[ros-dev] BuildBot Upgrade on Tuesday

[Colin Finck]

Hi all!

Our BuildBot at https://build.reactos.org is finally going to be
upgraded from the ancient version 0.8.14 to the latest 2.3.1 release
this Tuesday evening (CEST).

We have postponed this for a very long time due to the fundamental UI
changes in newer versions. The UI has been rewritten from scratch and
its Waterfall View has been simplified. I used to be a strong opponent
of this change. However, in one of the last meetings, it turned out that
the current Waterfall View isn't that popular among our developers anyway.
You can expect the new BuildBot to look like this:
https://lidell.nu/xemacs-buildbot/

BuildBot also doesn't provide a direct migration path from the old to
the new version. This means that previous build and log information will
be gone after the upgrade.
I used to consider this a blocker as well, but current BuildBot already
purges old build/log information after some time and apparently it
hasn't been missed. We still have all important information in Testman.
I will make sure however that build numbers in the new version continue
where they ended in the old version.

On the plus side, this upgrade brings integrations with GitHub and
Mattermost as well as proper Unicode support. Using an up-to-date
BuildBot version also allows us to actually enhance it. In fact, this
upgrade is a prerequisite for the Developer Web Interface our GSoC
student Ayush Sinha is currently working on.

Regarding Buildslaves (now called "workers"), the new BuildBot is still
compatible with 0.8.x clients, so these don't need an upgrade right
away. We just need a small change on workers submitting test results.

Kudos go to Victor Perevertkin, who has already begun evaluating the new
BuildBot version a long time ago and provided me with an updated
master.cfg file, along with other help!
I'm glad that the number of people maintaining our BuildBot setup is
growing! :)


Cheers,

Colin