This is buildbot.info, produced by makeinfo version 4.11 from
buildbot.texinfo.

This is the BuildBot manual.

   Copyright (C) 2005,2006 Brian Warner

   Copying and distribution of this file, with or without
modification, are permitted in any medium without royalty provided
the copyright notice and this notice are preserved.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Top,  Next: Introduction,  Prev: (dir),  Up: (dir)

BuildBot
********

This is the BuildBot manual.

   Copyright (C) 2005,2006 Brian Warner

   Copying and distribution of this file, with or without
modification, are permitted in any medium without royalty provided
the copyright notice and this notice are preserved.

* Menu:

* Introduction::                What the BuildBot does.
* Installation::                Creating a buildmaster and buildslaves,
                                running them.
* Concepts::                    What goes on in the buildbot's little mind.
* Configuration::               Controlling the buildbot.
* Getting Source Code Changes::  Discovering when to run a build.
* Build Process::               Controlling how each build is run.
* Status Delivery::             Telling the world about the build's results.
* Command-line tool::
* Resources::                   Getting help.
* Developer's Appendix::
* Index of Useful Classes::
* Index of master.cfg keys::
* Index::                       Complete index.

 --- The Detailed Node Listing ---

Introduction

* History and Philosophy::
* System Architecture::
* Control Flow::

System Architecture

* BuildSlave Connections::
* Buildmaster Architecture::
* Status Delivery Architecture::

Installation

* Requirements::
* Installing the code::
* Creating a buildmaster::
* Upgrading an Existing Buildmaster::
* Creating a buildslave::
* Launching the daemons::
* Logfiles::
* Shutdown::
* Maintenance::
* Troubleshooting::

Creating a buildslave

* Buildslave Options::

Troubleshooting

* Starting the buildslave::
* Connecting to the buildmaster::
* Forcing Builds::

Concepts

* Version Control Systems::
* Schedulers::
* BuildSet::
* BuildRequest::
* Builder::
* Users::

Version Control Systems

* Generalizing VC Systems::
* Source Tree Specifications::
* How Different VC Systems Specify Sources::
* Attributes of Changes::

Users

* Doing Things With Users::
* Email Addresses::
* IRC Nicknames::
* Live Status Clients::

Configuration

* Config File Format::
* Loading the Config File::
* Testing the Config File::
* Defining the Project::
* Listing Change Sources and Schedulers::
* Setting the slaveport::
* Buildslave Specifiers::
* Defining Builders::
* Defining Status Targets::
* Debug options::

Listing Change Sources and Schedulers

* Scheduler Types::
* Build Dependencies::

Buildslave Specifiers

* When Buildslaves Go Missing::

Getting Source Code Changes

* Change Sources::
* Choosing ChangeSources::
* CVSToys - PBService::
* Mail-parsing ChangeSources::
* PBChangeSource::
* P4Source::
* BonsaiPoller::
* SVNPoller::
* MercurialHook::

Mail-parsing ChangeSources

* Subscribing the Buildmaster::
* Using Maildirs::
* Parsing Email Change Messages::

Parsing Email Change Messages

* FCMaildirSource::
* SyncmailMaildirSource::
* BonsaiMaildirSource::
* SVNCommitEmailMaildirSource::

Build Process

* Build Steps::
* Interlocks::
* Build Factories::

Build Steps

* Common Parameters::
* Source Checkout::
* ShellCommand::
* Simple ShellCommand Subclasses::
* Python BuildSteps::
* Transferring Files::
* Triggering Schedulers::
* Writing New BuildSteps::

Source Checkout

* CVS::
* SVN::
* Darcs::
* Mercurial::
* Arch::
* Bazaar::
* Bzr::
* P4::
* Git::

Simple ShellCommand Subclasses

* Configure::
* Compile::
* Test::
* TreeSize::
* Build Properties::

Python BuildSteps

* BuildEPYDoc::
* PyFlakes::

Writing New BuildSteps

* BuildStep LogFiles::
* Reading Logfiles::
* Adding LogObservers::
* BuildStep URLs::

Build Factories

* BuildStep Objects::
* BuildFactory::
* Process-Specific build factories::

BuildStep Objects

* BuildFactory Attributes::
* Quick builds::

BuildFactory

* BuildFactory Attributes::
* Quick builds::

Process-Specific build factories

* GNUAutoconf::
* CPAN::
* Python distutils::
* Python/Twisted/trial projects::

Status Delivery

* WebStatus::
* MailNotifier::
* IRC Bot::
* PBListener::
* Writing New Status Plugins::

WebStatus

* WebStatus Configuration Parameters::
* Buildbot Web Resources::
* XMLRPC server::
* HTML Waterfall::

Command-line tool

* Administrator Tools::
* Developer Tools::
* Other Tools::
* .buildbot config directory::

Developer Tools

* statuslog::
* statusgui::
* try::

waiting for results

* try --diff::

Other Tools

* sendchange::
* debugclient::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Introduction,  Next: Installation,  Prev: Top,  Up: Top

1 Introduction
**************

The BuildBot is a system to automate the compile/test cycle required
by most software projects to validate code changes. By automatically
rebuilding and testing the tree each time something has changed,
build problems are pinpointed quickly, before other developers are
inconvenienced by the failure. The guilty developer can be identified
and harassed without human intervention. By running the builds on a
variety of platforms, developers who do not have the facilities to
test their changes everywhere before checkin will at least know
shortly afterwards whether they have broken the build or not. Warning
counts, lint checks, image size, compile time, and other build
parameters can be tracked over time, are more visible, and are
therefore easier to improve.

   The overall goal is to reduce tree breakage and provide a platform
to run tests or code-quality checks that are too annoying or pedantic
for any human to waste their time with. Developers get immediate (and
potentially public) feedback about their changes, encouraging them to
be more careful about testing before checkin.

   Features:

   * run builds on a variety of slave platforms

   * arbitrary build process: handles projects using C, Python,
     whatever

   * minimal host requirements: python and Twisted

   * slaves can be behind a firewall if they can still do checkout

   * status delivery through web page, email, IRC, other protocols

   * track builds in progress, provide estimated completion time

   * flexible configuration by subclassing generic build process
     classes

   * debug tools to force a new build, submit fake Changes, query
     slave status

   * released under the GPL

* Menu:

* History and Philosophy::
* System Architecture::
* Control Flow::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: History and Philosophy,  Next: System Architecture,  Prev: Introduction,  Up: Introduction

1.1 History and Philosophy
==========================

The Buildbot was inspired by a similar project built for a development
team writing a cross-platform embedded system. The various components
of the project were supposed to compile and run on several flavors of
unix (linux, solaris, BSD), but individual developers had their own
preferences and tended to stick to a single platform. From time to
time, incompatibilities would sneak in (some unix platforms want to
use `string.h', some prefer `strings.h'), and then the tree would
compile for some developers but not others. The buildbot was written
to automate the human process of walking into the office, updating a
tree, compiling (and discovering the breakage), finding the developer
at fault, and complaining to them about the problem they had
introduced. With multiple platforms it was difficult for developers to
do the right thing (compile their potential change on all platforms);
the buildbot offered a way to help.

   Another problem was when programmers would change the behavior of a
library without warning its users, or change internal aspects that
other code was (unfortunately) depending upon. Adding unit tests to
the codebase helps here: if an application's unit tests pass despite
changes in the libraries it uses, you can have more confidence that
the library changes haven't broken anything. Many developers
complained that the unit tests were inconvenient or took too long to
run: having the buildbot run them reduces the developer's workload to
a minimum.

   In general, having more visibility into the project is always good,
and automation makes it easier for developers to do the right thing.
When everyone can see the status of the project, developers are
encouraged to keep the tree in good working order. Unit tests that
aren't run on a regular basis tend to suffer from bitrot just like
code does: exercising them on a regular basis helps to keep them
functioning and useful.

   The current version of the Buildbot is additionally targeted at
distributed free-software projects, where resources and platforms are
only available when provided by interested volunteers. The buildslaves
are designed to require an absolute minimum of configuration, reducing
the effort a potential volunteer needs to expend to be able to
contribute a new test environment to the project. The goal is for
anyone who wishes that a given project would run on their favorite
platform should be able to offer that project a buildslave, running on
that platform, where they can verify that their portability code
works, and keeps working.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: System Architecture,  Next: Control Flow,  Prev: History and Philosophy,  Up: Introduction

1.2 System Architecture
=======================

The Buildbot consists of a single `buildmaster' and one or more
`buildslaves', connected in a star topology. The buildmaster makes
all decisions about what, when, and how to build. It sends commands
to be run on the build slaves, which simply execute the commands and
return the results. (certain steps involve more local decision
making, where the overhead of sending a lot of commands back and
forth would be inappropriate, but in general the buildmaster is
responsible for everything).

   The buildmaster is usually fed `Changes' by some sort of version
control system (*note Change Sources::), which may cause builds to be
run. As the builds are performed, various status messages are
produced, which are then sent to any registered Status Targets (*note
Status Delivery::).


                  +------------------+           +-----------+
                  |                  |---------->|  Browser  |
                  |   BuildMaster    |           +-----------+
        Changes   |                  |--------------->+--------+
     +----------->|                  | Build Status   | email  |
     |            |                  |------------+   +--------+
     |            |                  |-------+    |     +---------------+
     |            +------------------+       |    +---->| Status Client |
+----------+         | ^      | ^            |          +---------------+
| Change   |         | |     C| |            |             +-----+
|  Sources |         | |     o| |            +------------>| IRC |
|          |         | |     m| |R                         +-----+
| CVS      |         v |     m| |e
| SVN      |    +---------+  a| |s
| Darcs    |    |  Build  |  n| |u
| .. etc   |    |  Slave  |  d| |l
|          |    +---------+  s| |t
|          |                  v |s
+----------+                +---------+
                            |  Build  |
                            |  Slave  |
                            +---------+

   The buildmaster is configured and maintained by the "buildmaster
admin", who is generally the project team member responsible for
build process issues. Each buildslave is maintained by a "buildslave
admin", who do not need to be quite as involved. Generally slaves are
run by anyone who has an interest in seeing the project work well on
their favorite platform.

* Menu:

* BuildSlave Connections::
* Buildmaster Architecture::
* Status Delivery Architecture::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: BuildSlave Connections,  Next: Buildmaster Architecture,  Prev: System Architecture,  Up: System Architecture

1.2.1 BuildSlave Connections
----------------------------

The buildslaves are typically run on a variety of separate machines,
at least one per platform of interest. These machines connect to the
buildmaster over a TCP connection to a publically-visible port. As a
result, the buildslaves can live behind a NAT box or similar
firewalls, as long as they can get to buildmaster. The TCP connections
are initiated by the buildslave and accepted by the buildmaster, but
commands and results travel both ways within this connection. The
buildmaster is always in charge, so all commands travel exclusively
from the buildmaster to the buildslave.

   To perform builds, the buildslaves must typically obtain source
code from a CVS/SVN/etc repository. Therefore they must also be able
to reach the repository. The buildmaster provides instructions for
performing builds, but does not provide the source code itself.



Repository|  |       BuildMaster   |      |
 (CVS/SVN)|  |                    ^|^^^   |
          |  |                   / c   \  |
----------+  +------------------/--o----\-+
        ^                      /   m  ^  \
        |                     /    m  |   \
 checkout/update              --+  a  | +--
        |                    TCP|  n  | |TCP
        |                       |  d  | |
        |                       |  s  | |
        |                       |  |  | |
        |                       |  |  r |
        |                       |  |  e |
 -N-A-T-|- - - - -N-A-T- - - - -|- |- s-|- - - - -N-A-T- - -
        |                       |  |  u |
        |                       |  |  l |
        |    +------------------|--|--t-|-+
        |    |                  |  |  s | |
        +----|                     v  |   |
             |                        |   |
             |                        |   |
             |                            |
             |       BuildSlave           |
             +----------------------------+


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Buildmaster Architecture,  Next: Status Delivery Architecture,  Prev: BuildSlave Connections,  Up: System Architecture

1.2.2 Buildmaster Architecture
------------------------------

The Buildmaster consists of several pieces:



 +---------------+
 | Change Source |----->----+
 +---------------+          |
                         Changes
                            |
 +---------------+          v
 | Change Source |----->----+
 +---------------+          v
                      +-----+-------+
                      |             |
                      v             v
              +-----------+    +-----------+
              | Scheduler |    | Scheduler |
              +-----------+    +-----------+
                 |                |  |
          +------+---------+  +---+  +-----+
          |                |  |            |
          v                |  |          Build
      :      :           : v  v :        Request
      :      :           :      :          |
      : ---- :           :      :          |
      : ---- :           : ---- :          |
      +======+           +======+      :   v  :
         |                  |          :      :
         v                  v          :      :
   +---------+        +---------+      :queue :
   | Builder |        | Builder |      +======+
   +---------+        +---------+         |
                                          v
                                    +---------+
                                    | Builder |
                                    +---------+

   * Change Sources, which create a Change object each time something
     is modified in the VC repository. Most ChangeSources listen for
     messages from a hook script of some sort. Some sources actively
     poll the repository on a regular basis. All Changes are fed to
     the Schedulers.

   * Schedulers, which decide when builds should be performed. They
     collect Changes into BuildRequests, which are then queued for
     delivery to Builders until a buildslave is available.

   * Builders, which control exactly _how_ each build is performed
     (with a series of BuildSteps, configured in a BuildFactory). Each
     Build is run on a single buildslave.

   * Status plugins, which deliver information about the build results
     through protocols like HTTP, mail, and IRC.




                       +-----------------+
                       |  BuildSlave     |
                       |                 |
                       |                 |
 +-------+             | +------------+  |
 |Builder|----Build----->|SlaveBuilder|  |
 +-------+             | +------------+  |
                       |                 |
                       | +------------+  |
             +-Build---->|SlaveBuilder|  |
             |         | +------------+  |
 +-------+   |         |                 |
 |Builder|---+         +-----------------+
 +-------+   |
             |
             |      +-----------------+
           Build    |  BuildSlave     |
             |      |                 |
             |      |                 |
             |      | +------------+  |
             +------->|SlaveBuilder|  |
                    | +------------+  |
 +-------+          |                 |
 |Builder|--+       | +------------+  |
 +-------+  +-------->|SlaveBuilder|  |
                    | +------------+  |
                    |                 |
                    +-----------------+

   Each Builder is configured with a list of BuildSlaves that it will
use for its builds. These buildslaves are expected to behave
identically: the only reason to use multiple BuildSlaves for a single
Builder is to provide a measure of load-balancing.

   Within a single BuildSlave, each Builder creates its own
SlaveBuilder instance. These SlaveBuilders operate independently from
each other.  Each gets its own base directory to work in. It is quite
common to have many Builders sharing the same buildslave. For
example, there might be two buildslaves: one for i386, and a second
for PowerPC.  There may then be a pair of Builders that do a full
compile/test run, one for each architecture, and a lone Builder that
creates snapshot source tarballs if the full builders complete
successfully. The full builders would each run on a single
buildslave, whereas the tarball creation step might run on either
buildslave (since the platform doesn't matter when creating source
tarballs). In this case, the mapping would look like:

     Builder(full-i386)  ->  BuildSlaves(slave-i386)
     Builder(full-ppc)   ->  BuildSlaves(slave-ppc)
     Builder(source-tarball) -> BuildSlaves(slave-i386, slave-ppc)

   and each BuildSlave would have two SlaveBuilders inside it, one
for a full builder, and a second for the source-tarball builder.

   Once a SlaveBuilder is available, the Builder pulls one or more
BuildRequests off its incoming queue. (It may pull more than one if it
determines that it can merge the requests together; for example, there
may be multiple requests to build the current HEAD revision). These
requests are merged into a single Build instance, which includes the
SourceStamp that describes what exact version of the source code
should be used for the build. The Build is then randomly assigned to a
free SlaveBuilder and the build begins.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Status Delivery Architecture,  Prev: Buildmaster Architecture,  Up: System Architecture

1.2.3 Status Delivery Architecture
----------------------------------

The buildmaster maintains a central Status object, to which various
status plugins are connected. Through this Status object, a full
hierarchy of build status objects can be obtained.



  Status Objects            Status Plugins       User Clients

 +------+                   +---------+        +-----------+
 |Status|<--------------+-->|Waterfall|<-------|Web Browser|
 +------+               |   +---------+        +-----------+
    |  +-----+          |
    v        v          |
+-------+  +-------+    |     +---+            +----------+
|Builder|  |Builder|    +---->|IRC|<----------->IRC Server|
|Status |  |Status |    |     +---+            +----------+
+-------+  +-------+    |
    |  +----+           |
    v       v           |   +------------+     +----+
+------+  +------+      +-->|MailNotifier|---->|SMTP|
|Build |  |Build |          +------------+     +----+
|Status|  |Status|
+------+  +------+
    | +-----+
    v       v
+------+  +------+
|Step  |  |Step  |
|Status|  |Status|
+------+  +------+
   | +---+
   v     v
+----+ +----+
|Log | |Log |
|File| |File|
+----+ +----+

   The configuration file controls which status plugins are active.
Each status plugin gets a reference to the top-level Status object.
From there they can request information on each Builder, Build, Step,
and LogFile. This query-on-demand interface is used by the
html.Waterfall plugin to create the main status page each time a web
browser hits the main URL.

   The status plugins can also subscribe to hear about new Builds as
they occur: this is used by the MailNotifier to create new email
messages for each recently-completed Build.

   The Status object records the status of old builds on disk in the
buildmaster's base directory. This allows it to return information
about historical builds.

   There are also status objects that correspond to Schedulers and
BuildSlaves. These allow status plugins to report information about
upcoming builds, and the online/offline status of each buildslave.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Control Flow,  Prev: System Architecture,  Up: Introduction

1.3 Control Flow
================

A day in the life of the buildbot:

   * A developer commits some source code changes to the repository.
     A hook script or commit trigger of some sort sends information
     about this change to the buildmaster through one of its
     configured Change Sources. This notification might arrive via
     email, or over a network connection (either initiated by the
     buildmaster as it "subscribes" to changes, or by the commit
     trigger as it pushes Changes towards the buildmaster). The
     Change contains information about who made the change, what
     files were modified, which revision contains the change, and any
     checkin comments.

   * The buildmaster distributes this change to all of its configured
     Schedulers. Any "important" changes cause the "tree-stable-timer"
     to be started, and the Change is added to a list of those that
     will go into a new Build. When the timer expires, a Build is
     started on each of a set of configured Builders, all
     compiling/testing the same source code. Unless configured
     otherwise, all Builds run in parallel on the various buildslaves.

   * The Build consists of a series of Steps. Each Step causes some
     number of commands to be invoked on the remote buildslave
     associated with that Builder. The first step is almost always to
     perform a checkout of the appropriate revision from the same VC
     system that produced the Change. The rest generally perform a
     compile and run unit tests. As each Step runs, the buildslave
     reports back command output and return status to the buildmaster.

   * As the Build runs, status messages like "Build Started", "Step
     Started", "Build Finished", etc, are published to a collection of
     Status Targets. One of these targets is usually the HTML
     "Waterfall" display, which shows a chronological list of events,
     and summarizes the results of the most recent build at the top
     of each column.  Developers can periodically check this page to
     see how their changes have fared. If they see red, they know
     that they've made a mistake and need to fix it. If they see
     green, they know that they've done their duty and don't need to
     worry about their change breaking anything.

