Old machine cluster for GCC compile/testing

Old machine cluster for GCC compile/testing

[Laurent GUERBY]

Hi,

FSF France has received in donation 9 Dell poweredge 1550 bi processor
1U machines with one 18GB SCSI disk and 1GB RAM, processors total 19.5
GHz distributed as follows:

- 3 bi pentium III 1.25 GHz
- 6 bi pentium III 1.00 GHz

The machines are about four years old, so of course there may be
hardware problems in the coming years, but we might also be able
to get cheap parts on the used market (or from other donations).

An offer has been made for hosting those 9 1U machines in Paris provided
low use of external bandwidth, so this would be useable for a GCC
compile farm.

FSF France has to say yes or no to the hosting offer by friday 12Aug2005
17:00 UTC (end of this week), if we do not set up some
compile/compute-farm like project FSF France will allocate these
machines to other tasks. FYI 31 other machines of this type were also
donated and have been allocated to various projects.

So I'm asking for project proposals, that is to say people that think
that their volunteer time to work on these old machine (scripts,
compiling, ... under the limit of minimal external bandwidth use) is of
some significant benefit to some free software project. 

Project participants would get ssh access to the machines at
the beginning of september 2005.

The machines are currently installed with ubuntu 5.04, but this could
change if needed (and expertise provided).

Feel free to pass this offer to projects that are related to GCC, like
free software compiled with GCC that come with a useful test suite and
where volunteer are willing to help.

Discussions are welcome on this list.

Sincerely,

Laurent

PS: sorry for the short notice, I wasn't aware until recently that
there was a time limit on the hosting offer. We might be able
to get another hosting offer, but I prefer not count on it.

Re: Old machine cluster for GCC compile/testing

[Sebastian Pop]

Hi Laurent, 

Laurent GUERBY wrote:
> 
> So I'm asking for project proposals, that is to say people that think
> that their volunteer time to work on these old machine (scripts,
> compiling, ... under the limit of minimal external bandwidth use) is of
> some significant benefit to some free software project. 
> 

I'm proposing to automate gcc's bootstrap & regtest: for each mail
sent to patches@gcc-farm, if 'From' is in gcc-developpers and 'body'
contains a patch against some branch (ie. if it fails to apply to a
branch, just drop it and warn the user), enqueue it for validation.
The main server can be some script that monitors the availability of
cpu ressources and that distributes the patches for validation.  The
answer can be a mail with just "passed witout regressions", or "patch
causes regressions: <list of testcases that failed>".

Bandwidth usage: size of incoming mail patch + size of answer + "cvs
update -dP" every morning.

Sebastian

Re: Old machine cluster for GCC compile/testing

[Laurent GUERBY]

On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 11:02 +0200, Sebastian Pop wrote:
> I'm proposing to automate gcc's bootstrap & regtest: for each mail
> sent to patches@gcc-farm, if 'From' is in gcc-developpers and 'body'
> contains a patch against some branch (ie. if it fails to apply to a
> branch, just drop it and warn the user), enqueue it for validation.
> The main server can be some script that monitors the availability of
> cpu ressources and that distributes the patches for validation.  The
> answer can be a mail with just "passed witout regressions", or "patch
> causes regressions: <list of testcases that failed>".
> 
> Bandwidth usage: size of incoming mail patch + size of answer + "cvs
> update -dP" every morning.

Looks good. I think it would be slightly more secure to have people
commit the patch with a unique name in some access-controlled CVS
(either some subdir of the GCC one or a new local one) than relying on
email "From" fields at the cost of minor inconvenience.

Also for the cvs update, I assume one of the machine will do an
rsync of the whole CVS repository to factor external bandwidth cost
and it enables some binary search stuff at no external bandwidth cost.

On IRC, I was reminded that some developpers have machine that are less
powerfull than the old donated servers or don't have x86 access, so they
may use them to test their patch before submission. People in this case,
please send me a private email so that I'm able to count the number of
developpers that could benefit just from the access to some machine to
do GCC work.

Laurent

Re: Old machine cluster for GCC compile/testing

[Sebastian Pop]

Laurent GUERBY wrote:
> Looks good. I think it would be slightly more secure to have people
> commit the patch with a unique name in some access-controlled CVS
> (either some subdir of the GCC one or a new local one) than relying on
> email "From" fields at the cost of minor inconvenience.
> 

We also can enforce the rules by asking that patches to be signed, but
after all, GCC contributors are well educated hackers.

> Also for the cvs update, I assume one of the machine will do an
> rsync of the whole CVS repository to factor external bandwidth cost
> and it enables some binary search stuff at no external bandwidth cost.
> 

okay.

> On IRC, I was reminded that some developpers have machine that are less
> powerfull than the old donated servers or don't have x86 access, so they
> may use them to test their patch before submission. People in this case,
> please send me a private email so that I'm able to count the number of
> developpers that could benefit just from the access to some machine to
> do GCC work.
> 

Indeed, this is another service that can be provided.

