Re: Killing obsolete Jenkins builds

On Thu, Nov 19, 2015 at 2:23 AM, David Ostrovsky <d.ostrovsky@gmx.de> wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 19:20:03 PST, Ashod Nakashian <ashnakash at
> gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Sorry, I didn't explain well.
> >
> > The patches are related. They are updates based on feedback, partial
> > failure or improvement.
>
> [...]
>
> > Why do people send multiple patches per push? That's the right question
> > to ask.
> >
> > And the answer is: to improve the previous patch.
> >
> > Hence my question. If a patch has partially failed, or I got feedback
> to
> > improve it, or (insert reason here), and I want to push an update, why
> > should the previous patch still build when it's not necessary?
> >
> > Hope this makes sense.
>
> Yes, indeed. LibreOffice is using Jenkins CI and Gerrit trigger plugin
> for integration between Jenkins and Gerrit. This plugin provides the
> feature you are asking for: job cancellation when patch set became
> obsolete because of uploading new patch during the old patch set is
> still building. Moreover, when patch_set_42 is building, and you've
> uploaded another 10 patch sets simultaneously, so that for every patch
> set i, 1 <= i <= 10, the build for patch_set_42 + i wouldn't be even
> started, but only the build for patch_set_53. Unfortunately for some
> reasons this feature wasn't activated yet. See also the announcement
> on the trigger site: [1].
>
> "
> EXPERIMENTAL: Cancel old running jobs when a new Patch Set is uploaded
> on the same change.
> This feature is set as experimental due to problems we've found during
> testing.
> You can enable the feature from the Manage Jenkins/Gerrit Trigger page.
> All help in debugging the problems we've found is appreciated, that's
> why it is in this release.
> "
>
> So yes, I agree that this feature should be activated on our infra. To
> do that, we would need to investigate, track down and fix the problems.
> To be able to do so, we need staging Jenkins and Gerrit instances, where
> we could reproduce and troubleshoot this and other issues, like simulate
> Gerrit upgrade to newer version, etc.

Thanks David. This is exactly the answer I was looking for.


> Unfortunately, it cannot be done, because our infra team doesn't have
> free resources to set up new VM and install Gerrit and Jenkins on them.
> Last time i asked why they don't have resources and the answer was: this
> project is not OpenStack that is spending substantial resources for
> their infrastructure. No wonder that my request to set up staging Gerrit
> instance is pending for years now: [2]. So I wouldn't expect that
> staging Jenkins instance would be available in 5-10 years (if at all),
> if you would request it today on infra issue tracker.
>
> IOW, just accept that all patch sets are get built. Well, at least you
> have asked and now you know the answer why it is how it is.
>
> [1] https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=63931391
> [2] https://redmine.documentfoundation.org/issues/1147
Not great. I'm hoping this could still be tackled, especially when the
benefits are more than the case at hand (as you mentioned staging is a
major advantage).

I'm still hopeful this is doable. Perhaps it could be suggested for
consideration in next year's budget?