   * If a MailNotifier status target is active, the completion of a
     build will cause email to be sent to any developers whose
     Changes were incorporated into this Build. The MailNotifier can
     be configured to only send mail upon failing builds, or for
     builds which have just transitioned from passing to failing.
     Other status targets can provide similar real-time notification
     via different communication channels, like IRC.



File: buildbot.info,  Node: Installation,  Next: Concepts,  Prev: Introduction,  Up: Top

2 Installation
**************

* Menu:

* Requirements::
* Installing the code::
* Creating a buildmaster::
* Upgrading an Existing Buildmaster::
* Creating a buildslave::
* Launching the daemons::
* Logfiles::
* Shutdown::
* Maintenance::
* Troubleshooting::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Requirements,  Next: Installing the code,  Prev: Installation,  Up: Installation

2.1 Requirements
================

At a bare minimum, you'll need the following (for both the buildmaster
and a buildslave):

   * Python: http://www.python.org

     Buildbot requires python-2.3 or later, and is primarily developed
     against python-2.4. It is also tested against python-2.5 .

   * Twisted: http://twistedmatrix.com

     Both the buildmaster and the buildslaves require Twisted-2.0.x or
     later. It has been tested against all releases of Twisted up to
     Twisted-2.5.0 (the most recent as of this writing). As always,
     the most recent version is recommended.

     Twisted is delivered as a collection of subpackages. You'll need
     at least "Twisted" (the core package), and you'll also want
     TwistedMail, TwistedWeb, and TwistedWords (for sending email,
     serving a web status page, and delivering build status via IRC,
     respectively). You might also want TwistedConch (for the
     encrypted Manhole debug port). Note that Twisted requires
     ZopeInterface to be installed as well.


   Certain other packages may be useful on the system running the
buildmaster:

   * CVSToys: http://purl.net/net/CVSToys

     If your buildmaster uses FreshCVSSource to receive change
     notification from a cvstoys daemon, it will require CVSToys be
     installed (tested with CVSToys-1.0.10). If the it doesn't use
     that source (i.e. if you only use a mail-parsing change source,
     or the SVN notification script), you will not need CVSToys.


   And of course, your project's build process will impose additional
requirements on the buildslaves. These hosts must have all the tools
necessary to compile and test your project's source code.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Installing the code,  Next: Creating a buildmaster,  Prev: Requirements,  Up: Installation

2.2 Installing the code
=======================

The Buildbot is installed using the standard python `distutils'
module. After unpacking the tarball, the process is:

     python setup.py build
     python setup.py install

   where the install step may need to be done as root. This will put
the bulk of the code in somewhere like
/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/buildbot . It will also install the
`buildbot' command-line tool in /usr/bin/buildbot.

   To test this, shift to a different directory (like /tmp), and run:

     buildbot --version

   If it shows you the versions of Buildbot and Twisted, the install
went ok. If it says `no such command' or it gets an `ImportError'
when it tries to load the libaries, then something went wrong.
`pydoc buildbot' is another useful diagnostic tool.

   Windows users will find these files in other places. You will need
to make sure that python can find the libraries, and will probably
find it convenient to have `buildbot' on your PATH.

   If you wish, you can run the buildbot unit test suite like this:

     PYTHONPATH=. trial buildbot.test

   This should run up to 192 tests, depending upon what VC tools you
have installed. On my desktop machine it takes about five minutes to
complete. Nothing should fail, a few might be skipped. If any of the
tests fail, you should stop and investigate the cause before
continuing the installation process, as it will probably be easier to
track down the bug early.

   If you cannot or do not wish to install the buildbot into a
site-wide location like `/usr' or `/usr/local', you can also install
it into the account's home directory. Do the install command like
this:

     python setup.py install --home=~

   That will populate `~/lib/python' and create `~/bin/buildbot'.
Make sure this lib directory is on your `PYTHONPATH'.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Creating a buildmaster,  Next: Upgrading an Existing Buildmaster,  Prev: Installing the code,  Up: Installation

2.3 Creating a buildmaster
==========================

As you learned earlier (*note System Architecture::), the buildmaster
runs on a central host (usually one that is publically visible, so
everybody can check on the status of the project), and controls all
aspects of the buildbot system. Let us call this host
`buildbot.example.org'.

   You may wish to create a separate user account for the buildmaster,
perhaps named `buildmaster'. This can help keep your personal
configuration distinct from that of the buildmaster and is useful if
you have to use a mail-based notification system (*note Change
Sources::). However, the Buildbot will work just fine with your
regular user account.

   You need to choose a directory for the buildmaster, called the
`basedir'. This directory will be owned by the buildmaster, which
will use configuration files therein, and create status files as it
runs. `~/Buildbot' is a likely value. If you run multiple
buildmasters in the same account, or if you run both masters and
slaves, you may want a more distinctive name like
`~/Buildbot/master/gnomovision' or `~/Buildmasters/fooproject'. If
you are using a separate user account, this might just be
`~buildmaster/masters/fooproject'.

   Once you've picked a directory, use the `buildbot create-master'
command to create the directory and populate it with startup files:

     buildbot create-master BASEDIR

   You will need to create a configuration file (*note
Configuration::) before starting the buildmaster. Most of the rest of
this manual is dedicated to explaining how to do this. A sample
configuration file is placed in the working directory, named
`master.cfg.sample', which can be copied to `master.cfg' and edited
to suit your purposes.

   (Internal details: This command creates a file named
`buildbot.tac' that contains all the state necessary to create the
buildmaster. Twisted has a tool called `twistd' which can use this
.tac file to create and launch a buildmaster instance. twistd takes
care of logging and daemonization (running the program in the
background). `/usr/bin/buildbot' is a front end which runs twistd for
you.)

   In addition to `buildbot.tac', a small `Makefile.sample' is
installed. This can be used as the basis for customized daemon
startup, *Note Launching the daemons::.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Upgrading an Existing Buildmaster,  Next: Creating a buildslave,  Prev: Creating a buildmaster,  Up: Installation

2.4 Upgrading an Existing Buildmaster
=====================================

If you have just installed a new version of the Buildbot code, and you
have buildmasters that were created using an older version, you'll
need to upgrade these buildmasters before you can use them. The
upgrade process adds and modifies files in the buildmaster's base
directory to make it compatible with the new code.

     buildbot upgrade-master BASEDIR

   This command will also scan your `master.cfg' file for
incompatbilities (by loading it and printing any errors or deprecation
warnings that occur). Each buildbot release tries to be compatible
with configurations that worked cleanly (i.e. without deprecation
warnings) on the previous release: any functions or classes that are
to be removed will first be deprecated in a release, to give users a
chance to start using their replacement.

   The 0.7.6 release introduced the `public_html/' directory, which
contains `index.html' and other files served by the `WebStatus' and
`Waterfall' status displays. The `upgrade-master' command will create
these files if they do not already exist. It will not modify existing
copies, but it will write a new copy in e.g. `index.html.new' if the
new version differs from the version that already exists.

   The `upgrade-master' command is idempotent. It is safe to run it
multiple times. After each upgrade of the buildbot code, you should
use `upgrade-master' on all your buildmasters.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Creating a buildslave,  Next: Launching the daemons,  Prev: Upgrading an Existing Buildmaster,  Up: Installation

2.5 Creating a buildslave
=========================

Typically, you will be adding a buildslave to an existing buildmaster,
to provide additional architecture coverage. The buildbot
administrator will give you several pieces of information necessary to
connect to the buildmaster. You should also be somewhat familiar with
the project being tested, so you can troubleshoot build problems
locally.

   The buildbot exists to make sure that the project's stated "how to
build it" process actually works. To this end, the buildslave should
run in an environment just like that of your regular developers.
Typically the project build process is documented somewhere
(`README', `INSTALL', etc), in a document that should mention all
library dependencies and contain a basic set of build instructions.
This document will be useful as you configure the host and account in
which the buildslave runs.

   Here's a good checklist for setting up a buildslave:

  1. Set up the account

     It is recommended (although not mandatory) to set up a separate
     user account for the buildslave. This account is frequently named
     `buildbot' or `buildslave'. This serves to isolate your personal
     working environment from that of the slave's, and helps to
     minimize the security threat posed by letting possibly-unknown
     contributors run arbitrary code on your system. The account
     should have a minimum of fancy init scripts.

  2. Install the buildbot code

     Follow the instructions given earlier (*note Installing the
     code::).  If you use a separate buildslave account, and you
     didn't install the buildbot code to a shared location, then you
     will need to install it with `--home=~' for each account that
     needs it.

  3. Set up the host

     Make sure the host can actually reach the buildmaster. Usually
     the buildmaster is running a status webserver on the same
     machine, so simply point your web browser at it and see if you
     can get there.  Install whatever additional packages or
     libraries the project's INSTALL document advises. (or not: if
     your buildslave is supposed to make sure that building without
     optional libraries still works, then don't install those
     libraries).

     Again, these libraries don't necessarily have to be installed to
     a site-wide shared location, but they must be available to your
     build process. Accomplishing this is usually very specific to
     the build process, so installing them to `/usr' or `/usr/local'
     is usually the best approach.

  4. Test the build process

     Follow the instructions in the INSTALL document, in the
     buildslave's account. Perform a full CVS (or whatever) checkout,
     configure, make, run tests, etc. Confirm that the build works
     without manual fussing.  If it doesn't work when you do it by
     hand, it will be unlikely to work when the buildbot attempts to
     do it in an automated fashion.

  5. Choose a base directory

     This should be somewhere in the buildslave's account, typically
     named after the project which is being tested. The buildslave
     will not touch any file outside of this directory. Something
     like `~/Buildbot' or `~/Buildslaves/fooproject' is appropriate.

  6. Get the buildmaster host/port, botname, and password

     When the buildbot admin configures the buildmaster to accept and
     use your buildslave, they will provide you with the following
     pieces of information:

        * your buildslave's name

        * the password assigned to your buildslave

        * the hostname and port number of the buildmaster, i.e.
          buildbot.example.org:8007

  7. Create the buildslave

     Now run the 'buildbot' command as follows:

          buildbot create-slave BASEDIR MASTERHOST:PORT SLAVENAME PASSWORD

     This will create the base directory and a collection of files
     inside, including the `buildbot.tac' file that contains all the
     information you passed to the `buildbot' command.

  8. Fill in the hostinfo files

     When it first connects, the buildslave will send a few files up
     to the buildmaster which describe the host that it is running
     on. These files are presented on the web status display so that
     developers have more information to reproduce any test failures
     that are witnessed by the buildbot. There are sample files in
     the `info' subdirectory of the buildbot's base directory. You
     should edit these to correctly describe you and your host.

     `BASEDIR/info/admin' should contain your name and email address.
     This is the "buildslave admin address", and will be visible from
     the build status page (so you may wish to munge it a bit if
     address-harvesting spambots are a concern).

     `BASEDIR/info/host' should be filled with a brief description of
     the host: OS, version, memory size, CPU speed, versions of
     relevant libraries installed, and finally the version of the
     buildbot code which is running the buildslave.

     If you run many buildslaves, you may want to create a single
     `~buildslave/info' file and share it among all the buildslaves
     with symlinks.


* Menu:

* Buildslave Options::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Buildslave Options,  Prev: Creating a buildslave,  Up: Creating a buildslave

2.5.1 Buildslave Options
------------------------

There are a handful of options you might want to use when creating the
buildslave with the `buildbot create-slave <options> DIR <params>'
command. You can type `buildbot create-slave --help' for a summary.
To use these, just include them on the `buildbot create-slave'
command line, like this:

     buildbot create-slave --umask=022 ~/buildslave buildmaster.example.org:42012 myslavename mypasswd

`--usepty'
     This is a boolean flag that tells the buildslave whether to
     launch child processes in a PTY (the default) or with regular
     pipes. The advantage of using a PTY is that "grandchild"
     processes are more likely to be cleaned up if the build is
     interrupted or times out (since it enables the use of a "process
     group" in which all child processes will be placed). The
     disadvantages: some forms of Unix have problems with PTYs, some
     of your unit tests may behave differently when run under a PTY
     (generally those which check to see if they are being run
     interactively), and PTYs will merge the stdout and stderr
     streams into a single output stream (which means the red-vs-black
     coloring in the logfiles will be lost). If you encounter
     problems, you can add `--usepty=0' to disable the use of PTYs.
     Note that windows buildslaves never use PTYs.

`--umask'
     This is a string (generally an octal representation of an
     integer) which will cause the buildslave process' "umask" value
     to be set shortly after initialization. The "twistd"
     daemonization utility forces the umask to 077 at startup (which
     means that all files created by the buildslave or its child
     processes will be unreadable by any user other than the
     buildslave account). If you want build products to be readable
     by other accounts, you can add `--umask=022' to tell the
     buildslave to fix the umask after twistd clobbers it. If you want
     build products to be _writable_ by other accounts too, use
     `--umask=000', but this is likely to be a security problem.

`--keepalive'
     This is a number that indicates how frequently "keepalive"
     messages should be sent from the buildslave to the buildmaster,
     expressed in seconds. The default (600) causes a message to be
     sent to the buildmaster at least once every 10 minutes. To set
     this to a lower value, use e.g. `--keepalive=120'.

     If the buildslave is behind a NAT box or stateful firewall, these
     messages may help to keep the connection alive: some NAT boxes
     tend to forget about a connection if it has not been used in a
     while. When this happens, the buildmaster will think that the
     buildslave has disappeared, and builds will time out. Meanwhile
     the buildslave will not realize than anything is wrong.



File: buildbot.info,  Node: Launching the daemons,  Next: Logfiles,  Prev: Creating a buildslave,  Up: Installation

2.6 Launching the daemons
=========================

Both the buildmaster and the buildslave run as daemon programs. To
launch them, pass the working directory to the `buildbot' command:

     buildbot start BASEDIR

   This command will start the daemon and then return, so normally it
will not produce any output. To verify that the programs are indeed
running, look for a pair of files named `twistd.log' and `twistd.pid'
that should be created in the working directory.  `twistd.pid'
contains the process ID of the newly-spawned daemon.

   When the buildslave connects to the buildmaster, new directories
will start appearing in its base directory. The buildmaster tells the
slave to create a directory for each Builder which will be using that
slave.  All build operations are performed within these directories:
CVS checkouts, compiles, and tests.

   Once you get everything running, you will want to arrange for the
buildbot daemons to be started at boot time. One way is to use
`cron', by putting them in a @reboot crontab entry(1):

     @reboot buildbot start BASEDIR

   When you run `crontab' to set this up, remember to do it as the
buildmaster or buildslave account! If you add this to your crontab
when running as your regular account (or worse yet, root), then the
daemon will run as the wrong user, quite possibly as one with more
authority than you intended to provide.

   It is important to remember that the environment provided to cron
jobs and init scripts can be quite different that your normal runtime.
There may be fewer environment variables specified, and the PATH may
be shorter than usual. It is a good idea to test out this method of
launching the buildslave by using a cron job with a time in the near
future, with the same command, and then check `twistd.log' to make
sure the slave actually started correctly. Common problems here are
for `/usr/local' or `~/bin' to not be on your `PATH', or for
`PYTHONPATH' to not be set correctly.  Sometimes `HOME' is messed up
too.

   To modify the way the daemons are started (perhaps you want to set
some environment variables first, or perform some cleanup each time),
you can create a file named `Makefile.buildbot' in the base
directory. When the `buildbot' front-end tool is told to `start' the
daemon, and it sees this file (and `/usr/bin/make' exists), it will
do `make -f Makefile.buildbot start' instead of its usual action
(which involves running `twistd'). When the buildmaster or buildslave
is installed, a `Makefile.sample' is created which implements the
same behavior as the the `buildbot' tool uses, so if you want to
customize the process, just copy `Makefile.sample' to
`Makefile.buildbot' and edit it as necessary.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) this @reboot syntax is understood by Vixie cron, which is the
flavor usually provided with linux systems. Other unices may have a
cron that doesn't understand @reboot


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Logfiles,  Next: Shutdown,  Prev: Launching the daemons,  Up: Installation

2.7 Logfiles
============

While a buildbot daemon runs, it emits text to a logfile, named
`twistd.log'. A command like `tail -f twistd.log' is useful to watch
the command output as it runs.

   The buildmaster will announce any errors with its configuration
file in the logfile, so it is a good idea to look at the log at
startup time to check for any problems. Most buildmaster activities
will cause lines to be added to the log.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Shutdown,  Next: Maintenance,  Prev: Logfiles,  Up: Installation

2.8 Shutdown
============

To stop a buildmaster or buildslave manually, use:

     buildbot stop BASEDIR

   This simply looks for the `twistd.pid' file and kills whatever
process is identified within.

   At system shutdown, all processes are sent a `SIGKILL'. The
buildmaster and buildslave will respond to this by shutting down
normally.

   The buildmaster will respond to a `SIGHUP' by re-reading its
config file. Of course, this only works on unix-like systems with
signal support, and won't work on Windows. The following shortcut is
available:

     buildbot reconfig BASEDIR

   When you update the Buildbot code to a new release, you will need
to restart the buildmaster and/or buildslave before it can take
advantage of the new code. You can do a `buildbot stop BASEDIR' and
`buildbot start BASEDIR' in quick succession, or you can use the
`restart' shortcut, which does both steps for you:

     buildbot restart BASEDIR

   There are certain configuration changes that are not handled
cleanly by `buildbot reconfig'. If this occurs, `buildbot restart' is
a more robust tool to fully switch over to the new configuration.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Maintenance,  Next: Troubleshooting,  Prev: Shutdown,  Up: Installation

2.9 Maintenance
===============

It is a good idea to check the buildmaster's status page every once in
a while, to see if your buildslave is still online. Eventually the
buildbot will probably be enhanced to send you email (via the
`info/admin' email address) when the slave has been offline for more
than a few hours.

   If you find you can no longer provide a buildslave to the project,
please let the project admins know, so they can put out a call for a
replacement.

   The Buildbot records status and logs output continually, each time
a build is performed. The status tends to be small, but the build logs
can become quite large. Each build and log are recorded in a separate
file, arranged hierarchically under the buildmaster's base directory.
To prevent these files from growing without bound, you should
periodically delete old build logs. A simple cron job to delete
anything older than, say, two weeks should do the job. The only trick
is to leave the `buildbot.tac' and other support files alone, for
which find's `-mindepth' argument helps skip everything in the top
directory. You can use something like the following:

     @weekly cd BASEDIR && find . -mindepth 2 -type f -mtime +14 -exec rm {} \;
     @weekly cd BASEDIR && find twistd.log* -mtime +14 -exec rm {} \;


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Troubleshooting,  Prev: Maintenance,  Up: Installation

2.10 Troubleshooting
====================

Here are a few hints on diagnosing common problems.

