Nanosoldier.jl

This package contains the infrastructure powering the @nanosoldier CI bot used by the Julia language.

Quick start

If you're a collaborator in the JuliaLang/julia repository, you can submit CI jobs to the Julia Lab's Nanosoldier cluster at MIT by commenting on commits or pull requests. The @nanosoldier bot looks for a special "trigger phrase" in your comment, and if the trigger phrase is found, it is parsed by the bot to configure and submit a CI job.

The trigger phrase syntax is:

@nanosoldier `command(args..., kwargs...)`

There are two kinds of jobs you can invoke: benchmark jobs, which run the BaseBenchmarks.jl suite, and package test jobs which rely on PkgEval.jl to run the test suite of all registered packages.

Note that only one job can be triggered per comment.

One of the most common invocations runs all benchmarks on your PR, comparing against the current Julia master branch:

@nanosoldier `runbenchmarks(ALL, vs=":master")`

Similarly, you can run all package tests, e.g. if you suspect your PR might be breaking:

@nanosoldier `runtests(ALL, vs = ":master")`

Both operations take a long time, so it might be wise to restrict which benchmarks you want to run, or which packages you want to test:

@nanosoldier `runbenchmarks("linalg", vs = ":master")`

@nanosoldier `runtests(["JSON", "Crayons"], vs = ":master")`

When a job is completed, @nanosoldier will reply to your comment to tell you how the job went and link you to any relevant results.

Available job types

CI jobs are implemented in this package as subtypes of Nanosoldier.AbstractJob. See here for a description of the interface new job types need to implement.

`BenchmarkJob`

Execution Cycle

A BenchmarkJob has the following execution cycle:

Pull in the JuliaLang/julia repository and build the commit specified by the context of the trigger phrase.
Using the new Julia build, fetch the nanosoldier branch of the BaseBenchmarks repository and run the benchmarks specified by the trigger phrase.
If the trigger phrase specifies a commit to compare against, build that version of Julia and perform step 2 using the comparison build.
Upload a markdown report to the NanosoldierReports repository.

Trigger Syntax

A BenchmarkJob is triggered with the following syntax:

@nanosoldier `runbenchmarks(tag_predicate, vs = "ref")`

The vs keyword argument is optional, and is used to determine whether or not the comparison step (step 3 above) is performed.

The tag predicate is used to decide which benchmarks to run, and supports the syntax defined by the tagging system implemented in the BenchmarkTools package. Additionally, you can run all benchmarks by using the keyword ALL, e.g. runbenchmarks(ALL).

The vs keyword argument takes a reference string which can points to a Julia commit to compare against. The following syntax is supported for reference string:

":branch": the head commit of the branch named branch in the current repository (JuliaLang/julia)
"@sha": the commit specified by sha in the current repository (JuliaLang/julia)
"#tag": the commit pointed to by the tag named tag in the current repository (JuliaLang/julia)
"%self": to use the same commit for both parts of the comparison
"owner/repo:branch": the head commit of the branch named branch in the repository owner/repo
"owner/repo@sha": the commit specified by sha in the repository owner/repo
"owner/repo#tag": the commit pointed to by the tag named tag in the repository owner/repo

Benchmark Results

Once a BenchmarkJob is complete, the results are uploaded to the NanosoldierReports repository. Each job has its own directory for results. This directory contains the following items:

report.md is a markdown report that summarizes the job results
data.tar.gz contains raw timing data in JSON format. To untar this file, run tar -xzvf data.tar.gz. You can analyze this data using the BenchmarkTools package.
logs is a directory containing the build logs and benchmark execution logs for the job.

Comment Examples

Here are some examples of comments that trigger a BenchmarkJob in various contexts:

I want to run benchmarks tagged "array" on the current commit.

@nanosoldier `runbenchmarks("array")`

If this comment is on a specific commit, benchmarks will run on that commit. If
it's in a PR, they will run on the head/merge commit of the PR. If it's on a diff,
they will run on the commit associated with the diff.

I want to run benchmarks tagged "array" on the current commit, and compare the results
with the results of running benchmarks on commit 858dee2b09d6a01cb5a2e4fb2444dd6bed469b7f.

@nanosoldier `runbenchmarks("array", vs = "@858dee2b09d6a01cb5a2e4fb2444dd6bed469b7f")`

I want to run benchmarks tagged "array", but not "simd" or "linalg", on the
current commit. I want to compare the results against those of the release-0.4
branch.

@nanosoldier `runbenchmarks("array" && !("simd" || "linalg"), vs = ":release-0.4")`

I want to run all benchmarks on the current commit. I want to compare the results
against a commit on my fork.

@nanosoldier `runbenchmarks(ALL, vs = "christopher-dG/julia@c70ab26bb677c92f0d8e0ae41c3035217a4b111f")`

I want to run all benchmarks on the current commit. I want to compare the results
against the head commit of my fork's branch.

