A remote build cache for Bazel

bazel-remote is a HTTP/1.1 and gRPC server that is intended to be used as a remote build cache for Bazel. The cache contents are stored in a directory on disk. One can specify a maximum cache size and bazel-remote will automatically enforce this limit and clean the cache by deleting files based on their last access time. The cache supports HTTP basic authentication with usernames and passwords being specified by a .htpasswd file.

Project status: bazel-remote has been serving TBs of cache artifacts per day since April 2018, both on commodity hardware and AWS servers. Outgoing bandwidth can exceed 15 Gbit/s on the right AWS instance type.

HTTP/1.1 REST API

Cache entries are set and retrieved by key, and there are two types of keys that can be used:

Content addressed storage (CAS), where the key is the lowercase SHA256 hash of the stored value. The REST API for these entries is: /cas/<key> or with an optional but ignored cache pool name: /<pool>/cas/<key>.
Action cache, where the key is an arbitrary 64 character lowercase hexadecimal string. Bazel uses the SHA256 hash of an action as the key, to store the metadata created by the action. The REST API for these entries is: /ac/<key> or with an optional cache pool name: /<pool>/ac/<key>.

Values are stored via HTTP PUT requests, and retrieved via GET requests. HEAD requests can be used to confirm whether a key exists or not.

Values stored in the action cache are validated as an ActionResult protobuf message as per the Bazel Remote Execution API v2 unless validation is disabled by configuration. The HTTP server also supports reading and writing JSON encoded protobuf ActionResult messages to the action cache by using HTTP headers Accept: application/json for GET requests and Content-type: application/json for PUT requests.

Useful endpoints

/status

Returns the cache status/info.

$ curl http://localhost:8080/status
{
 "CurrSize": 414081715503,
 "MaxSize": 8589934592000,
 "NumFiles": 621413,
 "ServerTime": 1588329927,
 "GitCommit": "876822643dc8590f2a1d2724641a7078f564978f"
}

/cas/e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855

The empty CAS blob is always available, even if the cache is empty. This can be used to test that a bazel-remote instance is running and accepting requests.

$ curl --head --fail http://localhost:8080/cas/e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Content-Length: 0
Date: Fri, 01 May 2020 10:42:06 GMT

Prometheus Metrics

To query endpoint metrics see github.com/slok/go-http-metrics's query examples.

gRPC API

bazel-remote also supports the ActionCache, ContentAddressableStorage and Capabilities services in the Bazel Remote Execution API v2, and the corresponding parts of the Byte Stream API.

Prometheus Metrics

To query endpoint metrics see github.com/grpc-ecosystem/go-grpc-prometheus's metrics documentation.

Experimental Remote Asset API Support

There is (very) experimental support for a subset of the Fetch service in the Remote Asset API which can be enabled with the --experimental_remote_asset_api flag.

To use this with Bazel, specify --experimental_remote_downloader=grpc://replace-with-your.host:port.

Usage

If a YAML configuration file is specified by the --config_file command line flag or BAZEL_REMOTE_CONFIG_FILE environment variable, then other command line flags and environment variables are ignored. Otherwise, the flags and environment variables listed in the help text below can be specified (flags override the corresponding environment variables).

Command line flags

$ ./bazel-remote --help
NAME:
   bazel-remote - A remote build cache for Bazel

USAGE:
   bazel-remote [global options] [arguments...]

DESCRIPTION:
   A remote build cache for Bazel.