* Menu:

* Starting the buildslave::
* Connecting to the buildmaster::
* Forcing Builds::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Starting the buildslave,  Next: Connecting to the buildmaster,  Prev: Troubleshooting,  Up: Troubleshooting

2.10.1 Starting the buildslave
------------------------------

Cron jobs are typically run with a minimal shell (`/bin/sh', not
`/bin/bash'), and tilde expansion is not always performed in such
commands. You may want to use explicit paths, because the `PATH' is
usually quite short and doesn't include anything set by your shell's
startup scripts (`.profile', `.bashrc', etc). If you've installed
buildbot (or other python libraries) to an unusual location, you may
need to add a `PYTHONPATH' specification (note that python will do
tilde-expansion on `PYTHONPATH' elements by itself). Sometimes it is
safer to fully-specify everything:

     @reboot PYTHONPATH=~/lib/python /usr/local/bin/buildbot start /usr/home/buildbot/basedir

   Take the time to get the @reboot job set up. Otherwise, things
will work fine for a while, but the first power outage or system
reboot you have will stop the buildslave with nothing but the cries
of sorrowful developers to remind you that it has gone away.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Connecting to the buildmaster,  Next: Forcing Builds,  Prev: Starting the buildslave,  Up: Troubleshooting

2.10.2 Connecting to the buildmaster
------------------------------------

If the buildslave cannot connect to the buildmaster, the reason should
be described in the `twistd.log' logfile. Some common problems are an
incorrect master hostname or port number, or a mistyped bot name or
password. If the buildslave loses the connection to the master, it is
supposed to attempt to reconnect with an exponentially-increasing
backoff. Each attempt (and the time of the next attempt) will be
logged. If you get impatient, just manually stop and re-start the
buildslave.

   When the buildmaster is restarted, all slaves will be disconnected,
and will attempt to reconnect as usual. The reconnect time will depend
upon how long the buildmaster is offline (i.e. how far up the
exponential backoff curve the slaves have travelled). Again,
`buildbot stop BASEDIR; buildbot start BASEDIR' will speed up the
process.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Forcing Builds,  Prev: Connecting to the buildmaster,  Up: Troubleshooting

2.10.3 Forcing Builds
---------------------

From the buildmaster's main status web page, you can force a build to
be run on your build slave. Figure out which column is for a builder
that runs on your slave, click on that builder's name, and the page
that comes up will have a "Force Build" button. Fill in the form, hit
the button, and a moment later you should see your slave's
`twistd.log' filling with commands being run. Using `pstree' or `top'
should also reveal the cvs/make/gcc/etc processes being run by the
buildslave. Note that the same web page should also show the `admin'
and `host' information files that you configured earlier.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Concepts,  Next: Configuration,  Prev: Installation,  Up: Top

3 Concepts
**********

This chapter defines some of the basic concepts that the Buildbot
uses. You'll need to understand how the Buildbot sees the world to
configure it properly.

* Menu:

* Version Control Systems::
* Schedulers::
* BuildSet::
* BuildRequest::
* Builder::
* Users::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Version Control Systems,  Next: Schedulers,  Prev: Concepts,  Up: Concepts

3.1 Version Control Systems
===========================

These source trees come from a Version Control System of some kind.
CVS and Subversion are two popular ones, but the Buildbot supports
others. All VC systems have some notion of an upstream `repository'
which acts as a server(1), from which clients can obtain source trees
according to various parameters. The VC repository provides source
trees of various projects, for different branches, and from various
points in time. The first thing we have to do is to specify which
source tree we want to get.

* Menu:

* Generalizing VC Systems::
* Source Tree Specifications::
* How Different VC Systems Specify Sources::
* Attributes of Changes::

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) except Darcs, but since the Buildbot never modifies its local
source tree we can ignore the fact that Darcs uses a less centralized
model


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Generalizing VC Systems,  Next: Source Tree Specifications,  Prev: Version Control Systems,  Up: Version Control Systems

3.1.1 Generalizing VC Systems
-----------------------------

For the purposes of the Buildbot, we will try to generalize all VC
systems as having repositories that each provide sources for a variety
of projects. Each project is defined as a directory tree with source
files. The individual files may each have revisions, but we ignore
that and treat the project as a whole as having a set of revisions
(CVS is really the only VC system still in widespread use that has
per-file revisions.. everything modern has moved to atomic tree-wide
changesets). Each time someone commits a change to the project, a new
revision becomes available. These revisions can be described by a
tuple with two items: the first is a branch tag, and the second is
some kind of revision stamp or timestamp. Complex projects may have
multiple branch tags, but there is always a default branch. The
timestamp may be an actual timestamp (such as the -D option to CVS),
or it may be a monotonically-increasing transaction number (such as
the change number used by SVN and P4, or the revision number used by
Arch/Baz/Bazaar, or a labeled tag used in CVS)(1). The SHA1 revision
ID used by Monotone, Mercurial, and Git is also a kind of revision
stamp, in that it specifies a unique copy of the source tree, as does
a Darcs "context" file.

   When we aren't intending to make any changes to the sources we
check out (at least not any that need to be committed back upstream),
there are two basic ways to use a VC system:

   * Retrieve a specific set of source revisions: some tag or key is
     used to index this set, which is fixed and cannot be changed by
     subsequent developers committing new changes to the tree.
     Releases are built from tagged revisions like this, so that they
     can be rebuilt again later (probably with controlled
     modifications).

   * Retrieve the latest sources along a specific branch: some tag is
     used to indicate which branch is to be used, but within that
     constraint we want to get the latest revisions.

   Build personnel or CM staff typically use the first approach: the
build that results is (ideally) completely specified by the two
parameters given to the VC system: repository and revision tag. This
gives QA and end-users something concrete to point at when reporting
bugs. Release engineers are also reportedly fond of shipping code that
can be traced back to a concise revision tag of some sort.

   Developers are more likely to use the second approach: each morning
the developer does an update to pull in the changes committed by the
team over the last day. These builds are not easy to fully specify: it
depends upon exactly when you did a checkout, and upon what local
changes the developer has in their tree. Developers do not normally
tag each build they produce, because there is usually significant
overhead involved in creating these tags. Recreating the trees used by
one of these builds can be a challenge. Some VC systems may provide
implicit tags (like a revision number), while others may allow the use
of timestamps to mean "the state of the tree at time X" as opposed to
a tree-state that has been explicitly marked.

   The Buildbot is designed to help developers, so it usually works in
terms of _the latest_ sources as opposed to specific tagged
revisions. However, it would really prefer to build from reproducible
source trees, so implicit revisions are used whenever possible.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) many VC systems provide more complexity than this: in
particular the local views that P4 and ClearCase can assemble out of
various source directories are more complex than we're prepared to
take advantage of here


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Source Tree Specifications,  Next: How Different VC Systems Specify Sources,  Prev: Generalizing VC Systems,  Up: Version Control Systems

3.1.2 Source Tree Specifications
--------------------------------

So for the Buildbot's purposes we treat each VC system as a server
which can take a list of specifications as input and produce a source
tree as output. Some of these specifications are static: they are
attributes of the builder and do not change over time. Others are more
variable: each build will have a different value. The repository is
changed over time by a sequence of Changes, each of which represents a
single developer making changes to some set of files. These Changes
are cumulative(1).

   For normal builds, the Buildbot wants to get well-defined source
trees that contain specific Changes, and exclude other Changes that
may have occurred after the desired ones. We assume that the Changes
arrive at the buildbot (through one of the mechanisms described in
*note Change Sources::) in the same order in which they are committed
to the repository. The Buildbot waits for the tree to become "stable"
before initiating a build, for two reasons. The first is that
developers frequently make multiple related commits in quick
succession, even when the VC system provides ways to make atomic
transactions involving multiple files at the same time. Running a
build in the middle of these sets of changes would use an inconsistent
set of source files, and is likely to fail (and is certain to be less
useful than a build which uses the full set of changes). The
tree-stable-timer is intended to avoid these useless builds that
include some of the developer's changes but not all. The second reason
is that some VC systems (i.e. CVS) do not provide repository-wide
transaction numbers, so that timestamps are the only way to refer to
a specific repository state. These timestamps may be somewhat
ambiguous, due to processing and notification delays. By waiting until
the tree has been stable for, say, 10 minutes, we can choose a
timestamp from the middle of that period to use for our source
checkout, and then be reasonably sure that any clock-skew errors will
not cause the build to be performed on an inconsistent set of source
files.

   The Schedulers always use the tree-stable-timer, with a timeout
that is configured to reflect a reasonable tradeoff between build
latency and change frequency. When the VC system provides coherent
repository-wide revision markers (such as Subversion's revision
numbers, or in fact anything other than CVS's timestamps), the
resulting Build is simply performed against a source tree defined by
that revision marker. When the VC system does not provide this, a
timestamp from the middle of the tree-stable period is used to
generate the source tree(2).

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Monotone's _multiple heads_ feature violates this assumption
of cumulative Changes, but in most situations the changes don't occur
frequently enough for this to be a significant problem

   (2) this `checkoutDelay' defaults to half the tree-stable timer,
but it can be overridden with an argument to the Source Step


File: buildbot.info,  Node: How Different VC Systems Specify Sources,  Next: Attributes of Changes,  Prev: Source Tree Specifications,  Up: Version Control Systems

3.1.3 How Different VC Systems Specify Sources
----------------------------------------------

For CVS, the static specifications are `repository' and `module'. In
addition to those, each build uses a timestamp (or omits the
timestamp to mean `the latest') and `branch tag' (which defaults to
HEAD). These parameters collectively specify a set of sources from
which a build may be performed.

   Subversion (http://subversion.tigris.org) combines the repository,
module, and branch into a single `Subversion URL' parameter. Within
that scope, source checkouts can be specified by a numeric `revision
number' (a repository-wide monotonically-increasing marker, such that
each transaction that changes the repository is indexed by a
different revision number), or a revision timestamp. When branches
are used, the repository and module form a static `baseURL', while
each build has a `revision number' and a `branch' (which defaults to a
statically-specified `defaultBranch'). The `baseURL' and `branch' are
simply concatenated together to derive the `svnurl' to use for the
checkout.

   Perforce (http://www.perforce.com/) is similar. The server is
specified through a `P4PORT' parameter. Module and branch are
specified in a single depot path, and revisions are depot-wide. When
branches are used, the `p4base' and `defaultBranch' are concatenated
together to produce the depot path.

   Arch (http://wiki.gnuarch.org/) and Bazaar
(http://bazaar.canonical.com/) specify a repository by URL, as well
as a `version' which is kind of like a branch name.  Arch uses the
word `archive' to represent the repository. Arch lets you push
changes from one archive to another, removing the strict
centralization required by CVS and SVN. It retains the distinction
between repository and working directory that most other VC systems
use. For complex multi-module directory structures, Arch has a
built-in `build config' layer with which the checkout process has two
steps. First, an initial bootstrap checkout is performed to retrieve
a set of build-config files. Second, one of these files is used to
figure out which archives/modules should be used to populate
subdirectories of the initial checkout.

   Builders which use Arch and Bazaar therefore have a static archive
`url', and a default "branch" (which is a string that specifies a
complete category-branch-version triple). Each build can have its own
branch (the category-branch-version string) to override the default,
as well as a revision number (which is turned into a -patch-NN suffix
when performing the checkout).

   Bzr (http://bazaar-vcs.org) (which is a descendant of Arch/Bazaar,
and is frequently referred to as "Bazaar") has the same sort of
repository-vs-workspace model as Arch, but the repository data can
either be stored inside the working directory or kept elsewhere
(either on the same machine or on an entirely different machine). For
the purposes of Buildbot (which never commits changes), the repository
is specified with a URL and a revision number.

   The most common way to obtain read-only access to a bzr tree is via
HTTP, simply by making the repository visible through a web server
like Apache. Bzr can also use FTP and SFTP servers, if the buildslave
process has sufficient privileges to access them. Higher performance
can be obtained by running a special Bazaar-specific server. None of
these matter to the buildbot: the repository URL just has to match the
kind of server being used. The `repoURL' argument provides the
location of the repository.

   Branches are expressed as subdirectories of the main central
repository, which means that if branches are being used, the BZR step
is given a `baseURL' and `defaultBranch' instead of getting the
`repoURL' argument.

   Darcs (http://darcs.net/) doesn't really have the notion of a
single master repository. Nor does it really have branches. In Darcs,
each working directory is also a repository, and there are operations
to push and pull patches from one of these `repositories' to another.
For the Buildbot's purposes, all you need to do is specify the URL of
a repository that you want to build from. The build slave will then
pull the latest patches from that repository and build them. Multiple
branches are implemented by using multiple repositories (possibly
living on the same server).

   Builders which use Darcs therefore have a static `repourl' which
specifies the location of the repository. If branches are being used,
the source Step is instead configured with a `baseURL' and a
`defaultBranch', and the two strings are simply concatenated together
to obtain the repository's URL. Each build then has a specific branch
which replaces `defaultBranch', or just uses the default one. Instead
of a revision number, each build can have a "context", which is a
string that records all the patches that are present in a given tree
(this is the output of `darcs changes --context', and is considerably
less concise than, e.g. Subversion's revision number, but the
patch-reordering flexibility of Darcs makes it impossible to provide
a shorter useful specification).

   Mercurial (http://selenic.com/mercurial) is like Darcs, in that
each branch is stored in a separate repository. The `repourl',
`baseURL', and `defaultBranch' arguments are all handled the same way
as with Darcs. The "revision", however, is the hash identifier
returned by `hg identify'.

   Git (http://git.or.cz/) also follows a decentralized model, and
each repository can have several branches and tags. The source Step is
configured with a static `repourl' which specifies the location of
the repository. In addition, an optional `branch' parameter can be
specified to check out code from a specific branch instead of the
default "master" branch. The "revision" is specified as a SHA1 hash
as returned by e.g. `git rev-parse'. No attempt is made to ensure
that the specified revision is actually a subset of the specified
branch.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Attributes of Changes,  Prev: How Different VC Systems Specify Sources,  Up: Version Control Systems

3.1.4 Attributes of Changes
---------------------------

Who
===

Each Change has a `who' attribute, which specifies which developer is
responsible for the change. This is a string which comes from a
namespace controlled by the VC repository. Frequently this means it
is a username on the host which runs the repository, but not all VC
systems require this (Arch, for example, uses a fully-qualified `Arch
ID', which looks like an email address, as does Darcs).  Each
StatusNotifier will map the `who' attribute into something
appropriate for their particular means of communication: an email
address, an IRC handle, etc.

Files
=====

It also has a list of `files', which are just the tree-relative
filenames of any files that were added, deleted, or modified for this
Change. These filenames are used by the `isFileImportant' function
(in the Scheduler) to decide whether it is worth triggering a new
build or not, e.g. the function could use `filename.endswith(".c")'
to only run a build if a C file were checked in. Certain BuildSteps
can also use the list of changed files to run a more targeted series
of tests, e.g. the `python_twisted.Trial' step can run just the unit
tests that provide coverage for the modified .py files instead of
running the full test suite.

Comments
========

The Change also has a `comments' attribute, which is a string
containing any checkin comments.

Revision
========

Each Change can have a `revision' attribute, which describes how to
get a tree with a specific state: a tree which includes this Change
(and all that came before it) but none that come after it. If this
information is unavailable, the `.revision' attribute will be `None'.
These revisions are provided by the ChangeSource, and consumed by the
`computeSourceRevision' method in the appropriate `step.Source' class.

`CVS'
     `revision' is an int, seconds since the epoch

`SVN'
     `revision' is an int, a transation number (r%d)

`Darcs'
     `revision' is a large string, the output of `darcs changes
     --context'

`Mercurial'
     `revision' is a short string (a hash ID), the output of `hg
     identify'

`Arch/Bazaar'
     `revision' is the full revision ID (ending in -patch-%d)

`P4'
     `revision' is an int, the transaction number

`Git'
     `revision' is a short string (a SHA1 hash), the output of e.g.
     `git rev-parse'

Branches
========

The Change might also have a `branch' attribute. This indicates that
all of the Change's files are in the same named branch. The
Schedulers get to decide whether the branch should be built or not.

   For VC systems like CVS, Arch, Monotone, and Git, the `branch'
name is unrelated to the filename. (that is, the branch name and the
filename inhabit unrelated namespaces). For SVN, branches are
expressed as subdirectories of the repository, so the file's "svnurl"
is a combination of some base URL, the branch name, and the filename
within the branch. (In a sense, the branch name and the filename
inhabit the same namespace). Darcs branches are subdirectories of a
base URL just like SVN. Mercurial branches are the same as Darcs.

`CVS'
     branch='warner-newfeature', files=['src/foo.c']

`SVN'
     branch='branches/warner-newfeature', files=['src/foo.c']

`Darcs'
     branch='warner-newfeature', files=['src/foo.c']

`Mercurial'
     branch='warner-newfeature', files=['src/foo.c']

`Arch/Bazaar'
     branch='buildbot-usebranches-0', files=['buildbot/master.py']

`Git'
     branch='warner-newfeature', files=['src/foo.c']

Links
=====

Finally, the Change might have a `links' list, which is intended to
provide a list of URLs to a _viewcvs_-style web page that provides
more detail for this Change, perhaps including the full file diffs.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Schedulers,  Next: BuildSet,  Prev: Version Control Systems,  Up: Concepts

3.2 Schedulers
==============

Each Buildmaster has a set of `Scheduler' objects, each of which gets
a copy of every incoming Change. The Schedulers are responsible for
deciding when Builds should be run. Some Buildbot installations might
have a single Scheduler, while others may have several, each for a
different purpose.

   For example, a "quick" scheduler might exist to give immediate
feedback to developers, hoping to catch obvious problems in the code
that can be detected quickly. These typically do not run the full test
suite, nor do they run on a wide variety of platforms. They also
usually do a VC update rather than performing a brand-new checkout
each time. You could have a "quick" scheduler which used a 30 second
timeout, and feeds a single "quick" Builder that uses a VC
`mode='update'' setting.

   A separate "full" scheduler would run more comprehensive tests a
little while later, to catch more subtle problems. This scheduler
would have a longer tree-stable-timer, maybe 30 minutes, and would
feed multiple Builders (with a `mode=' of `'copy'', `'clobber'', or
`'export'').

   The `tree-stable-timer' and `isFileImportant' decisions are made
by the Scheduler. Dependencies are also implemented here.  Periodic
builds (those which are run every N seconds rather than after new
Changes arrive) are triggered by a special `Periodic' Scheduler
subclass. The default Scheduler class can also be told to watch for
specific branches, ignoring Changes on other branches. This may be
useful if you have a trunk and a few release branches which should be
tracked, but when you don't want to have the Buildbot pay attention
to several dozen private user branches.

   Some Schedulers may trigger builds for other reasons, other than
recent Changes. For example, a Scheduler subclass could connect to a
remote buildmaster and watch for builds of a library to succeed before
triggering a local build that uses that library.

   Each Scheduler creates and submits `BuildSet' objects to the
`BuildMaster', which is then responsible for making sure the
individual `BuildRequests' are delivered to the target `Builders'.

   `Scheduler' instances are activated by placing them in the
`c['schedulers']' list in the buildmaster config file. Each Scheduler
has a unique name.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: BuildSet,  Next: BuildRequest,  Prev: Schedulers,  Up: Concepts

3.3 BuildSet
============

A `BuildSet' is the name given to a set of Builds that all
compile/test the same version of the tree on multiple Builders. In
general, all these component Builds will perform the same sequence of
Steps, using the same source code, but on different platforms or
against a different set of libraries.

   The `BuildSet' is tracked as a single unit, which fails if any of
the component Builds have failed, and therefore can succeed only if
_all_ of the component Builds have succeeded. There are two kinds of
status notification messages that can be emitted for a BuildSet: the
`firstFailure' type (which fires as soon as we know the BuildSet will
fail), and the `Finished' type (which fires once the BuildSet has
completely finished, regardless of whether the overall set passed or
failed).

   A `BuildSet' is created with a _source stamp_ tuple of (branch,
revision, changes, patch), some of which may be None, and a list of
Builders on which it is to be run. They are then given to the
BuildMaster, which is responsible for creating a separate
`BuildRequest' for each Builder.

