[darcs-users] buildbot update

[zooko]

On May 21, 2008, at 6:06 AM, David Roundy wrote:

> A couple of these bugs could be fixed simply by increasing the
> timeout, for the benefit of slower buildbots and those with slow
> connections.

Actually, this one is a problem with VirtualBox:

http://buildbot.darcs.net/builders/karel%20solaris%20Solaris-5.11% 
20nevada-79a%20x86_64/builds/33/steps/test_configure/logs/stdio

It isn't really that it took 1200 seconds to get that far in "make  
test", it is actually that:

1.  The VirtualBox virtual machine has a "gettimeofday" that jumps  
around crazily.

2.  Twisted relies on gettimeofday to decide when to call a function  
later.

3.  Buildbot relies on Twisted's "schedule a function to be called  
1200 seconds later" to detect whether a step is taking too long.

I'm working on fixing issue #3 in this stack -- I want twisted to use  
the CLOCK_MONOTONIC feature of modern operating systems to give a  
clock which is guaranteed not to jump around crazily.  http:// 
twistedmatrix.com/trac/ticket/1396

Karel is helping by trying out patches to Twisted which are intended  
to do that.

Karel has already opened a bug report regarding issue #1 with the  
VirtualBox folks.

What you suggested, David, would be fixing issue #3 -- tell Buildbot  
not to timeout so earlier, or even not to timeout at all.  Now that  
you mention it, that *is* a pretty good idea...  I'll see about doing  
that...

Regards,

Zooko