Re: Old machine cluster for GCC compile/testing

[Daniel Berlin]

On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 12:54 +0200, Laurent GUERBY wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 11:02 +0200, Sebastian Pop wrote:
> > I'm proposing to automate gcc's bootstrap & regtest: for each mail
> > sent to patches@gcc-farm, if 'From' is in gcc-developpers and 'body'
> > contains a patch against some branch (ie. if it fails to apply to a
> > branch, just drop it and warn the user), enqueue it for validation.
> > The main server can be some script that monitors the availability of
> > cpu ressources and that distributes the patches for validation.  The
> > answer can be a mail with just "passed witout regressions", or "patch
> > causes regressions: <list of testcases that failed>".
> > 
> > Bandwidth usage: size of incoming mail patch + size of answer + "cvs
> > update -dP" every morning.
> 
> Looks good. I think it would be slightly more secure to have people
> commit the patch with a unique name in some access-controlled CVS
> (either some subdir of the GCC one or a new local one) than relying on
> email "From" fields at the cost of minor inconvenience.
> 

Why bother?
Nobody forges mails to *test patches*.  What does it buy you?
Let's say you could buffer overflow the patch program with a specially
crafted patch.
Now you have access to ........ GCC source code (I assume these things
are properly segregated from your internal network)!

SuSE, for example, has an automatic patch tester that just goes by from
address.

If i was required to do cvs commits somewhere else to test a patch, I
wouldn't bother, and i doubt most people would either, even though you
just consider it a "minor inconvenience".  It's more inconvenience than
the auto-tester is probably worth.

> Also for the cvs update, I assume one of the machine will do an
> rsync of the whole CVS repository to factor external bandwidth cost
> and it enables some binary search stuff at no external bandwidth cost.

SVN rsync is very cheap.

Re: Old machine cluster for GCC compile/testing

[Laurent GUERBY]

On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 08:53 -0400, Daniel Berlin wrote:
> > Looks good. I think it would be slightly more secure to have people
> > commit the patch with a unique name in some access-controlled CVS
> > (either some subdir of the GCC one or a new local one) than relying on
> > email "From" fields at the cost of minor inconvenience.
> > 
> 
> Why bother?
> Nobody forges mails to *test patches*.  What does it buy you?

Full control of an internet connected host, your just have to provide a
patch to the gcc Makefile to append some ssh public key in $HOME/.ssh
somewhere or compile and run your favourite mini backdoor included in
the patch.

You can of course run in some jail (usermode linux or whatever) to
mitigate this.

Laurent

Re: Old machine cluster for GCC compile/testing

[Daniel Berlin]

On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 20:11 +0200, Laurent GUERBY wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 08:53 -0400, Daniel Berlin wrote:
> > > Looks good. I think it would be slightly more secure to have people
> > > commit the patch with a unique name in some access-controlled CVS
> > > (either some subdir of the GCC one or a new local one) than relying on
> > > email "From" fields at the cost of minor inconvenience.
> > > 
> > 
> > Why bother?
> > Nobody forges mails to *test patches*.  What does it buy you?
> 
> Full control of an internet connected host, 
> your just have to provide a
> patch to the gcc Makefile to append some ssh public key in $HOME/.ssh
> somewhere or compile and run your favourite mini backdoor included in
> the patch.

Yes, well, if someone does that, you blacklist them.
You can also simply acl it so that the user can't write anything out of
the gcc tree.

> 
> You can of course run in some jail (usermode linux or whatever) to
> mitigate this.
> 
> Laurent
> 

Re: Old machine cluster for GCC compile/testing

[Hans-Peter Nilsson]

On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, Sebastian Pop wrote:
> Laurent GUERBY wrote:
> >
> > So I'm asking for project proposals, that is to say people that think
> > that their volunteer time to work on these old machine (scripts,
> > compiling, ... under the limit of minimal external bandwidth use) is of
> > some significant benefit to some free software project.

> I'm proposing to automate gcc's bootstrap & regtest: for each mail
> sent to patches@gcc-farm, if 'From' is in gcc-developpers and 'body'
> contains a patch against some branch (ie. if it fails to apply to a
> branch, just drop it and warn the user), enqueue it for validation.

And I'd like to add to that proposal, that the target to test
should be controllable (default "native), to simplify
cross-testing.  (Not saying whether it should be possible to
specify multiple targets.)

Perhaps simplest done by using geoffk's script
contrib/regression/btest-gcc.sh, which makes this bit mostly
trivial.

brgds, H-P

Re: Old machine cluster for GCC compile/testing

[FX Coudert]

That's a very nice offer. I think the idea of an automated patch 
boostrap & regtester is of much interest, and i can volunteer to set up 
the systems (if need be, i can move to the machines since i live in Paris).