   There are a couple of different likely values for the
`SourceStamp':

`(revision=None, changes=[CHANGES], patch=None)'
     This is a `SourceStamp' used when a series of Changes have
     triggered a build. The VC step will attempt to check out a tree
     that contains CHANGES (and any changes that occurred before
     CHANGES, but not any that occurred after them).

`(revision=None, changes=None, patch=None)'
     This builds the most recent code on the default branch. This is
     the sort of `SourceStamp' that would be used on a Build that was
     triggered by a user request, or a Periodic scheduler. It is also
     possible to configure the VC Source Step to always check out the
     latest sources rather than paying attention to the Changes in the
     SourceStamp, which will result in same behavior as this.

`(branch=BRANCH, revision=None, changes=None, patch=None)'
     This builds the most recent code on the given BRANCH. Again,
     this is generally triggered by a user request or Periodic build.

`(revision=REV, changes=None, patch=(LEVEL, DIFF))'
     This checks out the tree at the given revision REV, then applies
     a patch (using `diff -pLEVEL <DIFF'). The *note try:: feature
     uses this kind of `SourceStamp'. If `patch' is None, the patching
     step is bypassed.


   The buildmaster is responsible for turning the `BuildSet' into a
set of `BuildRequest' objects and queueing them on the appropriate
Builders.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: BuildRequest,  Next: Builder,  Prev: BuildSet,  Up: Concepts

3.4 BuildRequest
================

A `BuildRequest' is a request to build a specific set of sources on a
single specific Builder. Each Builder runs the `BuildRequest' as soon
as it can (i.e. when an associated buildslave becomes free).

   The `BuildRequest' contains the `SourceStamp' specification.  The
actual process of running the build (the series of Steps that will be
executed) is implemented by the `Build' object. In this future this
might be changed, to have the `Build' define _what_ gets built, and a
separate `BuildProcess' (provided by the Builder) to define _how_ it
gets built.

   The `BuildRequest' may be mergeable with other compatible
`BuildRequest's. Builds that are triggered by incoming Changes will
generally be mergeable. Builds that are triggered by user requests
are generally not, unless they are multiple requests to build the
_latest sources_ of the same branch.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Builder,  Next: Users,  Prev: BuildRequest,  Up: Concepts

3.5 Builder
===========

The `Builder' is a long-lived object which controls all Builds of a
given type. Each one is created when the config file is first parsed,
and lives forever (or rather until it is removed from the config
file). It mediates the connections to the buildslaves that do all the
work, and is responsible for creating the `Build' objects that decide
_how_ a build is performed (i.e., which steps are executed in what
order).

   Each `Builder' gets a unique name, and the path name of a
directory where it gets to do all its work (there is a
buildmaster-side directory for keeping status information, as well as
a buildslave-side directory where the actual checkout/compile/test
commands are executed). It also gets a `BuildFactory', which is
responsible for creating new `Build' instances: because the `Build'
instance is what actually performs each build, choosing the
`BuildFactory' is the way to specify what happens each time a build
is done.

   Each `Builder' is associated with one of more `BuildSlaves'.  A
`Builder' which is used to perform OS-X builds (as opposed to Linux
or Solaris builds) should naturally be associated with an OS-X-based
buildslave.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Users,  Prev: Builder,  Up: Concepts

3.6 Users
=========

Buildbot has a somewhat limited awareness of _users_. It assumes the
world consists of a set of developers, each of whom can be described
by a couple of simple attributes. These developers make changes to
the source code, causing builds which may succeed or fail.

   Each developer is primarily known through the source control
system. Each Change object that arrives is tagged with a `who' field
that typically gives the account name (on the repository machine) of
the user responsible for that change. This string is the primary key
by which the User is known, and is displayed on the HTML status pages
and in each Build's "blamelist".

   To do more with the User than just refer to them, this username
needs to be mapped into an address of some sort. The responsibility
for this mapping is left up to the status module which needs the
address. The core code knows nothing about email addresses or IRC
nicknames, just user names.

* Menu:

* Doing Things With Users::
* Email Addresses::
* IRC Nicknames::
* Live Status Clients::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Doing Things With Users,  Next: Email Addresses,  Prev: Users,  Up: Users

3.6.1 Doing Things With Users
-----------------------------

Each Change has a single User who is responsible for that Change. Most
Builds have a set of Changes: the Build represents the first time
these Changes have been built and tested by the Buildbot. The build
has a "blamelist" that consists of a simple union of the Users
responsible for all the Build's Changes.

   The Build provides (through the IBuildStatus interface) a list of
Users who are "involved" in the build. For now this is equal to the
blamelist, but in the future it will be expanded to include a "build
sheriff" (a person who is "on duty" at that time and responsible for
watching over all builds that occur during their shift), as well as
per-module owners who simply want to keep watch over their domain
(chosen by subdirectory or a regexp matched against the filenames
pulled out of the Changes). The Involved Users are those who probably
have an interest in the results of any given build.

   In the future, Buildbot will acquire the concept of "Problems",
which last longer than builds and have beginnings and ends. For
example, a test case which passed in one build and then failed in the
next is a Problem. The Problem lasts until the test case starts
passing again, at which point the Problem is said to be "resolved".

   If there appears to be a code change that went into the tree at the
same time as the test started failing, that Change is marked as being
resposible for the Problem, and the user who made the change is added
to the Problem's "Guilty" list. In addition to this user, there may
be others who share responsibility for the Problem (module owners,
sponsoring developers). In addition to the Responsible Users, there
may be a set of Interested Users, who take an interest in the fate of
the Problem.

   Problems therefore have sets of Users who may want to be kept
aware of the condition of the problem as it changes over time. If
configured, the Buildbot can pester everyone on the Responsible list
with increasing harshness until the problem is resolved, with the
most harshness reserved for the Guilty parties themselves. The
Interested Users may merely be told when the problem starts and
stops, as they are not actually responsible for fixing anything.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Email Addresses,  Next: IRC Nicknames,  Prev: Doing Things With Users,  Up: Users

3.6.2 Email Addresses
---------------------

The `buildbot.status.mail.MailNotifier' class (*note MailNotifier::)
provides a status target which can send email about the results of
each build. It accepts a static list of email addresses to which each
message should be delivered, but it can also be configured to send
mail to the Build's Interested Users. To do this, it needs a way to
convert User names into email addresses.

   For many VC systems, the User Name is actually an account name on
the system which hosts the repository. As such, turning the name into
an email address is a simple matter of appending
"@repositoryhost.com". Some projects use other kinds of mappings (for
example the preferred email address may be at "project.org" despite
the repository host being named "cvs.project.org"), and some VC
systems have full separation between the concept of a user and that
of an account on the repository host (like Perforce). Some systems
(like Arch) put a full contact email address in every change.

   To convert these names to addresses, the MailNotifier uses an
EmailLookup object. This provides a .getAddress method which accepts
a name and (eventually) returns an address. The default `MailNotifier'
module provides an EmailLookup which simply appends a static string,
configurable when the notifier is created. To create more complex
behaviors (perhaps using an LDAP lookup, or using "finger" on a
central host to determine a preferred address for the developer),
provide a different object as the `lookup' argument.

   In the future, when the Problem mechanism has been set up, the
Buildbot will need to send mail to arbitrary Users. It will do this
by locating a MailNotifier-like object among all the buildmaster's
status targets, and asking it to send messages to various Users. This
means the User-to-address mapping only has to be set up once, in your
MailNotifier, and every email message the buildbot emits will take
advantage of it.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: IRC Nicknames,  Next: Live Status Clients,  Prev: Email Addresses,  Up: Users

3.6.3 IRC Nicknames
-------------------

Like MailNotifier, the `buildbot.status.words.IRC' class provides a
status target which can announce the results of each build. It also
provides an interactive interface by responding to online queries
posted in the channel or sent as private messages.

   In the future, the buildbot can be configured map User names to IRC
nicknames, to watch for the recent presence of these nicknames, and to
deliver build status messages to the interested parties. Like
`MailNotifier' does for email addresses, the `IRC' object will have
an `IRCLookup' which is responsible for nicknames. The mapping can be
set up statically, or it can be updated by online users themselves
(by claiming a username with some kind of "buildbot: i am user
warner" commands).

   Once the mapping is established, the rest of the buildbot can ask
the `IRC' object to send messages to various users. It can report on
the likelihood that the user saw the given message (based upon how
long the user has been inactive on the channel), which might prompt
the Problem Hassler logic to send them an email message instead.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Live Status Clients,  Prev: IRC Nicknames,  Up: Users

3.6.4 Live Status Clients
-------------------------

The Buildbot also offers a PB-based status client interface which can
display real-time build status in a GUI panel on the developer's
desktop.  This interface is normally anonymous, but it could be
configured to let the buildmaster know _which_ developer is using the
status client. The status client could then be used as a
message-delivery service, providing an alternative way to deliver
low-latency high-interruption messages to the developer (like "hey,
you broke the build").


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Configuration,  Next: Getting Source Code Changes,  Prev: Concepts,  Up: Top

4 Configuration
***************

The buildbot's behavior is defined by the "config file", which
normally lives in the `master.cfg' file in the buildmaster's base
directory (but this can be changed with an option to the `buildbot
create-master' command). This file completely specifies which
Builders are to be run, which slaves they should use, how Changes
should be tracked, and where the status information is to be sent.
The buildmaster's `buildbot.tac' file names the base directory;
everything else comes from the config file.

   A sample config file was installed for you when you created the
buildmaster, but you will need to edit it before your buildbot will do
anything useful.

   This chapter gives an overview of the format of this file and the
various sections in it. You will need to read the later chapters to
understand how to fill in each section properly.

* Menu:

* Config File Format::
* Loading the Config File::
* Testing the Config File::
* Defining the Project::
* Listing Change Sources and Schedulers::
* Setting the slaveport::
* Buildslave Specifiers::
* Defining Builders::
* Defining Status Targets::
* Debug options::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Config File Format,  Next: Loading the Config File,  Prev: Configuration,  Up: Configuration

4.1 Config File Format
======================

The config file is, fundamentally, just a piece of Python code which
defines a dictionary named `BuildmasterConfig', with a number of keys
that are treated specially. You don't need to know Python to do basic
configuration, though, you can just copy the syntax of the sample
file. If you _are_ comfortable writing Python code, however, you can
use all the power of a full programming language to achieve more
complicated configurations.

   The `BuildmasterConfig' name is the only one which matters: all
other names defined during the execution of the file are discarded.
When parsing the config file, the Buildmaster generally compares the
old configuration with the new one and performs the minimum set of
actions necessary to bring the buildbot up to date: Builders which are
not changed are left untouched, and Builders which are modified get to
keep their old event history.

   Basic Python syntax: comments start with a hash character ("#"),
tuples are defined with `(parenthesis, pairs)', arrays are defined
with `[square, brackets]', tuples and arrays are mostly
interchangeable. Dictionaries (data structures which map "keys" to
"values") are defined with curly braces: `{'key1': 'value1', 'key2':
'value2'} '. Function calls (and object instantiation) can use named
parameters, like `w = html.Waterfall(http_port=8010)'.

   The config file starts with a series of `import' statements, which
make various kinds of Steps and Status targets available for later
use. The main `BuildmasterConfig' dictionary is created, then it is
populated with a variety of keys. These keys are broken roughly into
the following sections, each of which is documented in the rest of
this chapter:

   * Project Definitions

   * Change Sources / Schedulers

   * Slaveport

   * Buildslave Configuration

   * Builders / Interlocks

   * Status Targets

   * Debug options

   The config file can use a few names which are placed into its
namespace:

`basedir'
     the base directory for the buildmaster. This string has not been
     expanded, so it may start with a tilde. It needs to be expanded
     before use. The config file is located in
     `os.path.expanduser(os.path.join(basedir, 'master.cfg'))'



File: buildbot.info,  Node: Loading the Config File,  Next: Testing the Config File,  Prev: Config File Format,  Up: Configuration

4.2 Loading the Config File
===========================

The config file is only read at specific points in time. It is first
read when the buildmaster is launched. Once it is running, there are
various ways to ask it to reload the config file. If you are on the
system hosting the buildmaster, you can send a `SIGHUP' signal to it:
the `buildbot' tool has a shortcut for this:

     buildbot reconfig BASEDIR

   This command will show you all of the lines from `twistd.log' that
relate to the reconfiguration. If there are any problems during the
config-file reload, they will be displayed in these lines.

   The debug tool (`buildbot debugclient --master HOST:PORT') has a
"Reload .cfg" button which will also trigger a reload. In the future,
there will be other ways to accomplish this step (probably a
password-protected button on the web page, as well as a privileged IRC
command).

   When reloading the config file, the buildmaster will endeavor to
change as little as possible about the running system. For example,
although old status targets may be shut down and new ones started up,
any status targets that were not changed since the last time the
config file was read will be left running and untouched. Likewise any
Builders which have not been changed will be left running. If a
Builder is modified (say, the build process is changed) while a Build
is currently running, that Build will keep running with the old
process until it completes. Any previously queued Builds (or Builds
which get queued after the reconfig) will use the new process.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Testing the Config File,  Next: Defining the Project,  Prev: Loading the Config File,  Up: Configuration

4.3 Testing the Config File
===========================

To verify that the config file is well-formed and contains no
deprecated or invalid elements, use the "checkconfig" command:

     % buildbot checkconfig master.cfg
     Config file is good!

   If the config file has deprecated features (perhaps because you've
upgraded the buildmaster and need to update the config file to match),
they will be announced by checkconfig. In this case, the config file
will work, but you should really remove the deprecated items and use
the recommended replacements instead:

     % buildbot checkconfig master.cfg
     /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/buildbot/master.py:559: DeprecationWarning: c['sources'] is deprecated as of 0.7.6 and will be removed by 0.8.0 . Please use c['change_source'] instead.
       warnings.warn(m, DeprecationWarning)
     Config file is good!

   If the config file is simply broken, that will be caught too:

     % buildbot checkconfig master.cfg
     Traceback (most recent call last):
       File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/buildbot/scripts/runner.py", line 834, in doCheckConfig
         ConfigLoader(configFile)
       File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/buildbot/scripts/checkconfig.py", line 31, in __init__
         self.loadConfig(configFile)
       File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/buildbot/master.py", line 480, in loadConfig
         exec f in localDict
       File "/home/warner/BuildBot/master/foolscap/master.cfg", line 90, in ?
         c[bogus] = "stuff"
     NameError: name 'bogus' is not defined


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Defining the Project,  Next: Listing Change Sources and Schedulers,  Prev: Testing the Config File,  Up: Configuration

4.4 Defining the Project
========================

There are a couple of basic settings that you use to tell the buildbot
what project it is working on. This information is used by status
reporters to let users find out more about the codebase being
exercised by this particular Buildbot installation.

     c['projectName'] = "Buildbot"
     c['projectURL'] = "http://buildbot.sourceforge.net/"
     c['buildbotURL'] = "http://localhost:8010/"

   `projectName' is a short string will be used to describe the
project that this buildbot is working on. For example, it is used as
the title of the waterfall HTML page.

   `projectURL' is a string that gives a URL for the project as a
whole. HTML status displays will show `projectName' as a link to
`projectURL', to provide a link from buildbot HTML pages to your
project's home page.

   The `buildbotURL' string should point to the location where the
buildbot's internal web server (usually the `html.Waterfall' page) is
visible. This typically uses the port number set when you create the
`Waterfall' object: the buildbot needs your help to figure out a
suitable externally-visible host name.

   When status notices are sent to users (either by email or over
IRC), `buildbotURL' will be used to create a URL to the specific build
or problem that they are being notified about. It will also be made
available to queriers (over IRC) who want to find out where to get
more information about this buildbot.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Listing Change Sources and Schedulers,  Next: Setting the slaveport,  Prev: Defining the Project,  Up: Configuration

4.5 Listing Change Sources and Schedulers
=========================================

The `c['change_source']' key is the ChangeSource instance(1) that
defines how the buildmaster learns about source code changes. More
information about what goes here is available in *Note Getting Source
Code Changes::.

     from buildbot.changes.pb import PBChangeSource
     c['change_source'] = PBChangeSource()

   (note: in buildbot-0.7.5 and earlier, this key was named
`c['sources']', and required a list. `c['sources']' is deprecated as
of buildbot-0.7.6 and is scheduled to be removed in a future release).

   `c['schedulers']' is a list of Scheduler instances, each of which
causes builds to be started on a particular set of Builders. The two
basic Scheduler classes you are likely to start with are `Scheduler'
and `Periodic', but you can write a customized subclass to implement
more complicated build scheduling.

   The docstring for `buildbot.scheduler.Scheduler' is the best place
to see all the options that can be used. Type `pydoc
buildbot.scheduler.Scheduler' to see it, or look in
`buildbot/scheduler.py' directly.

   The basic Scheduler takes four arguments:

`name'
     Each Scheduler must have a unique name. This is only used in
     status displays.

`branch'
     This Scheduler will pay attention to a single branch, ignoring
     Changes that occur on other branches. Setting `branch' equal to
     the special value of `None' means it should only pay attention
     to the default branch. Note that `None' is a keyword, not a
     string, so you want to use `None' and not `"None"'.

`treeStableTimer'
     The Scheduler will wait for this many seconds before starting the
     build. If new changes are made during this interval, the timer
     will be restarted, so really the build will be started after a
     change and then after this many seconds of inactivity.

`builderNames'
     When the tree-stable-timer finally expires, builds will be
     started on these Builders. Each Builder gets a unique name:
     these strings must match.


     from buildbot import scheduler
     quick = scheduler.Scheduler("quick", None, 60,
                                 ["quick-linux", "quick-netbsd"])
     full = scheduler.Scheduler("full", None, 5*60,
                                ["full-linux", "full-netbsd", "full-OSX"])
     nightly = scheduler.Periodic("nightly", ["full-solaris"], 24*60*60)
     c['schedulers'] = [quick, full, nightly]

   In this example, the two "quick" builds are triggered 60 seconds
after the tree has been changed. The "full" builds do not run quite
so quickly (they wait 5 minutes), so hopefully if the quick builds
fail due to a missing file or really simple typo, the developer can
discover and fix the problem before the full builds are started. Both
Schedulers only pay attention to the default branch: any changes on
other branches are ignored by these Schedulers. Each Scheduler
triggers a different set of Builders, referenced by name.

   The third Scheduler in this example just runs the full solaris
build once per day. (note that this Scheduler only lets you control
the time between builds, not the absolute time-of-day of each Build,
so this could easily wind up a "daily" or "every afternoon" scheduler
depending upon when it was first activated).

* Menu:

* Scheduler Types::
* Build Dependencies::

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) To be precise, it is an object or a list of objects which all
implement the `buildbot.interfaces.IChangeSource' Interface. It is
unusual to have multiple ChangeSources, so this key accepts either a
single ChangeSource or a sequence of them.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Scheduler Types,  Next: Build Dependencies,  Prev: Listing Change Sources and Schedulers,  Up: Listing Change Sources and Schedulers

4.5.1 Scheduler Types
---------------------

Here is a brief catalog of the available Scheduler types. All these
Schedulers are classes in `buildbot.scheduler', and the docstrings
there are the best source of documentation on the arguments taken by
each one.

`Scheduler'
     This is the default Scheduler class. It follows exactly one
     branch, and starts a configurable tree-stable-timer after each
     change on that branch. When the timer expires, it starts a build
     on some set of Builders. The Scheduler accepts a
     `fileIsImportant' function which can be used to ignore some
     Changes if they do not affect any "important" files.

