Re: build farm machine using <make -j 8> mixed results

On 09/04/2012 05:49 PM, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> On 9/1/12 12:12 PM, Robert Creager wrote:
>> I change the build-farm.conf file to have the following make line:
>>
>> make => 'make -j 8', # or gmake if required. can include path if
>> necessary.
>>
>> 2 pass, 4 fail. Is this a build configuration you want to pursue?
> Sure that would be useful, but it's pretty clear that the check stages
> don't work in parallel. It think it's because the ports conflict, but
> there could be any number of other problems.
>
> That said, it would be useful, in my mind, to support parallel checks.
> But unless someone is going to put in the work first, you should
> restrict your parallel runs to the build and install phases.
>
>

The buildfarm code doesn't contain a facility to use a different make
incantation for each step. It's pretty much an all or nothing deal. Of
course, you can hack run_build.pl to make it do that, but I highly
discourage that. For one thing, it makes upgrading that much more
difficult. All the tweaking is supposed to be done vie the config file.
I guess I could add a setting that allowed for per step make flags.

Frankly, I have had enough failures of parallel make that I think doing
this would generate a significant number of non-repeatable failures (I
had one just the other day that took three invocations of make to get
right). So I'm not sure doing this would advance us much, although I'm
open to persuasion.

cheers

andrew