1 INTRO 2 ----- 3 This directory (nightly/) contains a simple, automatic build-and-test 4 system for Valgrind, intended to be run nightly by cron or a similar 5 program. 6 7 8 BASIC OPERATIONS 9 ---------------- 10 When run, the system checks out two trees: the SVN trunk from 24 hours ago 11 and the SVN trunk from now. ("24 hours ago" and "now" are determined when 12 the script starts running, so if any commits happen while the tests are 13 running they will not be tested.) 14 15 If the two trees are different (i.e. there have been commits in the past 24 16 hours, either to the trunk or a branch) it builds ("make"), installs ("make 17 install") and runs the regression tests ("make regtest") in both, and 18 compares the results. Note that the "make install" isn't necessary in order 19 to run the tests because the regression tests use the code built (with 20 "make") within the tree, but it's worth doing because it tests that "make 21 install" isn't totally broken. After checking both trees, it emails a 22 summary of the results to a recipient. All this typically takes something 23 like 30 minutes. 24 25 If the two trees are identical, the tests are not run and no results are 26 emailed. This avoids spamming people with uninteresting results emails when 27 no commits have happened recently. 28 29 30 SETTING UP 31 ---------- 32 To set up nightly testing for a machine, do the following. 33 34 (1) Check out just this directory from the repository, eg: 35 36 svn co svn://svn.valgrind.org/valgrind/trunk/nightly $DIR 37 38 where $DIR is the name of the directory you want it to be in. 39 40 Note that this doesn't check out the whole Valgrind tree, just the 41 directory containing the nightly testing stuff. This is possible 42 because the testing script doesn't check the code in the tree it belongs 43 to; rather it checks out new trees (within $DIR) and tests them 44 independently. 45 46 (2) Choose a tag that identifies the test results. This is usually the 47 machine name. We'll call it $TAG in what follows. 48 49 (3) Create a configuration file $DIR/conf/$TAG.conf. It is sourced by the 50 'nightly' script, and can define any or all of the following environment 51 variables. (In most cases, only ABT_DETAILS is needed.) 52 53 - ABT_DETAILS: describes the machine in more detail, eg. the OS. The 54 default is empty, but you should define it. An example: 55 56 export ABT_DETAILS="Ubuntu 9.04, Intel x86-64" 57 58 You could also use some invocation of 'uname' or something similar 59 to generate this string. Eg. on Ubuntu Linux this works nicely: 60 61 export ABT_DETAILS="`cat /etc/issue.net`, `uname -m`" 62 63 And on Mac OS X this works nicely: 64 65 export ABT_DETAILS=`uname -mrs` 66 67 The advantage of doing it like this is that if you update the OS on 68 the test machine you won't have to update ABT_DETAILS manually. 69 70 - ABT_CONFIGURE_OPTIONS: gives extra configure options. The default is 71 empty. 72 73 - ABT_EVAL: if provided, it must be the name of a shell script that 74 executes the shell command $1 with arguments $2 .. ${$#}. Allows to 75 compile and run the Valgrind regression tests on another system than 76 the system the 'nightly' script runs on. It is assumed that the remote 77 system shares the local filesystem tree through e.g. NFS. It is the 78 responsibility of the shell script to set the remote working directory 79 such that it matches the local current directory ($PWD). 80 81 - ABT_RUN_REGTEST: if provided, it must be the name of an argumentless 82 shell function (also specified in the $TAG.conf file) that will be used 83 to run the tests. If not specified, the usual "make regtest" will be 84 used. 85 86 - ABT_JOBS: allows parallel builds -- it's passed as the argument to 87 "make -j" when building Valgrind and the tests. The default is 1. 88 89 Note that the appropriate syntax to use in this file will depend on the 90 shell from which the $DIR/bin/nightly script is run (which in turn may 91 depend on what shell is used by cron or any similar program). 92 93 (4) Create a mailer script $DIR/conf/$TAG.sendmail. It must be executable. 94 It's used to send email results to the desired recipient (e.g. 95 valgrind-developers (a] lists.sourceforge.net) It must handle three command 96 line arguments. 97 98 - The first argument is the email subject line. It contains 99 $ABT_DETAILS plus some other stuff. 100 101 - The second argument is the name of the file containing the email's 102 body (which shows the tests that failed, and the differences between now 103 and 24 hours ago). 