`AnyBranchScheduler'
     This scheduler uses a tree-stable-timer like the default one, but
     follows multiple branches at once. Each branch gets a separate
     timer.

`Dependent'
     This scheduler watches an "upstream" Scheduler. When all the
     Builders launched by that Scheduler successfully finish, the
     Dependent scheduler is triggered. The next section (*note Build
     Dependencies::) describes this scheduler in more detail.

`Triggerable'
     This scheduler does nothing until it is triggered by a Trigger
     step in another build.  This facilitates a more general form of
     build dependencies, as described in the next section (*note
     Build Dependencies::).

`Periodic'
     This simple scheduler just triggers a build every N seconds.

`Nightly'
     This is highly configurable periodic build scheduler, which
     triggers a build at particular times of day, week, month, or
     year. The configuration syntax is very similar to the well-known
     `crontab' format, in which you provide values for minute, hour,
     day, and month (some of which can be wildcards), and a build is
     triggered whenever the current time matches the given
     constraints. This can run a build every night, every morning,
     every weekend, alternate Thursdays, on your boss's birthday, etc.

`Try_Jobdir / Try_Userpass'
     This scheduler allows developers to use the `buildbot try'
     command to trigger builds of code they have not yet committed.
     See *note try:: for complete details.



File: buildbot.info,  Node: Build Dependencies,  Prev: Scheduler Types,  Up: Listing Change Sources and Schedulers

4.5.2 Build Dependencies
------------------------

It is common to wind up with one kind of build which should only be
performed if the same source code was successfully handled by some
other kind of build first. An example might be a packaging step: you
might only want to produce .deb or RPM packages from a tree that was
known to compile successfully and pass all unit tests. You could put
the packaging step in the same Build as the compile and testing steps,
but there might be other reasons to not do this (in particular you
might have several Builders worth of compiles/tests, but only wish to
do the packaging once). Another example is if you want to skip the
"full" builds after a failing "quick" build of the same source code.
Or, if one Build creates a product (like a compiled library) that is
used by some other Builder, you'd want to make sure the consuming
Build is run _after_ the producing one.

   You can use `Dependencies' to express this relationship to the
Buildbot. There is a special kind of Scheduler named
`scheduler.Dependent' that will watch an "upstream" Scheduler for
builds to complete successfully (on all of its Builders). Each time
that happens, the same source code (i.e. the same `SourceStamp') will
be used to start a new set of builds, on a different set of Builders.
This "downstream" scheduler doesn't pay attention to Changes at all,
it only pays attention to the upstream scheduler.

   If the SourceStamp fails on any of the Builders in the upstream
set, the downstream builds will not fire.

     from buildbot import scheduler
     tests = scheduler.Scheduler("tests", None, 5*60,
                                 ["full-linux", "full-netbsd", "full-OSX"])
     package = scheduler.Dependent("package",
                                   tests, # upstream scheduler
                                   ["make-tarball", "make-deb", "make-rpm"])
     c['schedulers'] = [tests, package]

   Note that `Dependent''s upstream scheduler argument is given as a
`Scheduler' _instance_, not a name. This makes it impossible to
create circular dependencies in the config file.

   A more general way to coordinate builds is by "triggering"
schedulers from builds. The Triggerable waits to be triggered by a
Trigger step (*note Triggering Schedulers::) in another build. That
step can optionally wait for the scheduler's builds to complete. This
provides two advantages over Dependent schedulers. First, the same
scheduler can be triggered from multiple builds. Second, the ability
to wait for a Triggerable's builds to complete provides a form of
"subroutine call", where one or more builds can "call" a scheduler to
perform some work for them, perhaps on other buildslaves.

     from buildbot import scheduler
     from buildbot.steps import trigger

     checkin = scheduler.Scheduler("checkin", None, 5*60, ["checkin"])
     nightly = scheduler.Scheduler("nightly", ... , ["nightly"])

     mktarball = scheduler.Triggerable("mktarball",
                                       ["mktarball"])
     build = scheduler.Triggerable("build-all-platforms",
                                   ["build-all-platforms"])
     test = scheduler.Triggerable("distributed-test",
                                  ["distributed-test"])
     package = scheduler.Triggerable("package-all-platforms",
                                     ["package-all-platforms"])

     c['schedulers'] = [checkin, nightly, build, test, package]

     checkin_factory = factory.BuildFactory()
     f.addStep(trigger.Trigger('mktarball', schedulers=['mktarball'],
                                            waitForFinish=True)
     f.addStep(trigger.Trigger('build', schedulers=['build-all-platforms'],
                                        waitForFinish=True)
     f.addStep(trigger.Trigger('test', schedulers=['distributed-test'],
                                       waitForFinish=True)

     nightly_factory = factory.BuildFactory()
     f.addStep(trigger.Trigger('mktarball', schedulers=['mktarball'],
                                            waitForFinish=True)
     f.addStep(trigger.Trigger('build', schedulers=['build-all-platforms'],
                                        waitForFinish=True)
     f.addStep(trigger.Trigger('package', schedulers=['package-all-platforms'],
                                          waitForFinish=True)


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Setting the slaveport,  Next: Buildslave Specifiers,  Prev: Listing Change Sources and Schedulers,  Up: Configuration

4.6 Setting the slaveport
=========================

The buildmaster will listen on a TCP port of your choosing for
connections from buildslaves. It can also use this port for
connections from remote Change Sources, status clients, and debug
tools. This port should be visible to the outside world, and you'll
need to tell your buildslave admins about your choice.

   It does not matter which port you pick, as long it is externally
visible, however you should probably use something larger than 1024,
since most operating systems don't allow non-root processes to bind to
low-numbered ports. If your buildmaster is behind a firewall or a NAT
box of some sort, you may have to configure your firewall to permit
inbound connections to this port.

     c['slavePortnum'] = 10000

   `c['slavePortnum']' is a _strports_ specification string, defined
in the `twisted.application.strports' module (try `pydoc
twisted.application.strports' to get documentation on the format).
This means that you can have the buildmaster listen on a
localhost-only port by doing:

     c['slavePortnum'] = "tcp:10000:interface=127.0.0.1"

   This might be useful if you only run buildslaves on the same
machine, and they are all configured to contact the buildmaster at
`localhost:10000'.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Buildslave Specifiers,  Next: Defining Builders,  Prev: Setting the slaveport,  Up: Configuration

4.7 Buildslave Specifiers
=========================

The `c['slaves']' key is a list of known buildslaves. Each buildslave
is defined by an instance of the BuildSlave class, created with two
values: (slavename, slavepassword). These are the same two values
that need to be provided to the buildslave administrator when they
create the buildslave.

     from buildbot.buildslave import BuildSlave
     c['slaves'] = [BuildSlave('bot-solaris', 'solarispasswd'),
                    BuildSlave('bot-bsd', 'bsdpasswd'),
                   ]

   The slavenames must be unique, of course. The password exists to
prevent evildoers from interfering with the buildbot by inserting
their own (broken) buildslaves into the system and thus displacing the
real ones.

   Buildslaves with an unrecognized slavename or a non-matching
password will be rejected when they attempt to connect, and a message
describing the problem will be put in the log file (see *note
Logfiles::).

   The `BuildSlave' constructor can take an optional `max_builds'
parameter to limit the number of builds that it will execute
simultaneously:

     from buildbot.buildslave import BuildSlave
     c['slaves'] = [BuildSlave("bot-linux", "linuxpassword", max_builds=2)]

   Historical note: in buildbot-0.7.5 and earlier, the `c['bots']'
key was used instead, and it took a list of (name, password) tuples.
This key is accepted for backwards compatibility, but is deprecated as
of 0.7.6 and will go away in some future release.

* Menu:

* When Buildslaves Go Missing::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: When Buildslaves Go Missing,  Prev: Buildslave Specifiers,  Up: Buildslave Specifiers

4.7.1 When Buildslaves Go Missing
---------------------------------

Sometimes, the buildslaves go away. One very common reason for this is
when the buildslave process is started once (manually) and left
running, but then later the machine reboots and the process is not
automatically restarted.

   If you'd like to have the administrator of the buildslave (or other
people) be notified by email when the buildslave has been missing for
too long, just add the `notify_on_missing=' argument to the
`BuildSlave' definition:

     c['slaves'] = [BuildSlave('bot-solaris', 'solarispasswd',
                               notify_on_missing="bob@example.com"),
                   ]

   By default, this will send email when the buildslave has been
disconnected for more than one hour. Only one email per
connection-loss event will be sent. To change the timeout, use
`missing_timeout=' and give it a number of seconds (the default is
3600).

   You can have the buildmaster send email to multiple recipients:
just provide a list of addresses instead of a single one:

     c['slaves'] = [BuildSlave('bot-solaris', 'solarispasswd',
                               notify_on_missing=["bob@example.com",
                                                  "alice@example.org"],
                               missing_timeout=300, # notify after 10 minutes
                               ),
                   ]

   The email sent this way will use a MailNotifier (*note
MailNotifier::) status target, if one is configured. This provides a
way for you to control the "from" address of the email, as well as
the relayhost (aka "smarthost") to use as an SMTP server. If no
MailNotifier is configured on this buildmaster, the
buildslave-missing emails will be sent using a default configuration.

   Note that if you want to have a MailNotifier for buildslave-missing
emails but not for regular build emails, just create one with
builders=[], as follows:

     from buildbot.status import mail
     m = mail.MailNotifier(fromaddr="buildbot@localhost", builders=[],
                           relayhost="smtp.example.org")
     c['status'].append(m)
     c['slaves'] = [BuildSlave('bot-solaris', 'solarispasswd',
                               notify_on_missing="bob@example.com"),
                   ]


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Defining Builders,  Next: Defining Status Targets,  Prev: Buildslave Specifiers,  Up: Configuration

4.8 Defining Builders
=====================

The `c['builders']' key is a list of dictionaries which specify the
Builders. The Buildmaster runs a collection of Builders, each of
which handles a single type of build (e.g. full versus quick), on a
single build slave. A Buildbot which makes sure that the latest code
("HEAD") compiles correctly across four separate architecture will
have four Builders, each performing the same build but on different
slaves (one per platform).

   Each Builder gets a separate column in the waterfall display. In
general, each Builder runs independently (although various kinds of
interlocks can cause one Builder to have an effect on another).

   Each Builder specification dictionary has several required keys:

`name'
     This specifies the Builder's name, which is used in status
     reports.

`slavename'
     This specifies which buildslave will be used by this Builder.
     `slavename' must appear in the `c['slaves']' list. Each
     buildslave can accomodate multiple Builders.

`slavenames'
     If you provide `slavenames' instead of `slavename', you can give
     a list of buildslaves which are capable of running this Builder.
     If multiple buildslaves are available for any given Builder, you
     will have some measure of redundancy: in case one slave goes
     offline, the others can still keep the Builder working. In
     addition, multiple buildslaves will allow multiple simultaneous
     builds for the same Builder, which might be useful if you have a
     lot of forced or "try" builds taking place.

     If you use this feature, it is important to make sure that the
     buildslaves are all, in fact, capable of running the given
     build. The slave hosts should be configured similarly, otherwise
     you will spend a lot of time trying (unsuccessfully) to
     reproduce a failure that only occurs on some of the buildslaves
     and not the others. Different platforms, operating systems,
     versions of major programs or libraries, all these things mean
     you should use separate Builders.

`builddir'
     This specifies the name of a subdirectory (under the base
     directory) in which everything related to this builder will be
     placed. On the buildmaster, this holds build status information.
     On the buildslave, this is where checkouts, compiles, and tests
     are run.

`factory'
     This is a `buildbot.process.factory.BuildFactory' instance which
     controls how the build is performed. Full details appear in
     their own chapter, *Note Build Process::. Parameters like the
     location of the CVS repository and the compile-time options used
     for the build are generally provided as arguments to the
     factory's constructor.


   Other optional keys may be set on each Builder:

`category'
     If provided, this is a string that identifies a category for the
     builder to be a part of. Status clients can limit themselves to a
     subset of the available categories. A common use for this is to
     add new builders to your setup (for a new module, or for a new
     buildslave) that do not work correctly yet and allow you to
     integrate them with the active builders. You can put these new
     builders in a test category, make your main status clients
     ignore them, and have only private status clients pick them up.
     As soon as they work, you can move them over to the active
     category.



File: buildbot.info,  Node: Defining Status Targets,  Next: Debug options,  Prev: Defining Builders,  Up: Configuration

4.9 Defining Status Targets
===========================

The Buildmaster has a variety of ways to present build status to
various users. Each such delivery method is a "Status Target" object
in the configuration's `status' list. To add status targets, you just
append more objects to this list:

     c['status'] = []

     from buildbot.status import html
     c['status'].append(html.Waterfall(http_port=8010))

     from buildbot.status import mail
     m = mail.MailNotifier(fromaddr="buildbot@localhost",
                           extraRecipients=["builds@lists.example.com"],
                           sendToInterestedUsers=False)
     c['status'].append(m)

     from buildbot.status import words
     c['status'].append(words.IRC(host="irc.example.com", nick="bb",
                                  channels=["#example"]))

   Status delivery has its own chapter, *Note Status Delivery::, in
which all the built-in status targets are documented.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Debug options,  Prev: Defining Status Targets,  Up: Configuration

4.10 Debug options
==================

If you set `c['debugPassword']', then you can connect to the
buildmaster with the diagnostic tool launched by `buildbot
debugclient MASTER:PORT'. From this tool, you can reload the config
file, manually force builds, and inject changes, which may be useful
for testing your buildmaster without actually commiting changes to
your repository (or before you have the Change Sources set up). The
debug tool uses the same port number as the slaves do:
`c['slavePortnum']', and is authenticated with this password.

     c['debugPassword'] = "debugpassword"

   If you set `c['manhole']' to an instance of one of the classes in
`buildbot.manhole', you can telnet or ssh into the buildmaster and
get an interactive Python shell, which may be useful for debugging
buildbot internals. It is probably only useful for buildbot
developers. It exposes full access to the buildmaster's account
(including the ability to modify and delete files), so it should not
be enabled with a weak or easily guessable password.

   There are three separate `Manhole' classes. Two of them use SSH,
one uses unencrypted telnet. Two of them use a username+password
combination to grant access, one of them uses an SSH-style
`authorized_keys' file which contains a list of ssh public keys.

`manhole.AuthorizedKeysManhole'
     You construct this with the name of a file that contains one SSH
     public key per line, just like `~/.ssh/authorized_keys'. If you
     provide a non-absolute filename, it will be interpreted relative
     to the buildmaster's base directory.

`manhole.PasswordManhole'
     This one accepts SSH connections but asks for a username and
     password when authenticating. It accepts only one such pair.

`manhole.TelnetManhole'
     This accepts regular unencrypted telnet connections, and asks
     for a username/password pair before providing access. Because
     this username/password is transmitted in the clear, and because
     Manhole access to the buildmaster is equivalent to granting full
     shell privileges to both the buildmaster and all the buildslaves
     (and to all accounts which then run code produced by the
     buildslaves), it is highly recommended that you use one of the
     SSH manholes instead.


     # some examples:
     from buildbot import manhole
     c['manhole'] = manhole.AuthorizedKeysManhole(1234, "authorized_keys")
     c['manhole'] = manhole.PasswordManhole(1234, "alice", "mysecretpassword")
     c['manhole'] = manhole.TelnetManhole(1234, "bob", "snoop_my_password_please")

   The `Manhole' instance can be configured to listen on a specific
port. You may wish to have this listening port bind to the loopback
interface (sometimes known as "lo0", "localhost", or 127.0.0.1) to
restrict access to clients which are running on the same host.

     from buildbot.manhole import PasswordManhole
     c['manhole'] = PasswordManhole("tcp:9999:interface=127.0.0.1","admin","passwd")

   To have the `Manhole' listen on all interfaces, use `"tcp:9999"'
or simply 9999. This port specification uses
`twisted.application.strports', so you can make it listen on SSL or
even UNIX-domain sockets if you want.

   Note that using any Manhole requires that the TwistedConch package
be installed, and that you be using Twisted version 2.0 or later.

   The buildmaster's SSH server will use a different host key than the
normal sshd running on a typical unix host. This will cause the ssh
client to complain about a "host key mismatch", because it does not
realize there are two separate servers running on the same host. To
avoid this, use a clause like the following in your `.ssh/config'
file:

     Host remotehost-buildbot
      HostName remotehost
      HostKeyAlias remotehost-buildbot
      Port 9999
      # use 'user' if you use PasswordManhole and your name is not 'admin'.
      # if you use AuthorizedKeysManhole, this probably doesn't matter.
      User admin


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Getting Source Code Changes,  Next: Build Process,  Prev: Configuration,  Up: Top

5 Getting Source Code Changes
*****************************

The most common way to use the Buildbot is centered around the idea of
`Source Trees': a directory tree filled with source code of some form
which can be compiled and/or tested. Some projects use languages that
don't involve any compilation step: nevertheless there may be a
`build' phase where files are copied or rearranged into a form that
is suitable for installation. Some projects do not have unit tests,
and the Buildbot is merely helping to make sure that the sources can
compile correctly. But in all of these cases, the thing-being-tested
is a single source tree.

   A Version Control System mantains a source tree, and tells the
buildmaster when it changes. The first step of each Build is typically
to acquire a copy of some version of this tree.

   This chapter describes how the Buildbot learns about what Changes
have occurred. For more information on VC systems and Changes, see
*note Version Control Systems::.

* Menu:

* Change Sources::
* Choosing ChangeSources::
* CVSToys - PBService::
* Mail-parsing ChangeSources::
* PBChangeSource::
* P4Source::
* BonsaiPoller::
* SVNPoller::
* MercurialHook::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Change Sources,  Next: Choosing ChangeSources,  Prev: Getting Source Code Changes,  Up: Getting Source Code Changes

5.1 Change Sources
==================

Each Buildmaster watches a single source tree. Changes can be provided
by a variety of ChangeSource types, however any given project will
typically have only a single ChangeSource active. This section
provides a description of all available ChangeSource types and
explains how to set up each of them.

   There are a variety of ChangeSources available, some of which are
meant to be used in conjunction with other tools to deliver Change
events from the VC repository to the buildmaster.

   * CVSToys This ChangeSource opens a TCP connection from the
     buildmaster to a waiting FreshCVS daemon that lives on the
     repository machine, and subscribes to hear about Changes.

   * MaildirSource This one watches a local maildir-format inbox for
     email sent out by the repository when a change is made. When a
     message arrives, it is parsed to create the Change object. A
     variety of parsing functions are available to accomodate
     different email-sending tools.

   * PBChangeSource This ChangeSource listens on a local TCP socket
     for inbound connections from a separate tool. Usually, this tool
     would be run on the VC repository machine in a commit hook. It
     is expected to connect to the TCP socket and send a Change
     message over the network connection. The `buildbot sendchange'
     command is one example of a tool that knows how to send these
     messages, so you can write a commit script for your VC system
     that calls it to deliver the Change.  There are other tools in
     the contrib/ directory that use the same protocol.


   As a quick guide, here is a list of VC systems and the
ChangeSources that might be useful with them. All of these
ChangeSources are in the `buildbot.changes' module.