GLOBAL OPTIONS:
   --config_file value              Path to a YAML configuration file. If this flag is specified then all other flags are ignored. [$BAZEL_REMOTE_CONFIG_FILE]
   --dir value                      Directory path where to store the cache contents. This flag is required. [$BAZEL_REMOTE_DIR]
   --max_size value                 The maximum size of the remote cache in GiB. This flag is required. (default: -1) [$BAZEL_REMOTE_MAX_SIZE]
   --host value                     Address to listen on. Listens on all network interfaces by default. [$BAZEL_REMOTE_HOST]
   --port value                     The port the HTTP server listens on. (default: 8080) [$BAZEL_REMOTE_PORT]
   --grpc_port value                The port the gRPC server listens on. Set to 0 to disable. (default: 9092) [$BAZEL_REMOTE_GRPC_PORT]
   --profile_host value             A host address to listen on for profiling, if enabled by a valid --profile_port setting. (default: "127.0.0.1") [$BAZEL_REMOTE_PROFILE_HOST]
   --profile_port value             If a positive integer, serve /debug/pprof/* URLs from http://profile_host:profile_port. (default: 0, ie profiling disabled) [$BAZEL_REMOTE_PROFILE_PORT]
   --http_read_timeout value        The HTTP read timeout for a client request in seconds (does not apply to the proxy backends or the profiling endpoint) (default: 0s, ie disabled) [$BAZEL_REMOTE_HTTP_READ_TIMEOUT]
   --http_write_timeout value       The HTTP write timeout for a server response in seconds (does not apply to the proxy backends or the profiling endpoint) (default: 0s, ie disabled) [$BAZEL_REMOTE_HTTP_WRITE_TIMEOUT]
   --htpasswd_file value            Path to a .htpasswd file. This flag is optional. Please read https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/programs/htpasswd.html. [$BAZEL_REMOTE_HTPASSWD_FILE]
   --tls_enabled                    This flag has been deprecated. Specify tls_cert_file and tls_key_file instead. (default: false) [$BAZEL_REMOTE_TLS_ENABLED]
   --tls_cert_file value            Path to a pem encoded certificate file. [$BAZEL_REMOTE_TLS_CERT_FILE]
   --tls_key_file value             Path to a pem encoded key file. [$BAZEL_REMOTE_TLS_KEY_FILE]
   --idle_timeout value             The maximum period of having received no request after which the server will shut itself down. (default: 0s, ie disabled) [$BAZEL_REMOTE_IDLE_TIMEOUT]
   --s3.endpoint value              The S3/minio endpoint to use when using S3 cache backend. [$BAZEL_REMOTE_S3_ENDPOINT]
   --s3.bucket value                The S3/minio bucket to use when using S3 cache backend. [$BAZEL_REMOTE_S3_BUCKET]
   --s3.prefix value                The S3/minio object prefix to use when using S3 cache backend. [$BAZEL_REMOTE_S3_PREFIX]
   --s3.access_key_id value         The S3/minio access key to use when using S3 cache backend. [$BAZEL_REMOTE_S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID]
   --s3.secret_access_key value     The S3/minio secret access key to use when using S3 cache backend. [$BAZEL_REMOTE_S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY]
   --s3.disable_ssl                 Whether to disable TLS/SSL when using the S3 cache backend. (default: false, ie enable TLS/SSL) [$BAZEL_REMOTE_S3_DISABLE_SSL]
   --s3.iam_role_endpoint value     Endpoint for using IAM security credentials. By default it will look for credentials in the standard locations for the AWS platform. [$BAZEL_REMOTE_S3_IAM_ROLE_ENDPOINT]
   --s3.region value                The AWS region. Required when not specifying S3/minio access keys. [$BAZEL_REMOTE_S3_REGION]
   --disable_http_ac_validation     Whether to disable ActionResult validation for HTTP requests. (default: false, ie enable validation) [$BAZEL_REMOTE_DISABLE_HTTP_AC_VALIDATION]
   --disable_grpc_ac_deps_check     Whether to disable ActionResult dependency checks for gRPC GetActionResult requests. (default: false, ie enable ActionCache dependency checks) [$BAZEL_REMOTE_DISABLE_GRPS_AC_DEPS_CHECK]
   --enable_endpoint_metrics        Whether to enable metrics for each HTTP/gRPC endpoint. (default: false, ie disable metrics) [$BAZEL_REMOTE_ENABLE_ENDPOINT_METRICS]
   --experimental_remote_asset_api  Whether to enable the experimental remote asset API implementation. (default: false, ie disable remote asset API) [$BAZEL_REMOTE_EXPERIMENTAL_REMOTE_ASSET_API]
   --help, -h                       show help (default: false)

Example configuration file

# These two are the only required options:
dir: path/to/cache-dir
max_size: 100

host: localhost
# The port to use for HTTP/HTTPS:
#port: 8080
# The port to use for (experimental) gRPC support:
#grpc_port: 9092

# If profile_port is specified, then serve /debug/pprof/* URLs here:
#profile_host: 127.0.0.1
#profile_port: 7070

# HTTP read/write timeouts. Note that these do not apply to the proxy
# backends or the profiling endpoint. Reasonable values might be twice
# the length of time that you expect a client to read/write the largest
# likely blob. Units can be one of: "s", "m", "h".
#http_read_timeout: 15s
#http_write_timeout: 20s

# If you want to require simple authentication:
#htpasswd_file: path/to/.htpasswd

# Specify a certificate if you want to use HTTPS:
#tls_cert_file: path/to/tls.cert
#tls_key_file:  path/to/tls.key

# If specified, bazel-remote should exit after being idle
# for this long. Time units can be one of: "s", "m", "h".
#idle_timeout: 45s