104 105 - The third is the name of the file containing all the diffs from 106 failing tests. Depending on the test results you get, you could 107 inline this file into the email body, or attach it, or compress and 108 attach it, or even omit it. The right choice depends on how many 109 failures you typically get -- if you get few failures, inlining the 110 results make them easier to read; if you get many failures, 111 compressing might be a good idea to minimise the size of the emails. 112 113 The best way to do this depends on how mail is set up on your machine. 114 You might be able to use /usr/bin/mail, or you might need something more 115 elaborate like using Mutt to send mail via an external account. 116 117 At first, you should probably just send emails to yourself for testing 118 purposes. After it's working, then sending it to others might be 119 appropriate. 120 121 (5) To run the tests, execute: 122 123 $DIR/bin/nightly $DIR $TAG 124 125 You probably want to put this command into a cron file or equivalent 126 so it is run regularly (preferably every night). Actually, it's 127 probably better to put that command inside a script, and run the script 128 from cron, rather than running $DIR/bin/nightly directly. That way you 129 can put any other configuration stuff that's necessary inside the 130 script (e.g. make sure that programs used by the mailer script are in 131 your PATH). 132 133 134 OUTPUT FILES 135 ------------ 136 If the tests are run, the following files are produced: 137 138 - $DIR/old.verbose and $DIR/new.verbose contain full output of the whole 139 process for each of the two trees. 140 141 - $DIR/old.short and $DIR/new.short contain summary output of the process 142 for each of the two trees. The diff between these two files goes in 143 $DIR/diff.short. 144 145 - $DIR/final contains the overall summary, constructed from $DIR/old.short, 146 $DIR/new.short, $DIR/diff.short and some other bits and pieces. (The name 147 of this file is what's passed as the second argument to 148 $DIR/conf/$TAG.sendmail.) 149 150 - $DIR/diffs holds the diffs from all the failing tests in the newer tree, 151 concatenated together; the diff from each failure is truncated at 100 152 lines to minimise possible size blow-outs. (The name of this file is 153 what's passed as the third argument to $DIR/conf/$TAG.sendmail.) 154 155 - $DIR/sendmail.log contains the output (stdout and stderr) from 156 $DIR/conf/$TAG.sendmail goes in $DIR/sendmail.log. 157 158 - $DIR/valgrind-old/ and $DIR/valgrind-new/ contain the tested trees (and 159 $DIR/valgrind-old/Inst/ and $DIR/valgrind-new/Inst/ contain the installed 160 code). 161 162 If the tests aren't run, the following file is produced: 163 164 - $DIR/unchanged.log is created only if no tests were run because the two 165 trees were identical. It will contain a short explanatory message. 166 167 Each time the tests are run, all files from previous runs are deleted. 168 169 170 TROUBLESHOOTING 171 --------------- 172 If something goes wrong, looking at the output files can be useful. For 173 example, if no email was sent but you expected one, check sendmail.log to 174 see if the mailer script had a problem. Or check if unchanged.log exists. 175 176 Occasionally the SVN server isn't available when the tests runs, for either 177 or both trees. When this happens the email will be sent but it won't be 178 very informative. Usually it's just a temporary server problem and it'll 179 run fine the next time without you having to do anything. 180 181 Note that the test suite is imperfect: 182 - There are very few machines where all tests pass; that's why the old/new 183 diff is produced. Some of the tests may not be as portable as intended. 184 - Some tests are non-deterministic, and so may pass one day and fail the 185 next. 186 187 Improving the test suite to avoid these problems is a long-term goal but it 188 isn't easy. 189 190 191 MAINTENANCE 192 ----------- 193 The scripts in the nightly/ directory occasionally get updated. If that 194 happens, you can just "svn update" within $DIR to get the updated versions, 195 which will then be used the next time the tests run. (It's possible that 196 the scripts will be changed in a way that requires changes to the files in 197 $DIR/conf/, but we try to avoid this.) 198 199 If you want such updates to happen automatically, you could write a script 200 that does all the steps in SETTING UP above, and instead run that script 201 from cron. 202 203 204
