-0.8.1
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Before Buildbot version 0.8.1, the Buildbot master and slave were part of the
same distribution. As of version 0.8.1, the buildslave is a separate
distribution.
As of this release, you will need to install ``buildbot-slave`` to run a slave.
Any automatic startup scripts that had run ``buildbot start`` for previous versions
should be changed to run ``buildslave start`` instead.
If you are running a version later than 0.8.1, then you can skip the remainder
of this section: the ```upgrade-slave`` command will take care of this. If
you are upgrading directly to 0.8.1, read on.
The existing :file:`buildbot.tac` for any buildslaves running older versions
will need to be edited or replaced. If the loss of cached buildslave state
(e.g., for Source steps in copy mode) is not problematic, the easiest solution
is to simply delete the slave directory and re-run ``buildslave
create-slave``.
If deleting the slave directory is problematic, the change to
:file:`buildbot.tac` is simple. On line 3, replace ::
from buildbot.slave.bot import BuildSlave
with ::
from buildslave.bot import BuildSlave
After this change, the buildslave should start as usual.
.. _Launching-the-daemons:
Launching the daemons
---------------------
Both the buildmaster and the buildslave run as daemon programs. To
launch them, pass the working directory to the :command:`buildbot`
and :command:`buildslave` commands, as appropriate:
.. code-block:: bash
# start a master
buildbot start [ BASEDIR ]
# start a slave
buildslave start [ SLAVE_BASEDIR ]
The *BASEDIR* is option and can be omitted if the current directory
contains the buildbot configuration (the :file:`buildbot.tac` file).
.. code-block:: bash
buildbot start
This command will start the daemon and then return, so normally it
will not produce any output. To verify that the programs are indeed
running, look for a pair of files named :file:`twistd.log` and
:file:`twistd.pid` that should be created in the working directory.
:file:`twistd.pid` contains the process ID of the newly-spawned daemon.
When the buildslave connects to the buildmaster, new directories will
start appearing in its base directory. The buildmaster tells the slave
to create a directory for each Builder which will be using that slave.
All build operations are performed within these directories: CVS
checkouts, compiles, and tests.
Once you get everything running, you will want to arrange for the
buildbot daemons to be started at boot time. One way is to use
:command:`cron`, by putting them in a ``@reboot`` crontab entry [#f1]_
.. code-block:: none
@reboot buildbot start [ BASEDIR ]
When you run :command:`crontab` to set this up, remember to do it as
the buildmaster or buildslave account! If you add this to your crontab
when running as your regular account (or worse yet, root), then the
daemon will run as the wrong user, quite possibly as one with more
authority than you intended to provide.
It is important to remember that the environment provided to cron jobs
and init scripts can be quite different that your normal runtime.
There may be fewer environment variables specified, and the :envvar:`PATH` may
be shorter than usual. It is a good idea to test out this method of
launching the buildslave by using a cron job with a time in the near
future, with the same command, and then check :file:`twistd.log` to
make sure the slave actually started correctly. Common problems here
are for :file:`/usr/local` or :file:`~/bin` to not be on your
:envvar:`PATH`, or for :envvar:`PYTHONPATH` to not be set correctly.
Sometimes :envvar:`HOME` is messed up too.
Some distributions may include conveniences to make starting buildbot
at boot time easy. For instance, with the default buildbot package in
Debian-based distributions, you may only need to modify
:file:`/etc/default/buildbot` (see also :file:`/etc/init.d/buildbot`, which
reads the configuration in :file:`/etc/default/buildbot`).
Buildbot also comes with its own init scripts that provide support for
controlling multi-slave and multi-master setups (mostly because they are based
on the init script from the Debian package). With a little modification these
scripts can be used both on Debian and RHEL-based distributions and may thus
prove helpful to package maintainers who are working on buildbot (or those that
haven't yet split buildbot into master and slave packages).
.. code-block:: bash
# install as /etc/default/buildslave
# or /etc/sysconfig/buildslave
master/contrib/init-scripts/buildslave.default
# install as /etc/default/buildmaster
# or /etc/sysconfig/buildmaster
master/contrib/init-scripts/buildmaster.default
# install as /etc/init.d/buildslave
slave/contrib/init-scripts/buildslave.init.sh
# install as /etc/init.d/buildmaster
slave/contrib/init-scripts/buildmaster.init.sh
# ... and tell sysvinit about them
chkconfig buildmaster reset
# ... or
update-rc.d buildmaster defaults
.. _Logfiles:
Logfiles
--------
While a buildbot daemon runs, it emits text to a logfile, named
:file:`twistd.log`. A command like ``tail -f twistd.log`` is useful
to watch the command output as it runs.
The buildmaster will announce any errors with its configuration file
in the logfile, so it is a good idea to look at the log at startup
time to check for any problems. Most buildmaster activities will cause
lines to be added to the log.
.. _Shutdown:
Shutdown
--------
To stop a buildmaster or buildslave manually, use:
.. code-block:: bash
buildbot stop [ BASEDIR ]
# or
buildslave stop [ SLAVE_BASEDIR ]
This simply looks for the :file:`twistd.pid` file and kills whatever
process is identified within.
At system shutdown, all processes are sent a ``SIGKILL``. The
buildmaster and buildslave will respond to this by shutting down
normally.