`CVS'
        * freshcvs.FreshCVSSource (connected via TCP to the freshcvs
          daemon)

        * mail.FCMaildirSource (watching for email sent by a freshcvs
          daemon)

        * mail.BonsaiMaildirSource (watching for email sent by Bonsai)

        * mail.SyncmailMaildirSource (watching for email sent by
          syncmail)

        * pb.PBChangeSource (listening for connections from `buildbot
          sendchange' run in a loginfo script)

        * pb.PBChangeSource (listening for connections from a
          long-running `contrib/viewcvspoll.py' polling process which
          examines the ViewCVS database directly

`SVN'
        * pb.PBChangeSource (listening for connections from
          `contrib/svn_buildbot.py' run in a postcommit script)

        * pb.PBChangeSource (listening for connections from a
          long-running `contrib/svn_watcher.py' or
          `contrib/svnpoller.py' polling process

        * mail.SVNCommitEmailMaildirSource (watching for email sent
          by commit-email.pl)

        * svnpoller.SVNPoller (polling the SVN repository)

`Darcs'
        * pb.PBChangeSource (listening for connections from
          `contrib/darcs_buildbot.py' in a commit script

`Mercurial'
        * pb.PBChangeSource (listening for connections from
          `contrib/hg_buildbot.py' run in an 'incoming' hook)

        * pb.PBChangeSource (listening for connections from
          `buildbot/changes/hgbuildbot.py' run as an in-process
          'changegroup' hook)

`Arch/Bazaar'
        * pb.PBChangeSource (listening for connections from
          `contrib/arch_buildbot.py' run in a commit hook)

`Git'
        * pb.PBChangeSource (listening for connections from
          `contrib/git_buildbot.py' run in the post-receive hook)


   All VC systems can be driven by a PBChangeSource and the `buildbot
sendchange' tool run from some form of commit script.  If you write
an email parsing function, they can also all be driven by a suitable
`MaildirSource'.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Choosing ChangeSources,  Next: CVSToys - PBService,  Prev: Change Sources,  Up: Getting Source Code Changes

5.2 Choosing ChangeSources
==========================

The `master.cfg' configuration file has a dictionary key named
`BuildmasterConfig['change_source']', which holds the active
`IChangeSource' object. The config file will typically create an
object from one of the classes described below and stuff it into this
key.

   Each buildmaster typically has just a single ChangeSource, since
it is only watching a single source tree. But if, for some reason,
you need multiple sources, just set `c['change_source']' to a list of
ChangeSources.. it will accept that too.

     s = FreshCVSSourceNewcred(host="host", port=4519,
                               user="alice", passwd="secret",
                               prefix="Twisted")
     BuildmasterConfig['change_source'] = [s]

   Each source tree has a nominal `top'. Each Change has a list of
filenames, which are all relative to this top location. The
ChangeSource is responsible for doing whatever is necessary to
accomplish this. Most sources have a `prefix' argument: a partial
pathname which is stripped from the front of all filenames provided to
that `ChangeSource'. Files which are outside this sub-tree are
ignored by the changesource: it does not generate Changes for those
files.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: CVSToys - PBService,  Next: Mail-parsing ChangeSources,  Prev: Choosing ChangeSources,  Up: Getting Source Code Changes

5.3 CVSToys - PBService
=======================

The CVSToys (http://purl.net/net/CVSToys) package provides a server
which runs on the machine that hosts the CVS repository it watches.
It has a variety of ways to distribute commit notifications, and
offers a flexible regexp-based way to filter out uninteresting
changes. One of the notification options is named `PBService' and
works by listening on a TCP port for clients. These clients subscribe
to hear about commit notifications.

   The buildmaster has a CVSToys-compatible `PBService' client built
in. There are two versions of it, one for old versions of CVSToys
(1.0.9 and earlier) which used the `oldcred' authentication
framework, and one for newer versions (1.0.10 and later) which use
`newcred'. Both are classes in the `buildbot.changes.freshcvs'
package.

   `FreshCVSSourceNewcred' objects are created with the following
parameters:

``host' and `port''
     these specify where the CVSToys server can be reached

``user' and `passwd''
     these specify the login information for the CVSToys server
     (`freshcvs'). These must match the server's values, which are
     defined in the `freshCfg' configuration file (which lives in the
     CVSROOT directory of the repository).

``prefix''
     this is the prefix to be found and stripped from filenames
     delivered by the CVSToys server. Most projects live in
     sub-directories of the main repository, as siblings of the
     CVSROOT sub-directory, so typically this prefix is set to that
     top sub-directory name.


Example
=======

To set up the freshCVS server, add a statement like the following to
your `freshCfg' file:

     pb = ConfigurationSet([
         (None, None, None, PBService(userpass=('foo', 'bar'), port=4519)),
         ])

   This will announce all changes to a client which connects to port
4519 using a username of 'foo' and a password of 'bar'.

   Then add a clause like this to your buildmaster's `master.cfg':

     BuildmasterConfig['change_source'] = FreshCVSSource("cvs.example.com", 4519,
                                                         "foo", "bar",
                                                         prefix="glib/")

   where "cvs.example.com" is the host that is running the FreshCVS
daemon, and "glib" is the top-level directory (relative to the
repository's root) where all your source code lives. Most projects
keep one or more projects in the same repository (along with CVSROOT/
to hold admin files like loginfo and freshCfg); the prefix= argument
tells the buildmaster to ignore everything outside that directory,
and to strip that common prefix from all pathnames it handles.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Mail-parsing ChangeSources,  Next: PBChangeSource,  Prev: CVSToys - PBService,  Up: Getting Source Code Changes

5.4 Mail-parsing ChangeSources
==============================

Many projects publish information about changes to their source tree
by sending an email message out to a mailing list, frequently named
PROJECT-commits or PROJECT-changes. Each message usually contains a
description of the change (who made the change, which files were
affected) and sometimes a copy of the diff. Humans can subscribe to
this list to stay informed about what's happening to the source tree.

   The Buildbot can also be subscribed to a -commits mailing list, and
can trigger builds in response to Changes that it hears about. The
buildmaster admin needs to arrange for these email messages to arrive
in a place where the buildmaster can find them, and configure the
buildmaster to parse the messages correctly. Once that is in place,
the email parser will create Change objects and deliver them to the
Schedulers (see *note Scheduler Types::) just like any other
ChangeSource.

   There are two components to setting up an email-based ChangeSource.
The first is to route the email messages to the buildmaster, which is
done by dropping them into a "maildir". The second is to actually
parse the messages, which is highly dependent upon the tool that was
used to create them. Each VC system has a collection of favorite
change-emailing tools, and each has a slightly different format, so
each has a different parsing function. There is a separate
ChangeSource variant for each parsing function.

   Once you've chosen a maildir location and a parsing function,
create the change source and put it in `c['change_source']':

     from buildbot.changes.mail import SyncmailMaildirSource
     c['change_source'] = SyncmailMaildirSource("~/maildir-buildbot",
                                                prefix="/trunk/")

* Menu:

* Subscribing the Buildmaster::
* Using Maildirs::
* Parsing Email Change Messages::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Subscribing the Buildmaster,  Next: Using Maildirs,  Prev: Mail-parsing ChangeSources,  Up: Mail-parsing ChangeSources

5.4.1 Subscribing the Buildmaster
---------------------------------

The recommended way to install the buildbot is to create a dedicated
account for the buildmaster. If you do this, the account will probably
have a distinct email address (perhaps <buildmaster@example.org>).
Then just arrange for this account's email to be delivered to a
suitable maildir (described in the next section).

   If the buildbot does not have its own account, "extension
addresses" can be used to distinguish between email intended for the
buildmaster and email intended for the rest of the account. In most
modern MTAs, the e.g. `foo@example.org' account has control over
every email address at example.org which begins with "foo", such that
email addressed to <account-foo@example.org> can be delivered to a
different destination than <account-bar@example.org>. qmail does this
by using separate .qmail files for the two destinations (`.qmail-foo'
and `.qmail-bar', with `.qmail' controlling the base address and
`.qmail-default' controlling all other extensions). Other MTAs have
similar mechanisms.

   Thus you can assign an extension address like
<foo-buildmaster@example.org> to the buildmaster, and retain
<foo@example.org> for your own use.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Using Maildirs,  Next: Parsing Email Change Messages,  Prev: Subscribing the Buildmaster,  Up: Mail-parsing ChangeSources

5.4.2 Using Maildirs
--------------------

A "maildir" is a simple directory structure originally developed for
qmail that allows safe atomic update without locking. Create a base
directory with three subdirectories: "new", "tmp", and "cur".  When
messages arrive, they are put into a uniquely-named file (using pids,
timestamps, and random numbers) in "tmp". When the file is complete,
it is atomically renamed into "new". Eventually the buildmaster
notices the file in "new", reads and parses the contents, then moves
it into "cur". A cronjob can be used to delete files in "cur" at
leisure.

   Maildirs are frequently created with the `maildirmake' tool, but a
simple `mkdir -p ~/MAILDIR/{cur,new,tmp}' is pretty much equivalent.

   Many modern MTAs can deliver directly to maildirs. The usual
.forward or .procmailrc syntax is to name the base directory with a
trailing slash, so something like `~/MAILDIR/' . qmail and postfix are
maildir-capable MTAs, and procmail is a maildir-capable MDA (Mail
Delivery Agent).

   For MTAs which cannot put files into maildirs directly, the
"safecat" tool can be executed from a .forward file to accomplish the
same thing.

   The Buildmaster uses the linux DNotify facility to receive
immediate notification when the maildir's "new" directory has
changed. When this facility is not available, it polls the directory
for new messages, every 10 seconds by default.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Parsing Email Change Messages,  Prev: Using Maildirs,  Up: Mail-parsing ChangeSources

5.4.3 Parsing Email Change Messages
-----------------------------------

The second component to setting up an email-based ChangeSource is to
parse the actual notices. This is highly dependent upon the VC system
and commit script in use.

   A couple of common tools used to create these change emails are:

`CVS'

    `CVSToys MailNotifier'
          *note FCMaildirSource::

    `Bonsai notification'
          *note BonsaiMaildirSource::

    `syncmail'
          *note SyncmailMaildirSource::

`SVN'

    `svnmailer'
          http://opensource.perlig.de/en/svnmailer/

    `commit-email.pl'
          *note SVNCommitEmailMaildirSource::

`Mercurial'

    `NotifyExtension'
          http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/index.cgi/NotifyExtension

`Git'

    `post-receive-email'
          http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git.git;a=blob;f=contrib/hooks/post-receive-email;hb=HEAD


   The following sections describe the parsers available for each of
these tools.

   Most of these parsers accept a `prefix=' argument, which is used
to limit the set of files that the buildmaster pays attention to. This
is most useful for systems like CVS and SVN which put multiple
projects in a single repository (or use repository names to indicate
branches). Each filename that appears in the email is tested against
the prefix: if the filename does not start with the prefix, the file
is ignored. If the filename _does_ start with the prefix, that prefix
is stripped from the filename before any further processing is done.
Thus the prefix usually ends with a slash.

* Menu:

* FCMaildirSource::
* SyncmailMaildirSource::
* BonsaiMaildirSource::
* SVNCommitEmailMaildirSource::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: FCMaildirSource,  Next: SyncmailMaildirSource,  Prev: Parsing Email Change Messages,  Up: Parsing Email Change Messages

5.4.3.1 FCMaildirSource
.......................

http://twistedmatrix.com/users/acapnotic/wares/code/CVSToys/

   This parser works with the CVSToys `MailNotification' action,
which will send email to a list of recipients for each commit. This
tends to work better than using `/bin/mail' from within the
CVSROOT/loginfo file directly, as CVSToys will batch together all
files changed during the same CVS invocation, and can provide more
information (like creating a ViewCVS URL for each file changed).

   The Buildbot's `FCMaildirSource' knows for to parse these CVSToys
messages and turn them into Change objects. It can be given two
parameters: the directory name of the maildir root, and the prefix to
strip.

     from buildbot.changes.mail import FCMaildirSource
     c['change_source'] = FCMaildirSource("~/maildir-buildbot")


File: buildbot.info,  Node: SyncmailMaildirSource,  Next: BonsaiMaildirSource,  Prev: FCMaildirSource,  Up: Parsing Email Change Messages

5.4.3.2 SyncmailMaildirSource
.............................

http://sourceforge.net/projects/cvs-syncmail

   `SyncmailMaildirSource' knows how to parse the message format used
by the CVS "syncmail" script.

     from buildbot.changes.mail import SyncmailMaildirSource
     c['change_source'] = SyncmailMaildirSource("~/maildir-buildbot")


File: buildbot.info,  Node: BonsaiMaildirSource,  Next: SVNCommitEmailMaildirSource,  Prev: SyncmailMaildirSource,  Up: Parsing Email Change Messages

5.4.3.3 BonsaiMaildirSource
...........................

http://www.mozilla.org/bonsai.html

   `BonsaiMaildirSource' parses messages sent out by Bonsai, the CVS
tree-management system built by Mozilla.

     from buildbot.changes.mail import BonsaiMaildirSource
     c['change_source'] = BonsaiMaildirSource("~/maildir-buildbot")


File: buildbot.info,  Node: SVNCommitEmailMaildirSource,  Prev: BonsaiMaildirSource,  Up: Parsing Email Change Messages

5.4.3.4 SVNCommitEmailMaildirSource
...................................

`SVNCommitEmailMaildirSource' parses message sent out by the
`commit-email.pl' script, which is included in the Subversion
distribution.

   It does not currently handle branches: all of the Change objects
that it creates will be associated with the default (i.e. trunk)
branch.

     from buildbot.changes.mail import SVNCommitEmailMaildirSource
     c['change_source'] = SVNCommitEmailMaildirSource("~/maildir-buildbot")


File: buildbot.info,  Node: PBChangeSource,  Next: P4Source,  Prev: Mail-parsing ChangeSources,  Up: Getting Source Code Changes

5.5 PBChangeSource
==================

The last kind of ChangeSource actually listens on a TCP port for
clients to connect and push change notices _into_ the Buildmaster.
This is used by the built-in `buildbot sendchange' notification tool,
as well as the VC-specific `contrib/svn_buildbot.py',
`contrib/arch_buildbot.py', `contrib/hg_buildbot.py' tools, and the
`buildbot.changes.hgbuildbot' hook. These tools are run by the
repository (in a commit hook script), and connect to the buildmaster
directly each time a file is comitted. This is also useful for
creating new kinds of change sources that work on a `push' model
instead of some kind of subscription scheme, for example a script
which is run out of an email .forward file.

   This ChangeSource can be configured to listen on its own TCP port,
or it can share the port that the buildmaster is already using for the
buildslaves to connect. (This is possible because the
`PBChangeSource' uses the same protocol as the buildslaves, and they
can be distinguished by the `username' attribute used when the
initial connection is established). It might be useful to have it
listen on a different port if, for example, you wanted to establish
different firewall rules for that port. You could allow only the SVN
repository machine access to the `PBChangeSource' port, while
allowing only the buildslave machines access to the slave port. Or you
could just expose one port and run everything over it. _Note: this
feature is not yet implemented, the PBChangeSource will always share
the slave port and will always have a `user' name of `change', and a
passwd of `changepw'. These limitations will be removed in the
future._.

   The `PBChangeSource' is created with the following arguments. All
are optional.

``port''
     which port to listen on. If `None' (which is the default), it
     shares the port used for buildslave connections. _Not
     Implemented, always set to `None'_.

``user' and `passwd''
     The user/passwd account information that the client program must
     use to connect. Defaults to `change' and `changepw'. _Not
     Implemented, `user' is currently always set to `change',
     `passwd' is always set to `changepw'_.

``prefix''
     The prefix to be found and stripped from filenames delivered
     over the connection. Any filenames which do not start with this
     prefix will be removed. If all the filenames in a given Change
     are removed, the that whole Change will be dropped. This string
     should probably end with a directory separator.

     This is useful for changes coming from version control systems
     that represent branches as parent directories within the
     repository (like SVN and Perforce). Use a prefix of 'trunk/' or
     'project/branches/foobranch/' to only follow one branch and to
     get correct tree-relative filenames. Without a prefix, the
     PBChangeSource will probably deliver Changes with filenames like
     `trunk/foo.c' instead of just `foo.c'. Of course this also
     depends upon the tool sending the Changes in (like `buildbot
     sendchange') and what filenames it is delivering: that tool may
     be filtering and stripping prefixes at the sending end.



File: buildbot.info,  Node: P4Source,  Next: BonsaiPoller,  Prev: PBChangeSource,  Up: Getting Source Code Changes

5.6 P4Source
============

The `P4Source' periodically polls a Perforce
(http://www.perforce.com/) depot for changes. It accepts the
following arguments:

``p4base''
     The base depot path to watch, without the trailing '/...'.

``p4port''
     The Perforce server to connect to (as host:port).

``p4user''
     The Perforce user.

``p4passwd''
     The Perforce password.

``split_file''
     A function that maps a pathname, without the leading `p4base',
     to a (branch, filename) tuple. The default just returns (None,
     branchfile), which effectively disables branch support. You
     should supply a function which understands your repository
     structure.

``pollinterval''
     How often to poll, in seconds. Defaults to 600 (10 minutes).

``histmax''
     The maximum number of changes to inspect at a time. If more than
     this number occur since the last poll, older changes will be
     silently ignored.

Example
=======

This configuration uses the `P4PORT', `P4USER', and `P4PASSWD'
specified in the buildmaster's environment. It watches a project in
which the branch name is simply the next path component, and the file
is all path components after.

     import buildbot.changes.p4poller
     s = p4poller.P4Source(p4base='//depot/project/',
                           split_file=lambda branchfile: branchfile.split('/',1),
                          )
     c['change_source'] = s


File: buildbot.info,  Node: BonsaiPoller,  Next: SVNPoller,  Prev: P4Source,  Up: Getting Source Code Changes

5.7 BonsaiPoller
================

The `BonsaiPoller' periodically polls a Bonsai server. This is a CGI
script accessed through a web server that provides information about
a CVS tree, for example the Mozilla bonsai server at
`http://bonsai.mozilla.org'. Bonsai servers are usable by both humans
and machines. In this case, the buildbot's change source forms a
query which asks about any files in the specified branch which have
changed since the last query.

   Please take a look at the BonsaiPoller docstring for details about
the arguments it accepts.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: SVNPoller,  Next: MercurialHook,  Prev: BonsaiPoller,  Up: Getting Source Code Changes

5.8 SVNPoller
=============

The `buildbot.changes.svnpoller.SVNPoller' is a ChangeSource which
periodically polls a Subversion (http://subversion.tigris.org/)
repository for new revisions, by running the `svn log' command in a
subshell. It can watch a single branch or multiple branches.

   `SVNPoller' accepts the following arguments:

`svnurl'
     The base URL path to watch, like
     `svn://svn.twistedmatrix.com/svn/Twisted/trunk', or
     `http://divmod.org/svn/Divmod/', or even
     `file:///home/svn/Repository/ProjectA/branches/1.5/'. This must
     include the access scheme, the location of the repository (both
     the hostname for remote ones, and any additional directory names
     necessary to get to the repository), and the sub-path within the
     repository's virtual filesystem for the project and branch of
     interest.

     The `SVNPoller' will only pay attention to files inside the
     subdirectory specified by the complete svnurl.

`split_file'
     A function to convert pathnames into (branch, relative_pathname)
     tuples. Use this to explain your repository's branch-naming
     policy to `SVNPoller'. This function must accept a single string
     and return a two-entry tuple. There are a few utility functions
     in `buildbot.changes.svnpoller' that can be used as a
     `split_file' function, see below for details.

     The default value always returns (None, path), which indicates
     that all files are on the trunk.