Furthermore, it would be interesting if we could install, on some of 
those, a rather different OS than the typical linux or freebsd where 
developpers usually test their patches. I was thinking of Solaris, but 
the FSF might not want it install on this hardware (though i don't think 
it being non free is a relevant issue).

FX

Re: Old machine cluster for GCC compile/testing

[Joe Buck]

On Thu, Aug 11, 2005 at 12:12:30AM +0200, FX Coudert wrote:
> That's a very nice offer. I think the idea of an automated patch 
> boostrap & regtester is of much interest, and i can volunteer to set up 
> the systems (if need be, i can move to the machines since i live in Paris).
> 
> Furthermore, it would be interesting if we could install, on some of 
> those, a rather different OS than the typical linux or freebsd where 
> developpers usually test their patches. I was thinking of Solaris, but 
> the FSF might not want it install on this hardware (though i don't think 
> it being non free is a relevant issue).

Please check with the FSF about what's OK to install on a machine that is
under their control.  Maybe Solaris is now "free enough", but that's for
them to decide (the kernel has been freed, but perhaps there are
proprietary components elsewhere in the OS?).  The BSDs or GNU/Darwin
should be acceptable choices, since they are free software, and it would
be nice to have better relations with the BSD world.

[SUMMARY] Old machine cluster for GCC compile/testing

[Laurent GUERBY]

Thanks to all who proposed projects and volunteered, I've informed FSF
France that the project has enough volunteers to move ahead.

I'll write a summary in the GCC wiki this week-end, feel free
to add more projects then.

The machines should appear online at the beginning of september,
script volunteers and developpers who currently do not have access to
better hardware for GCC work will get a user account with ssh access.

I haven't discussed yet of the opensolaris-x86 issue with FSF France, if
someone really volunteer to guide me for the install process and
maintain useful scripts on the machine then I'll ask.

I'm also all open to non Linux OS like the *BSD family, also subject
to volunteer effective availability (no issue with FSF France for
*BSD :).

Sincerely,

Laurent

On Mon, 2005-08-08 at 23:21 +0200, Laurent GUERBY wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> FSF France has received in donation 9 Dell poweredge 1550 bi processor
> 1U machines with one 18GB SCSI disk and 1GB RAM, processors total 19.5
> GHz distributed as follows:
> 
> - 3 bi pentium III 1.25 GHz
> - 6 bi pentium III 1.00 GHz
> 
> The machines are about four years old, so of course there may be
> hardware problems in the coming years, but we might also be able
> to get cheap parts on the used market (or from other donations).
> 
> An offer has been made for hosting those 9 1U machines in Paris provided
> low use of external bandwidth, so this would be useable for a GCC
> compile farm.
> 
> FSF France has to say yes or no to the hosting offer by friday 12Aug2005
> 17:00 UTC (end of this week), if we do not set up some
> compile/compute-farm like project FSF France will allocate these
> machines to other tasks. FYI 31 other machines of this type were also
> donated and have been allocated to various projects.
> 
> So I'm asking for project proposals, that is to say people that think
> that their volunteer time to work on these old machine (scripts,
> compiling, ... under the limit of minimal external bandwidth use) is of
> some significant benefit to some free software project. 
> 
> Project participants would get ssh access to the machines at
> the beginning of september 2005.
> 
> The machines are currently installed with ubuntu 5.04, but this could
> change if needed (and expertise provided).
> 
> Feel free to pass this offer to projects that are related to GCC, like
> free software compiled with GCC that come with a useful test suite and
> where volunteer are willing to help.
> 
> Discussions are welcome on this list.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Laurent
> 
> PS: sorry for the short notice, I wasn't aware until recently that
> there was a time limit on the hosting offer. We might be able
> to get another hosting offer, but I prefer not count on it.
> 
> 
> 

Re: [SUMMARY] Old machine cluster for GCC compile/testing

[Laurent GUERBY]

Here is the initial wiki page for the CompileFarm project:

http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/CompileFarm

Feel free to add detailed proposals there.

Laurent

On Fri, 2005-08-12 at 13:01 +0200, Laurent GUERBY wrote:
> Thanks to all who proposed projects and volunteered, I've informed FSF
> France that the project has enough volunteers to move ahead.
> 
> I'll write a summary in the GCC wiki this week-end, feel free
> to add more projects then. [...]

Re: [SUMMARY] Old machine cluster for GCC compile/testing

[Sebastian Pop]

Hi Laurent,

Laurent GUERBY wrote:
> Here is the initial wiki page for the CompileFarm project:
> 
> http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/CompileFarm
> 
> Feel free to add detailed proposals there.
> 

For the moment the compile farm will host only i686 machines.  I'm
proposing a project to diversify the available architectures.

Let's suppose that we have this server that distributes patches for
validation.  The next step would be to allow users to put their spare
machines to contribution, a little like seti@home, this server will
distribute patches to be validated.

seb