The buildmaster will respond to a ``SIGHUP`` by re-reading its
config file. Of course, this only works on Unix-like systems with
signal support, and won't work on Windows. The following shortcut is
available:
.. code-block:: bash
buildbot reconfig [ BASEDIR ]
When you update the Buildbot code to a new release, you will need to
restart the buildmaster and/or buildslave before it can take advantage
of the new code. You can do a :samp:`buildbot stop {BASEDIR}` and
:samp:`buildbot start {BASEDIR}` in quick succession, or you can
use the ``restart`` shortcut, which does both steps for you:
.. code-block:: bash
buildbot restart [ BASEDIR ]
Buildslaves can similarly be restarted with:
.. code-block:: bash
buildslave restart [ BASEDIR ]
There are certain configuration changes that are not handled cleanly
by ``buildbot reconfig``. If this occurs, ``buildbot restart``
is a more robust tool to fully switch over to the new configuration.
``buildbot restart`` may also be used to start a stopped Buildbot
instance. This behaviour is useful when writing scripts that stop, start
and restart Buildbot.
A buildslave may also be gracefully shutdown from the
:bb:status:`WebStatus` status plugin. This is useful to shutdown a
buildslave without interrupting any current builds. The buildmaster
will wait until the buildslave is finished all its current builds, and
will then tell the buildslave to shutdown.
.. _Maintenance:
Maintenance
-----------
The buildmaster can be configured to send out email notifications when a
slave has been offline for a while. Be sure to configure the buildmaster
with a contact email address for each slave so these notifications are sent
to someone who can bring it back online.
If you find you can no longer provide a buildslave to the project, please
let the project admins know, so they can put out a call for a
replacement.
The Buildbot records status and logs output continually, each time a
build is performed. The status tends to be small, but the build logs
can become quite large. Each build and log are recorded in a separate
file, arranged hierarchically under the buildmaster's base directory.
To prevent these files from growing without bound, you should
periodically delete old build logs. A simple cron job to delete
anything older than, say, two weeks should do the job. The only trick
is to leave the :file:`buildbot.tac` and other support files alone, for
which :command:`find`'s ``-mindepth`` argument helps skip everything in the
top directory. You can use something like the following:
.. code-block:: none
@weekly cd BASEDIR && find . -mindepth 2 i-path './public_html/*' \
-prune -o -type f -mtime +14 -exec rm {} \;
@weekly cd BASEDIR && find twistd.log* -mtime +14 -exec rm {} \;
Alternatively, you can configure a maximum number of old logs to be kept
using the ``--log-count`` command line option when running ``buildslave
create-slave`` or ``buildbot create-master``.
.. _Troubleshooting:
Troubleshooting
---------------
Here are a few hints on diagnosing common problems.
.. _Starting-the-buildslave:
Starting the buildslave
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cron jobs are typically run with a minimal shell (:file:`/bin/sh`, not
:file:`/bin/bash`), and tilde expansion is not always performed in such
commands. You may want to use explicit paths, because the :envvar:`PATH`
is usually quite short and doesn't include anything set by your
shell's startup scripts (:file:`.profile`, :file:`.bashrc`, etc). If
you've installed buildbot (or other Python libraries) to an unusual
location, you may need to add a :envvar:`PYTHONPATH` specification (note
that Python will do tilde-expansion on :envvar:`PYTHONPATH` elements by
itself). Sometimes it is safer to fully-specify everything:
.. code-block:: none
@reboot PYTHONPATH=~/lib/python /usr/local/bin/buildbot \
start /usr/home/buildbot/basedir
Take the time to get the ``@reboot`` job set up. Otherwise, things will work
fine for a while, but the first power outage or system reboot you have will
stop the buildslave with nothing but the cries of sorrowful developers to
remind you that it has gone away.
.. _Connecting-to-the-buildmaster:
Connecting to the buildmaster
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If the buildslave cannot connect to the buildmaster, the reason should
be described in the :file:`twistd.log` logfile. Some common problems
are an incorrect master hostname or port number, or a mistyped bot
name or password. If the buildslave loses the connection to the
master, it is supposed to attempt to reconnect with an
exponentially-increasing backoff. Each attempt (and the time of the
next attempt) will be logged. If you get impatient, just manually stop
and re-start the buildslave.
When the buildmaster is restarted, all slaves will be disconnected, and will
attempt to reconnect as usual. The reconnect time will depend upon how long the
buildmaster is offline (i.e. how far up the exponential backoff curve the
slaves have travelled). Again, :samp:`buildslave restart {BASEDIR}` will
speed up the process.
.. [#f1] This ``@reboot`` syntax is understood by Vixie cron, which is the flavor
usually provided with Linux systems. Other unices may have a cron that
doesn't understand ``@reboot``:
.. _Contrib-Scripts:
Contrib Scripts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
While some features of Buildbot are included in the distribution, others are
only available in :file:`contrib/` in the source directory. The latest versions
of such scripts are available at
http://github.com/buildbot/buildbot/tree/master/master/contrib.
.. _TwistedConch: http://twistedmatrix.com/trac/wiki/TwistedConch
.. _TwistedWords: http://twistedmatrix.com/trac/wiki/TwistedWords
.. _TwistedMail: http://twistedmatrix.com/trac/wiki/TwistedMail
.. _TwistedWeb: http://twistedmatrix.com/trac/wiki/TwistedWeb