     Subclasses of `SVNPoller' can override the `split_file' method
     instead of using the `split_file=' argument.

`svnuser'
     An optional string parameter. If set, the `--user' argument will
     be added to all `svn' commands. Use this if you have to
     authenticate to the svn server before you can do `svn info' or
     `svn log' commands.

`svnpasswd'
     Like `svnuser', this will cause a `--password' argument to be
     passed to all svn commands.

`pollinterval'
     How often to poll, in seconds. Defaults to 600 (checking once
     every 10 minutes). Lower this if you want the buildbot to notice
     changes faster, raise it if you want to reduce the network and
     CPU load on your svn server. Please be considerate of public SVN
     repositories by using a large interval when polling them.

`histmax'
     The maximum number of changes to inspect at a time. Every
     POLLINTERVAL seconds, the `SVNPoller' asks for the last HISTMAX
     changes and looks through them for any ones it does not already
     know about. If more than HISTMAX revisions have been committed
     since the last poll, older changes will be silently ignored.
     Larger values of histmax will cause more time and memory to be
     consumed on each poll attempt.  `histmax' defaults to 100.

`svnbin'
     This controls the `svn' executable to use. If subversion is
     installed in a weird place on your system (outside of the
     buildmaster's `$PATH'), use this to tell `SVNPoller' where to
     find it. The default value of "svn" will almost always be
     sufficient.


Branches
========

Each source file that is tracked by a Subversion repository has a
fully-qualified SVN URL in the following form:
(REPOURL)(PROJECT-plus-BRANCH)(FILEPATH). When you create the
`SVNPoller', you give it a `svnurl' value that includes all of the
REPOURL and possibly some portion of the PROJECT-plus-BRANCH string.
The `SVNPoller' is responsible for producing Changes that contain a
branch name and a FILEPATH (which is relative to the top of a
checked-out tree). The details of how these strings are split up
depend upon how your repository names its branches.

PROJECT/BRANCHNAME/FILEPATH repositories
----------------------------------------

One common layout is to have all the various projects that share a
repository get a single top-level directory each. Then under a given
project's directory, you get two subdirectories, one named "trunk"
and another named "branches". Under "branches" you have a bunch of
other directories, one per branch, with names like "1.5.x" and
"testing". It is also common to see directories like "tags" and
"releases" next to "branches" and "trunk".

   For example, the Twisted project has a subversion server on
"svn.twistedmatrix.com" that hosts several sub-projects. The
repository is available through a SCHEME of "svn:". The primary
sub-project is Twisted, of course, with a repository root of
"svn://svn.twistedmatrix.com/svn/Twisted". Another sub-project is
Informant, with a root of
"svn://svn.twistedmatrix.com/svn/Informant", etc. Inside any
checked-out Twisted tree, there is a file named bin/trial (which is
used to run unit test suites).

   The trunk for Twisted is in
"svn://svn.twistedmatrix.com/svn/Twisted/trunk", and the
fully-qualified SVN URL for the trunk version of `trial' would be
"svn://svn.twistedmatrix.com/svn/Twisted/trunk/bin/trial". The same
SVNURL for that file on a branch named "1.5.x" would be
"svn://svn.twistedmatrix.com/svn/Twisted/branches/1.5.x/bin/trial".

   To set up a `SVNPoller' that watches the Twisted trunk (and
nothing else), we would use the following:

     from buildbot.changes.svnpoller import SVNPoller
     c['change_source'] = SVNPoller("svn://svn.twistedmatrix.com/svn/Twisted/trunk")

   In this case, every Change that our `SVNPoller' produces will have
`.branch=None', to indicate that the Change is on the trunk.  No
other sub-projects or branches will be tracked.

   If we want our ChangeSource to follow multiple branches, we have
to do two things. First we have to change our `svnurl=' argument to
watch more than just ".../Twisted/trunk". We will set it to
".../Twisted" so that we'll see both the trunk and all the branches.
Second, we have to tell `SVNPoller' how to split the
(PROJECT-plus-BRANCH)(FILEPATH) strings it gets from the repository
out into (BRANCH) and (FILEPATH) pairs.

   We do the latter by providing a "split_file" function. This
function is responsible for splitting something like
"branches/1.5.x/bin/trial" into `branch'="branches/1.5.x" and
`filepath'="bin/trial". This function is always given a string that
names a file relative to the subdirectory pointed to by the
`SVNPoller''s `svnurl=' argument. It is expected to return a
(BRANCHNAME, FILEPATH) tuple (in which FILEPATH is relative to the
branch indicated), or None to indicate that the file is outside any
project of interest.

   (note that we want to see "branches/1.5.x" rather than just
"1.5.x" because when we perform the SVN checkout, we will probably
append the branch name to the baseURL, which requires that we keep the
"branches" component in there. Other VC schemes use a different
approach towards branches and may not require this artifact.)

   If your repository uses this same PROJECT/BRANCH/FILEPATH naming
scheme, the following function will work:

     def split_file_branches(path):
         pieces = path.split('/')
         if pieces[0] == 'trunk':
             return (None, '/'.join(pieces[1:]))
         elif pieces[0] == 'branches':
             return ('/'.join(pieces[0:2]),
                     '/'.join(pieces[2:]))
         else:
             return None

   This function is provided as
`buildbot.changes.svnpoller.split_file_branches' for your
convenience. So to have our Twisted-watching `SVNPoller' follow
multiple branches, we would use this:

     from buildbot.changes.svnpoller import SVNPoller, split_file_branches
     c['change_source'] = SVNPoller("svn://svn.twistedmatrix.com/svn/Twisted",
                                    split_file=split_file_branches)

   Changes for all sorts of branches (with names like
"branches/1.5.x", and None to indicate the trunk) will be delivered
to the Schedulers.  Each Scheduler is then free to use or ignore each
branch as it sees fit.

BRANCHNAME/PROJECT/FILEPATH repositories
----------------------------------------

Another common way to organize a Subversion repository is to put the
branch name at the top, and the projects underneath. This is
especially frequent when there are a number of related sub-projects
that all get released in a group.

   For example, Divmod.org hosts a project named "Nevow" as well as
one named "Quotient". In a checked-out Nevow tree there is a directory
named "formless" that contains a python source file named
"webform.py". This repository is accessible via webdav (and thus uses
an "http:" scheme) through the divmod.org hostname. There are many
branches in this repository, and they use a (BRANCHNAME)/(PROJECT)
naming policy.

   The fully-qualified SVN URL for the trunk version of webform.py is
`http://divmod.org/svn/Divmod/trunk/Nevow/formless/webform.py'.  You
can do an `svn co' with that URL and get a copy of the latest
version. The 1.5.x branch version of this file would have a URL of
`http://divmod.org/svn/Divmod/branches/1.5.x/Nevow/formless/webform.py'.
The whole Nevow trunk would be checked out with
`http://divmod.org/svn/Divmod/trunk/Nevow', while the Quotient trunk
would be checked out using
`http://divmod.org/svn/Divmod/trunk/Quotient'.

   Now suppose we want to have an `SVNPoller' that only cares about
the Nevow trunk. This case looks just like the PROJECT/BRANCH layout
described earlier:

     from buildbot.changes.svnpoller import SVNPoller
     c['change_source'] = SVNPoller("http://divmod.org/svn/Divmod/trunk/Nevow")

   But what happens when we want to track multiple Nevow branches? We
have to point our `svnurl=' high enough to see all those branches,
but we also don't want to include Quotient changes (since we're only
building Nevow). To accomplish this, we must rely upon the
`split_file' function to help us tell the difference between files
that belong to Nevow and those that belong to Quotient, as well as
figuring out which branch each one is on.

     from buildbot.changes.svnpoller import SVNPoller
     c['change_source'] = SVNPoller("http://divmod.org/svn/Divmod",
                                    split_file=my_file_splitter)

   The `my_file_splitter' function will be called with
repository-relative pathnames like:

`trunk/Nevow/formless/webform.py'
     This is a Nevow file, on the trunk. We want the Change that
     includes this to see a filename of `formless/webform.py"', and a
     branch of None

`branches/1.5.x/Nevow/formless/webform.py'
     This is a Nevow file, on a branch. We want to get
     branch="branches/1.5.x" and filename="formless/webform.py".

`trunk/Quotient/setup.py'
     This is a Quotient file, so we want to ignore it by having
     `my_file_splitter' return None.

`branches/1.5.x/Quotient/setup.py'
     This is also a Quotient file, which should be ignored.

   The following definition for `my_file_splitter' will do the job:

     def my_file_splitter(path):
         pieces = path.split('/')
         if pieces[0] == 'trunk':
             branch = None
             pieces.pop(0) # remove 'trunk'
         elif pieces[0] == 'branches':
             pieces.pop(0) # remove 'branches'
             # grab branch name
             branch = 'branches/' + pieces.pop(0)
         else:
             return None # something weird
         projectname = pieces.pop(0)
         if projectname != 'Nevow':
             return None # wrong project
         return (branch, '/'.join(pieces))


File: buildbot.info,  Node: MercurialHook,  Prev: SVNPoller,  Up: Getting Source Code Changes

5.9 MercurialHook
=================

Since Mercurial is written in python, the hook script can invoke
Buildbot's `sendchange' function directly, rather than having to
spawn an external process. This function delivers the same sort of
changes as `buildbot sendchange' and the various hook scripts in
contrib/, so you'll need to add a `pb.PBChangeSource' to your
buildmaster to receive these changes.

   To set this up, first choose a Mercurial repository that represents
your central "official" source tree. This will be the same repository
that your buildslaves will eventually pull from. Install Buildbot on
the machine that hosts this repository, using the same version of
python as Mercurial is using (so that the Mercurial hook can import
code from buildbot). Then add the following to the `.hg/hgrc' file in
that repository, replacing the buildmaster hostname/portnumber as
appropriate for your buildbot:

     [hooks]
     changegroup.buildbot = python:buildbot.changes.hgbuildbot.hook

     [hgbuildbot]
     master = buildmaster.example.org:9987

   (Note that Mercurial lets you define multiple `changegroup' hooks
by giving them distinct names, like `changegroup.foo' and
`changegroup.bar', which is why we use `changegroup.buildbot' in this
example. There is nothing magical about the "buildbot" suffix in the
hook name. The `[hgbuildbot]' section _is_ special, however, as it is
the only section that the buildbot hook pays attention to.)

   Also note that this runs as a `changegroup' hook, rather than as
an `incoming' hook. The `changegroup' hook is run with multiple
revisions at a time (say, if multiple revisions are being pushed to
this repository in a single `hg push' command), whereas the
`incoming' hook is run with just one revision at a time. The
`hgbuildbot.hook' function will only work with the `changegroup' hook.

   The `[hgbuildbot]' section has two other parameters that you might
specify, both of which control the name of the branch that is
attached to the changes coming from this hook.

   One common branch naming policy for Mercurial repositories is to
use it just like Darcs: each branch goes into a separate repository,
and all the branches for a single project share a common parent
directory.  For example, you might have `/var/repos/PROJECT/trunk/'
and `/var/repos/PROJECT/release'. To use this style, use the
`branchtype = dirname' setting, which simply uses the last component
of the repository's enclosing directory as the branch name:

     [hgbuildbot]
     master = buildmaster.example.org:9987
     branchtype = dirname

   Another approach is to use Mercurial's built-in branches (the kind
created with `hg branch' and listed with `hg branches'). This feature
associates persistent names with particular lines of descent within a
single repository. (note that the buildbot `source.Mercurial'
checkout step does not yet support this kind of branch). To have the
commit hook deliver this sort of branch name with the Change object,
use `branchtype = inrepo':

     [hgbuildbot]
     master = buildmaster.example.org:9987
     branchtype = inrepo

   Finally, if you want to simply specify the branchname directly, for
all changes, use `branch = BRANCHNAME'. This overrides `branchtype':

     [hgbuildbot]
     master = buildmaster.example.org:9987
     branch = trunk

   If you use `branch=' like this, you'll need to put a separate
.hgrc in each repository. If you use `branchtype=', you may be able
to use the same .hgrc for all your repositories, stored in `~/.hgrc'
or `/etc/mercurial/hgrc'.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Build Process,  Next: Status Delivery,  Prev: Getting Source Code Changes,  Up: Top

6 Build Process
***************

A `Build' object is responsible for actually performing a build.  It
gets access to a remote `SlaveBuilder' where it may run commands, and
a `BuildStatus' object where it must emit status events. The `Build'
is created by the Builder's `BuildFactory'.

   The default `Build' class is made up of a fixed sequence of
`BuildSteps', executed one after another until all are complete (or
one of them indicates that the build should be halted early). The
default `BuildFactory' creates instances of this `Build' class with a
list of `BuildSteps', so the basic way to configure the build is to
provide a list of `BuildSteps' to your `BuildFactory'.

   More complicated `Build' subclasses can make other decisions:
execute some steps only if certain files were changed, or if certain
previous steps passed or failed. The base class has been written to
allow users to express basic control flow without writing code, but
you can always subclass and customize to achieve more specialized
behavior.

* Menu:

* Build Steps::
* Interlocks::
* Build Factories::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Build Steps,  Next: Interlocks,  Prev: Build Process,  Up: Build Process

6.1 Build Steps
===============

`BuildStep's are usually specified in the buildmaster's configuration
file, in a list that goes into the `BuildFactory'.  The `BuildStep'
instances in this list are used as templates to construct new
independent copies for each build (so that state can be kept on the
`BuildStep' in one build without affecting a later build). Each
`BuildFactory' can be created with a list of steps, or the factory
can be created empty and then steps added to it using the `addStep'
method:

     from buildbot.steps import source, shell
     from buildbot.process import factory

     f = factory.BuildFactory()
     f.addStep(source.SVN(svnurl="http://svn.example.org/Trunk/"))
     f.addStep(shell.ShellCommand(command=["make", "all"]))
     f.addStep(shell.ShellCommand(command=["make", "test"]))

   In earlier versions (0.7.5 and older), these steps were specified
with a tuple of (step_class, keyword_arguments). Steps can still be
specified this way, but the preferred form is to pass actual
`BuildStep' instances to `addStep', because that gives the
`BuildStep' class a chance to do some validation on the arguments.

   The rest of this section lists all the standard BuildStep objects
available for use in a Build, and the parameters which can be used to
control each.

* Menu:

* Common Parameters::
* Source Checkout::
* ShellCommand::
* Simple ShellCommand Subclasses::
* Python BuildSteps::
* Transferring Files::
* Triggering Schedulers::
* Writing New BuildSteps::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Common Parameters,  Next: Source Checkout,  Prev: Build Steps,  Up: Build Steps

6.1.1 Common Parameters
-----------------------

The standard `Build' runs a series of `BuildStep's in order, only
stopping when it runs out of steps or if one of them requests that
the build be halted. It collects status information from each one to
create an overall build status (of SUCCESS, WARNINGS, or FAILURE).

   All BuildSteps accept some common parameters. Some of these control
how their individual status affects the overall build. Others are used
to specify which `Locks' (see *note Interlocks::) should be acquired
before allowing the step to run.

   Arguments common to all `BuildStep' subclasses:

`name'
     the name used to describe the step on the status display. It is
     also used to give a name to any LogFiles created by this step.

`haltOnFailure'
     if True, a FAILURE of this build step will cause the build to
     halt immediately with an overall result of FAILURE.

`flunkOnWarnings'
     when True, a WARNINGS or FAILURE of this build step will mark the
     overall build as FAILURE. The remaining steps will still be
     executed.

`flunkOnFailure'
     when True, a FAILURE of this build step will mark the overall
     build as a FAILURE. The remaining steps will still be executed.

`warnOnWarnings'
     when True, a WARNINGS or FAILURE of this build step will mark the
     overall build as having WARNINGS. The remaining steps will still
     be executed.

`warnOnFailure'
     when True, a FAILURE of this build step will mark the overall
     build as having WARNINGS. The remaining steps will still be
     executed.

`locks'
     a list of Locks (instances of `buildbot.locks.SlaveLock' or
     `buildbot.locks.MasterLock') that should be acquired before
     starting this Step. The Locks will be released when the step is
     complete. Note that this is a list of actual Lock instances, not
     names. Also note that all Locks must have unique names.



File: buildbot.info,  Node: Source Checkout,  Next: ShellCommand,  Prev: Common Parameters,  Up: Build Steps

6.1.2 Source Checkout
---------------------

The first step of any build is typically to acquire the source code
from which the build will be performed. There are several classes to
handle this, one for each of the different source control system that
Buildbot knows about. For a description of how Buildbot treats source
control in general, see *note Version Control Systems::.

   All source checkout steps accept some common parameters to control
how they get the sources and where they should be placed. The
remaining per-VC-system parameters are mostly to specify where
exactly the sources are coming from.

`mode'
     a string describing the kind of VC operation that is desired.
     Defaults to `update'.

    `update'
          specifies that the CVS checkout/update should be performed
          directly into the workdir. Each build is performed in the
          same directory, allowing for incremental builds. This
          minimizes disk space, bandwidth, and CPU time. However, it
          may encounter problems if the build process does not handle
          dependencies properly (sometimes you must do a "clean
          build" to make sure everything gets compiled), or if source
          files are deleted but generated files can influence test
          behavior (e.g. python's .pyc files), or when source
          directories are deleted but generated files prevent CVS
          from removing them. Builds ought to be correct regardless
          of whether they are done "from scratch" or incrementally,
          but it is useful to test both kinds: this mode exercises the
          incremental-build style.

    `copy'
          specifies that the CVS workspace should be maintained in a
          separate directory (called the 'copydir'), using checkout
          or update as necessary. For each build, a new workdir is
          created with a copy of the source tree (rm -rf workdir; cp
          -r copydir workdir). This doubles the disk space required,
          but keeps the bandwidth low (update instead of a full
          checkout). A full 'clean' build is performed each time. This
          avoids any generated-file build problems, but is still
          occasionally vulnerable to CVS problems such as a
          repository being manually rearranged, causing CVS errors on
          update which are not an issue with a full checkout.

    `clobber'
          specifes that the working directory should be deleted each
          time, necessitating a full checkout for each build. This
          insures a clean build off a complete checkout, avoiding any
          of the problems described above. This mode exercises the
          "from-scratch" build style.

    `export'
          this is like `clobber', except that the 'cvs export'
          command is used to create the working directory. This
          command removes all CVS metadata files (the CVS/
          directories) from the tree, which is sometimes useful for
          creating source tarballs (to avoid including the metadata
          in the tar file).

`workdir'
     like all Steps, this indicates the directory where the build
     will take place. Source Steps are special in that they perform
     some operations outside of the workdir (like creating the
     workdir itself).

`alwaysUseLatest'
     if True, bypass the usual "update to the last Change" behavior,
     and always update to the latest changes instead.

`retry'
     If set, this specifies a tuple of `(delay, repeats)' which means
     that when a full VC checkout fails, it should be retried up to
     REPEATS times, waiting DELAY seconds between attempts. If you
     don't provide this, it defaults to `None', which means VC
     operations should not be retried. This is provided to make life
     easier for buildslaves which are stuck behind poor network
     connections.


   My habit as a developer is to do a `cvs update' and `make' each
morning. Problems can occur, either because of bad code being checked
in, or by incomplete dependencies causing a partial rebuild to fail
where a complete from-scratch build might succeed. A quick Builder
which emulates this incremental-build behavior would use the
`mode='update'' setting.