# If set to true, do not validate that ActionCache
# items are valid ActionResult protobuf messages.
#disable_http_ac_validation: false

# If set to true, do not check that CAS items referred
# to by ActionResult messages are in the cache.
#disable_grpc_ac_deps_check: false

# If set to true, enable metrics for each HTTP/gRPC endpoint.
#enable_endpoint_metrics: false

# At most one of the proxy backends can be selected:
#
#gcs_proxy:
#  bucket: gcs-bucket
#  use_default_credentials: false
#  json_credentials_file: path/to/creds.json
#
#s3_proxy:
#  endpoint: minio.example.com:9000
#  bucket: test-bucket
#  prefix: test-prefix
#  access_key_id: EXAMPLE_ACCESS_KEY
#  secret_access_key: EXAMPLE_SECRET_KEY
#  disable_ssl: true
#
# Provide either access_key_id/secret_access_key, or iam_role_endpoint/region.
# iam_role_endpoint can also be left empty, and figured out automatically.
#  iam_role_endpoint: http://169.254.169.254
#  region: us-east-1
#
#http_proxy:
#  url: https://remote-cache.com:8080/cache

# If set to a valid port number, then serve /debug/pprof/* URLs here:
#profile_port: 7070
# IP address to use, if profiling is enabled:
#profile_host: 127.0.0.1

# If true, enable experimental remote asset API support:
#experimental_remote_asset_api: true

Docker

Prebuilt Image

We publish docker images to DockerHub that you can use with docker run. The following commands will start bazel-remote with uid and gid 1000 on port 9090 for HTTP and 9092 for gRPC, with the default maximum cache size of 5 GiB.

$ docker pull buchgr/bazel-remote-cache
$ docker run -u 1000:1000 -v /path/to/cache/dir:/data \
	-p 9090:8080 -p 9092:9092 buchgr/bazel-remote-cache

Note that you will need to change /path/to/cache/dir to a valid directory that is readable and writable by the specified user (or by uid/gid 65532 if no user was specified).

If you want the docker container to run in the background pass the -d flag right after docker run.

You can adjust the maximum cache size by appending --max_size=N, where N is the maximum size in Gibibytes.

Build your own

The command below will build a docker image from source and install it into your local docker registry.

$ bazel run :bazel-remote-image

ARM Support

Bazel remote cache server can be run on an ARM architecture (i.e.: on a Raspberry Pi).

To build for ARM, use:

$ bazel run :bazel-remote-image-arm64

Build a standalone Linux binary

$ bazel build :bazel-remote

Authentication

In order to pass a .htpasswd and/or server key file(s) to the cache inside a docker container, you first need to mount the file in the container and pass the path to the cache. The example below also configures TLS which is technically optional but highly recommended in order to not send passwords in plain text.

$ docker run -v /path/to/cache/dir:/data \
	-v /path/to/htpasswd:/etc/bazel-remote/htpasswd \
	-v /path/to/server_cert:/etc/bazel-remote/server_cert \
	-v /path/to/server_key:/etc/bazel-remote/server_key \
	-p 9090:8080 -p 9092:9092 buchgr/bazel-remote-cache \
	--tls_enabled=true \
	--tls_cert_file=/etc/bazel-remote/server_cert \
	--tls_key_file=/etc/bazel-remote/server_key \
	--htpasswd_file /etc/bazel-remote/htpasswd --max_size=5

Profiling

To enable pprof profiling, specify a port with --profile_port.

If running inside docker, you will also need to set --profile_host to a value other than 127.0.0.1 (--profile_host= with an empty value should work) and add a -p mapping to the docker run commandline for the port.

See Profiling Go programs with pprof for more details.

Configuring Bazel

To make bazel use remote cache, use the following flag: --remote_cache=http://replace-with-your.host:port. You can also use the following protocols instead of http: https, grpc or grpcs (depending on your bazel-remote configuration).

Basic username/password authentication can be added like so:

--remote_cache=http://user:pass@replace-with-your.host:port

To avoid leaking your password in log files, you can place this flag in a user-specific (and .gitignore'd) bazelrc file.

For more details, see Bazel's remote caching documentation.

lizan/bazel-remote

A remote build cache for Bazel

HTTP/1.1 REST API

Useful endpoints

Prometheus Metrics

gRPC API

Prometheus Metrics

Experimental Remote Asset API Support

Usage

Command line flags

Example configuration file

Docker

Prebuilt Image

Build your own

ARM Support

Build a standalone Linux binary

Authentication

Profiling

Configuring Bazel