@nanosoldier `runbenchmarks(ALL, vs = "christopher-dG/julia:mybranch")`

`PkgEvalJob`

Execution Cycle

A PkgEvalJob has the following execution cycle:

Pull in the JuliaLang/julia repository and build the commit specified by the context of the trigger phrase.
Using the new Julia build, test the packages from the General registry as specified by the trigger phrase.
If the trigger phrase specifies a commit to compare against, build that version of Julia and perform step 2 using the comparison build.
Upload a markdown report to the NanosoldierReports repository.

Trigger Syntax

A PkgEvalJob is triggered with the following syntax:

@nanosoldier `runtests(package_selection, vs = "ref")`

The package selection argument is used to decide which packages to test. It should be a list of package names, e.g. ["Example"], that will be looked up in the registry. Additionally, you can test all packages in the registry by using the keyword ALL, e.g. runtests(ALL).

The vs keyword argument is optional, and is used to determine whether or not the comparison step (step 3 above) is performed. Its syntax is identical to the BenchmarkJob vs keyword argument.

Several other optional arguments are supported by this job:

buildflags = ["...", ...]: a list of flags that will be put in the Make.user for the primary build.

This option can be used to, e.g., find packages that fail with assertions enabled:
```
@nanosoldier `runtests(ALL, vs = "%self", buildflags=["LLVM_ASSERTIONS=1", "FORCE_ASSERTIONS=1"])`
```
vs_buildflags: the same, but for the comparison build (defaults to no options, even if buildflags is set)
compiled: whether to run PkgEval in so-called compiled mode, where PackageCompiler.jl will be used to generate a custom system image before testing with it on a slightly different system. The value needs to be one of the following symbols:
- :primary: to compile tests for the primary build
- :against: to compile tests for the comparison build specified in the vs argument
- :both: to compile tests for both builds
- :none (default): do not use PackageCompiler.jl
This option can be used to assess compileability of the ecosystem:
```
@nanosoldier `runtests(ALL, vs = "%self", compiled = :primary)`
```

Benchmark Results

Once a PkgEvalJob is complete, the results are uploaded to the NanosoldierReports repository. Each job has its own directory for results. This directory contains the following items:

report.md is a markdown report that summarizes the job results
data.tar.gz contains raw test data as Feather files encoding a DataFrame. To untar this file, run tar -xzvf data.tar.gz.
logs is a directory containing the test logs for the job.

Initial Setup for BenchmarksJob

On all computers:

echo "if this is a shared machine, you must use a password to secure this:"
[ -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa ] || ssh-keygen -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa
echo "add to https://github.com/settings/keys:"
cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
EDITOR=vim git config --global --edit
sudo mkdir /nanosoldier
sudo chown `whoami` /nanosoldier
cd /nanosoldier
git clone <URL>
cd ./Nanosoldier.jl
git checkout <branch>
./provision-<worker|server>.sh

On main server:

scp ~nanosoldier/.ssh/id_rsa ~nanosoldier/.ssh/id_rsa.pub <workers>:
ssh -t <workers> sudo chown nanosoldier:nanosoldier id_rsa id_rsa.pub
ssh -t <workers> sudo mv id_rsa id_rsa.pub ~nanosoldier/.ssh
ssh -t <workers> sudo -u nanosoldier cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub >> .ssh/authorized_keys
ssh -t <workers> sudo -u nanosoldier "bash -c 'cat ~nanosoldier/.ssh/id_rsa.pub >> ~nanosoldier/.ssh/authorized_keys'"
sudo -u nanosoldier ssh <workers> exit
# repeat above for every worker, then:
sudo -u nanosoldier scp ~nanosoldier/.ssh/known_hosts <workers>:.ssh

To run:

cd /nanosoldier/Nanosoldier.jl
byobu
./run_base_ci

Upgrading for BenchmarksJob

on server

cd /nanosoldier/Nanosoldier.jl
git pull
chmod 666 *.toml
sudo -u nanosoldier ../julia-1.6.4/bin/julia --project=. -e 'using Pkg; Pkg.update()'
chmod 664 *.toml
./provision-server.sh
git add -u
git commit
git push

on each worker

cd /nanosoldier/Nanosoldier.jl
git pull
./provision-worker.sh

Acknowledgements

The development of the Nanosoldier benchmarking platform was supported in part by the US Army Research Office through the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies under Contract No. W911NF-07-D0004.

fonsp/Nanosoldier.jl

Nanosoldier.jl

Quick start

Available job types

BenchmarkJob

Execution Cycle

Trigger Syntax

Benchmark Results

Comment Examples

PkgEvalJob

Execution Cycle

Trigger Syntax

Benchmark Results

Initial Setup for BenchmarksJob

Upgrading for BenchmarksJob

on server

on each worker

Acknowledgements

`BenchmarkJob`

`PkgEvalJob`