Bazel CI workflow

Note: the first bazel build is going to stall for some time while building the base images on docker without any output due to bazelbuild/bazel#1289.

Prerequisites

Docker:

• At least 25GB of free disk space.

• Your username in the “docker” group.

  Follow the instructions on Ask Ubuntu.

Gcloud:

• You may need to authenticate and set the current project. To do so, run:

  gcloud auth login
  gcloud set project bazel-public
  

Pushing changes

The typical worflow when modfiying ci.bazel.io is to first test the change on ci-staging.bazel.io.

The process typically looks like:

1. Make your change

2. Add a few jobs to test to jenkins/jobs/jobs.bzl.

3. Start the staging Jenkins instance with ./gce/vm.sh start staging.

4. Run bazel run //gcr:deploy-staging to deploy the change to the staging instance.

5. Restart the staging Jenkins instance by going to http://ci-staging.bazel.io/safeExit .

6. Run a job by identifying it on [http://ci-staging.bazel.io] and clicking on the play button.

7. If 6 fails, go back to 1, skipping step 3.

8. Send the change to review.

9. Shut down the staging Jenkins instance with ./gce/vm.sh stop staging.

10. Once LGTM, deploy to production with bazel run //gcr:deploy.

11. Restart the prod Jenkins instance: http://ci.bazel.io/safeExit

    You need to log in to the Jenkins UI, otherwise you may get a stack trace. Log in and try again.

Setting up local testing

You can run a local Jenkins instance with a Docker executor node, by running:

bazel run //jenkins:test [-- -p port]

It will spin up a Jenkins instance:

• without security
• on port port (8080 by default)
• with one node running Ubuntu Wily in Docker

This setup should suffice for local testing.

To stop the instance, go to http://localhost:8080/safeExit. This will shut down Jenkins cleanly.

You can connect additional instance by modifying the UI to test for other platforms. However this does not enable to test:

• Synchronization between Gerrit and Github
• Adding execution nodes
• Interaction with Github or Gerrit

Faster testing cycle

If you only need to modify Groovy code under jenkins/lib, you can update that in the running container without restarting Jenkins.

If you test with a local container

1. start the container

   bazel run //jenkins:test
   

2. make your changes to .groovy files

3. transfor the lib folder to the running container:

   jenkins/transfer-lib.sh
   

If you test with the staging Jenkins instance

1. start the instance

   gce/vm.sh start staging
   

2. make your changes to .groovy files

3. transfor the lib folder to the container running on the staging instance

   jenkins/transfer-lib-to-staging.sh
   

4. stop the instance when done

   gce/vm.sh stop staging