   On the other hand, other kinds of dependency problems can cause a
clean build to fail where a partial build might succeed. This
frequently results from a link step that depends upon an object file
that was removed from a later version of the tree: in the partial
tree, the object file is still around (even though the Makefiles no
longer know how to create it).

   "official" builds (traceable builds performed from a known set of
source revisions) are always done as clean builds, to make sure it is
not influenced by any uncontrolled factors (like leftover files from a
previous build). A "full" Builder which behaves this way would want
to use the `mode='clobber'' setting.

   Each VC system has a corresponding source checkout class: their
arguments are described on the following pages.

* Menu:

* CVS::
* SVN::
* Darcs::
* Mercurial::
* Arch::
* Bazaar::
* Bzr::
* P4::
* Git::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: CVS,  Next: SVN,  Prev: Source Checkout,  Up: Source Checkout

6.1.2.1 CVS
...........

The `CVS' build step performs a CVS (http://www.nongnu.org/cvs/)
checkout or update. It takes the following arguments:

`cvsroot'
     (required): specify the CVSROOT value, which points to a CVS
     repository, probably on a remote machine. For example, the
     cvsroot value you would use to get a copy of the Buildbot source
     code is
     `:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/buildbot'

`cvsmodule'
     (required): specify the cvs `module', which is generally a
     subdirectory of the CVSROOT. The cvsmodule for the Buildbot
     source code is `buildbot'.

`branch'
     a string which will be used in a `-r' argument. This is most
     useful for specifying a branch to work on. Defaults to `HEAD'.

`global_options'
     a list of flags to be put before the verb in the CVS command.

`checkoutDelay'
     if set, the number of seconds to put between the timestamp of
     the last known Change and the value used for the `-D' option.
     Defaults to half of the parent Build's treeStableTimer.



File: buildbot.info,  Node: SVN,  Next: Darcs,  Prev: CVS,  Up: Source Checkout

6.1.2.2 SVN
...........

The `SVN' build step performs a Subversion
(http://subversion.tigris.org) checkout or update.  There are two
basic ways of setting up the checkout step, depending upon whether
you are using multiple branches or not.

   If all of your builds use the same branch, then you should create
the `SVN' step with the `svnurl' argument:

`svnurl'
     (required): this specifies the `URL' argument that will be given
     to the `svn checkout' command. It dictates both where the
     repository is located and which sub-tree should be extracted. In
     this respect, it is like a combination of the CVS `cvsroot' and
     `cvsmodule' arguments. For example, if you are using a remote
     Subversion repository which is accessible through HTTP at a URL
     of `http://svn.example.com/repos', and you wanted to check out
     the `trunk/calc' sub-tree, you would use
     `svnurl="http://svn.example.com/repos/trunk/calc"' as an argument
     to your `SVN' step.

   If, on the other hand, you are building from multiple branches,
then you should create the `SVN' step with the `baseURL' and
`defaultBranch' arguments instead:

`baseURL'
     (required): this specifies the base repository URL, to which a
     branch name will be appended. It should probably end in a slash.

`defaultBranch'
     this specifies the name of the branch to use when a Build does
     not provide one of its own. This will be appended to `baseURL' to
     create the string that will be passed to the `svn checkout'
     command.

   If you are using branches, you must also make sure your
`ChangeSource' will report the correct branch names.

branch example
==============

Let's suppose that the "MyProject" repository uses branches for the
trunk, for various users' individual development efforts, and for
several new features that will require some amount of work (involving
multiple developers) before they are ready to merge onto the trunk.
Such a repository might be organized as follows:

     svn://svn.example.org/MyProject/trunk
     svn://svn.example.org/MyProject/branches/User1/foo
     svn://svn.example.org/MyProject/branches/User1/bar
     svn://svn.example.org/MyProject/branches/User2/baz
     svn://svn.example.org/MyProject/features/newthing
     svn://svn.example.org/MyProject/features/otherthing

   Further assume that we want the Buildbot to run tests against the
trunk and against all the feature branches (i.e., do a
checkout/compile/build of branch X when a file has been changed on
branch X, when X is in the set [trunk, features/newthing,
features/otherthing]). We do not want the Buildbot to automatically
build any of the user branches, but it should be willing to build a
user branch when explicitly requested (most likely by the user who
owns that branch).

   There are three things that need to be set up to accomodate this
system. The first is a ChangeSource that is capable of identifying the
branch which owns any given file. This depends upon a user-supplied
function, in an external program that runs in the SVN commit hook and
connects to the buildmaster's `PBChangeSource' over a TCP connection.
(you can use the "`buildbot sendchange'" utility for this purpose,
but you will still need an external program to decide what value
should be passed to the `--branch=' argument).  For example, a change
to a file with the SVN url of
"svn://svn.example.org/MyProject/features/newthing/src/foo.c" should
be broken down into a Change instance with
`branch='features/newthing'' and `file='src/foo.c''.

   The second piece is an `AnyBranchScheduler' which will pay
attention to the desired branches. It will not pay attention to the
user branches, so it will not automatically start builds in response
to changes there. The AnyBranchScheduler class requires you to
explicitly list all the branches you want it to use, but it would not
be difficult to write a subclass which used
`branch.startswith('features/'' to remove the need for this explicit
list. Or, if you want to build user branches too, you can use
AnyBranchScheduler with `branches=None' to indicate that you want it
to pay attention to all branches.

   The third piece is an `SVN' checkout step that is configured to
handle the branches correctly, with a `baseURL' value that matches
the way the ChangeSource splits each file's URL into base, branch,
and file.

     from buildbot.changes.pb import PBChangeSource
     from buildbot.scheduler import AnyBranchScheduler
     from buildbot.process import source, factory
     from buildbot.steps import source, shell

     c['change_source'] = PBChangeSource()
     s1 = AnyBranchScheduler('main',
                             ['trunk', 'features/newthing', 'features/otherthing'],
                             10*60, ['test-i386', 'test-ppc'])
     c['schedulers'] = [s1]

     f = factory.BuildFactory()
     f.addStep(source.SVN(mode='update',
                          baseURL='svn://svn.example.org/MyProject/',
                          defaultBranch='trunk'))
     f.addStep(shell.Compile(command="make all"))
     f.addStep(shell.Test(command="make test"))

     c['builders'] = [
       {'name':'test-i386', 'slavename':'bot-i386', 'builddir':'test-i386',
                            'factory':f },
       {'name':'test-ppc', 'slavename':'bot-ppc', 'builddir':'test-ppc',
                           'factory':f },
      ]

   In this example, when a change arrives with a `branch' attribute
of "trunk", the resulting build will have an SVN step that
concatenates "svn://svn.example.org/MyProject/" (the baseURL) with
"trunk" (the branch name) to get the correct svn command. If the
"newthing" branch has a change to "src/foo.c", then the SVN step will
concatenate "svn://svn.example.org/MyProject/" with
"features/newthing" to get the svnurl for checkout.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Darcs,  Next: Mercurial,  Prev: SVN,  Up: Source Checkout

6.1.2.3 Darcs
.............

The `Darcs' build step performs a Darcs (http://darcs.net/) checkout
or update.

   Like *Note SVN::, this step can either be configured to always
check out a specific tree, or set up to pull from a particular branch
that gets specified separately for each build. Also like SVN, the
repository URL given to Darcs is created by concatenating a `baseURL'
with the branch name, and if no particular branch is requested, it
uses a `defaultBranch'. The only difference in usage is that each
potential Darcs repository URL must point to a fully-fledged
repository, whereas SVN URLs usually point to sub-trees of the main
Subversion repository. In other words, doing an SVN checkout of
`baseURL' is legal, but silly, since you'd probably wind up with a
copy of every single branch in the whole repository.  Doing a Darcs
checkout of `baseURL' is just plain wrong, since the parent directory
of a collection of Darcs repositories is not itself a valid
repository.

   The Darcs step takes the following arguments:

`repourl'
     (required unless `baseURL' is provided): the URL at which the
     Darcs source repository is available.

`baseURL'
     (required unless `repourl' is provided): the base repository URL,
     to which a branch name will be appended. It should probably end
     in a slash.

`defaultBranch'
     (allowed if and only if `baseURL' is provided): this specifies
     the name of the branch to use when a Build does not provide one
     of its own. This will be appended to `baseURL' to create the
     string that will be passed to the `darcs get' command.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Mercurial,  Next: Arch,  Prev: Darcs,  Up: Source Checkout

6.1.2.4 Mercurial
.................

The `Mercurial' build step performs a Mercurial
(http://selenic.com/mercurial) (aka "hg") checkout or update.

   Branches are handled just like *Note Darcs::.

   The Mercurial step takes the following arguments:

`repourl'
     (required unless `baseURL' is provided): the URL at which the
     Mercurial source repository is available.

`baseURL'
     (required unless `repourl' is provided): the base repository URL,
     to which a branch name will be appended. It should probably end
     in a slash.

`defaultBranch'
     (allowed if and only if `baseURL' is provided): this specifies
     the name of the branch to use when a Build does not provide one
     of its own. This will be appended to `baseURL' to create the
     string that will be passed to the `hg clone' command.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Arch,  Next: Bazaar,  Prev: Mercurial,  Up: Source Checkout

6.1.2.5 Arch
............

The `Arch' build step performs an Arch (http://gnuarch.org/) checkout
or update using the `tla' client. It takes the following arguments:

`url'
     (required): this specifies the URL at which the Arch source
     archive is available.

`version'
     (required): this specifies which "development line" (like a
     branch) should be used. This provides the default branch name,
     but individual builds may specify a different one.

`archive'
     (optional): Each repository knows its own archive name. If this
     parameter is provided, it must match the repository's archive
     name.  The parameter is accepted for compatibility with the
     `Bazaar' step, below.



File: buildbot.info,  Node: Bazaar,  Next: Bzr,  Prev: Arch,  Up: Source Checkout

6.1.2.6 Bazaar
..............

`Bazaar' is an alternate implementation of the Arch VC system, which
uses a client named `baz'. The checkout semantics are just different
enough from `tla' that there is a separate BuildStep for it.

   It takes exactly the same arguments as `Arch', except that the
`archive=' parameter is required. (baz does not emit the archive name
when you do `baz register-archive', so we must provide it ourselves).


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Bzr,  Next: P4,  Prev: Bazaar,  Up: Source Checkout

6.1.2.7 Bzr
...........

`bzr' is a descendant of Arch/Baz, and is frequently referred to as
simply "Bazaar". The repository-vs-workspace model is similar to
Darcs, but it uses a strictly linear sequence of revisions (one
history per branch) like Arch. Branches are put in subdirectories.
This makes it look very much like Mercurial, so it takes the same
arguments:

`repourl'
     (required unless `baseURL' is provided): the URL at which the
     Bzr source repository is available.

`baseURL'
     (required unless `repourl' is provided): the base repository URL,
     to which a branch name will be appended. It should probably end
     in a slash.

`defaultBranch'
     (allowed if and only if `baseURL' is provided): this specifies
     the name of the branch to use when a Build does not provide one
     of its own. This will be appended to `baseURL' to create the
     string that will be passed to the `bzr checkout' command.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: P4,  Next: Git,  Prev: Bzr,  Up: Source Checkout

6.1.2.8 P4
..........

The `P4' build step creates a Perforce (http://www.perforce.com/)
client specification and performs an update.

`p4base'
     A view into the Perforce depot without branch name or trailing
     "...".  Typically "//depot/proj/".

`defaultBranch'
     A branch name to append on build requests if none is specified.
     Typically "trunk".

`p4port'
     (optional): the host:port string describing how to get to the P4
     Depot (repository), used as the -p argument for all p4 commands.

`p4user'
     (optional): the Perforce user, used as the -u argument to all p4
     commands.

`p4passwd'
     (optional): the Perforce password, used as the -p argument to
     all p4 commands.

`p4extra_views'
     (optional): a list of (depotpath, clientpath) tuples containing
     extra views to be mapped into the client specification. Both
     will have "/..." appended automatically. The client name and
     source directory will be prepended to the client path.

`p4client'
     (optional): The name of the client to use. In mode='copy' and
     mode='update', it's particularly important that a unique name is
     used for each checkout directory to avoid incorrect
     synchronization. For this reason, Python percent substitution
     will be performed on this value to replace %(slave)s with the
     slave name and %(builder)s with the builder name. The default is
     "buildbot_%(slave)s_%(build)s".


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Git,  Prev: P4,  Up: Source Checkout

6.1.2.9 Git
...........

The `Git' build step clones or updates a Git (http://git.or.cz/)
repository and checks out the specified branch or revision. Note that
the buildbot supports Git version 1.2.0 and later: earlier versions
(such as the one shipped in Ubuntu 'Dapper') do not support the `git
init' command that the buildbot uses.

   The Git step takes the following arguments:

`repourl'
     (required): the URL of the upstream Git repository.

`branch'
     (optional): this specifies the name of the branch to use when a
     Build does not provide one of its own. If this this parameter is
     not specified, and the Build does not provide a branch, the
     "master" branch will be used.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: ShellCommand,  Next: Simple ShellCommand Subclasses,  Prev: Source Checkout,  Up: Build Steps

6.1.3 ShellCommand
------------------

This is a useful base class for just about everything you might want
to do during a build (except for the initial source checkout). It runs
a single command in a child shell on the buildslave. All stdout/stderr
is recorded into a LogFile. The step finishes with a status of FAILURE
if the command's exit code is non-zero, otherwise it has a status of
SUCCESS.

   The preferred way to specify the command is with a list of argv
strings, since this allows for spaces in filenames and avoids doing
any fragile shell-escaping. You can also specify the command with a
single string, in which case the string is given to '/bin/sh -c
COMMAND' for parsing.

   All ShellCommands are run by default in the "workdir", which
defaults to the "`build'" subdirectory of the slave builder's base
directory. The absolute path of the workdir will thus be the slave's
basedir (set as an option to `buildbot create-slave', *note Creating
a buildslave::) plus the builder's basedir (set in the builder's
`c['builddir']' key in master.cfg) plus the workdir itself (a
class-level attribute of the BuildFactory, defaults to "`build'").

   `ShellCommand' arguments:

`command'
     a list of strings (preferred) or single string (discouraged)
     which specifies the command to be run. A list of strings is
     preferred because it can be used directly as an argv array.
     Using a single string (with embedded spaces) requires the
     buildslave to pass the string to /bin/sh for interpretation,
     which raises all sorts of difficult questions about how to
     escape or interpret shell metacharacters.

`env'
     a dictionary of environment strings which will be added to the
     child command's environment. For example, to run tests with a
     different i18n language setting, you might use

          f.addStep(ShellCommand, command=["make", "test"],
                    env={'LANG': 'fr_FR'})

     These variable settings will override any existing ones in the
     buildslave's environment. The exception is PYTHONPATH, which is
     merged with (actually prepended to) any existing $PYTHONPATH
     setting. The value is treated as a list of directories to
     prepend, and a single string is treated like a one-item list.
     For example, to prepend both `/usr/local/lib/python2.3' and
     `/home/buildbot/lib/python' to any existing $PYTHONPATH setting,
     you would do something like the following:

          f.addStep(ShellCommand, command=["make", "test"],
                    env={'PYTHONPATH': ["/usr/local/lib/python2.3",
                                        "/home/buildbot/lib/python"] })

`want_stdout'
     if False, stdout from the child process is discarded rather than
     being sent to the buildmaster for inclusion in the step's
     LogFile.

`want_stderr'
     like `want_stdout' but for stderr. Note that commands run through
     a PTY do not have separate stdout/stderr streams: both are
     merged into stdout.

`logfiles'
     Sometimes commands will log interesting data to a local file,
     rather than emitting everything to stdout or stderr. For
     example, Twisted's "trial" command (which runs unit tests) only
     presents summary information to stdout, and puts the rest into a
     file named `_trial_temp/test.log'. It is often useful to watch
     these files as the command runs, rather than using `/bin/cat' to
     dump their contents afterwards.

     The `logfiles=' argument allows you to collect data from these
     secondary logfiles in near-real-time, as the step is running. It
     accepts a dictionary which maps from a local Log name (which is
     how the log data is presented in the build results) to a remote
     filename (interpreted relative to the build's working
     directory). Each named file will be polled on a regular basis
     (every couple of seconds) as the build runs, and any new text
     will be sent over to the buildmaster.

          f.addStep(ShellCommand, command=["make", "test"],
                    logfiles={"triallog": "_trial_temp/test.log"})

`timeout'
     if the command fails to produce any output for this many
     seconds, it is assumed to be locked up and will be killed.

`description'
     This will be used to describe the command (on the Waterfall
     display) while the command is still running. It should be a
     single imperfect-tense verb, like "compiling" or "testing". The
     preferred form is a list of short strings, which allows the HTML
     Waterfall display to create narrower columns by emitting a <br>
     tag between each word. You may also provide a single string.

`descriptionDone'
     This will be used to describe the command once it has finished. A
     simple noun like "compile" or "tests" should be used. Like
     `description', this may either be a list of short strings or a
     single string.

     If neither `description' nor `descriptionDone' are set, the
     actual command arguments will be used to construct the
     description.  This may be a bit too wide to fit comfortably on
     the Waterfall display.

          f.addStep(ShellCommand, command=["make", "test"],
                    description=["testing"],
                    descriptionDone=["tests"])



File: buildbot.info,  Node: Simple ShellCommand Subclasses,  Next: Python BuildSteps,  Prev: ShellCommand,  Up: Build Steps

6.1.4 Simple ShellCommand Subclasses
------------------------------------

Several subclasses of ShellCommand are provided as starting points for
common build steps. These are all very simple: they just override a
few parameters so you don't have to specify them yourself, making the
master.cfg file less verbose.

* Menu:

* Configure::
* Compile::
* Test::
* TreeSize::
* Build Properties::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Configure,  Next: Compile,  Prev: Simple ShellCommand Subclasses,  Up: Simple ShellCommand Subclasses

6.1.4.1 Configure
.................

This is intended to handle the `./configure' step from autoconf-style
projects, or the `perl Makefile.PL' step from perl MakeMaker.pm-style
modules. The default command is `./configure' but you can change this
by providing a `command=' parameter.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Compile,  Next: Test,  Prev: Configure,  Up: Simple ShellCommand Subclasses

6.1.4.2 Compile
...............

This is meant to handle compiling or building a project written in C.
The default command is `make all'. When the compile is finished, the
log file is scanned for GCC warning messages, a summary log is
created with any problems that were seen, and the step is marked as
WARNINGS if any were discovered. The number of warnings is stored in a
Build Property named "warnings-count", which is accumulated over all
Compile steps (so if two warnings are found in one step, and three are
found in another step, the overall build will have a "warnings-count"
property of 5.

   The default regular expression used to detect a warning is
`'.*warning[: ].*'' , which is fairly liberal and may cause
false-positives. To use a different regexp, provide a
`warningPattern=' argument, or use a subclass which sets the
`warningPattern' attribute:

     f.addStep(Compile(command=["make", "test"],
                       warningPattern="^Warning: "))

   The `warningPattern=' can also be a pre-compiled python regexp
object: this makes it possible to add flags like `re.I' (to use
case-insensitive matching).

   (TODO: this step needs to be extended to look for GCC error
messages as well, and collect them into a separate logfile, along
with the source code filenames involved).


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Test,  Next: TreeSize,  Prev: Compile,  Up: Simple ShellCommand Subclasses

6.1.4.3 Test
............

This is meant to handle unit tests. The default command is `make
test', and the `warnOnFailure' flag is set.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: TreeSize,  Next: Build Properties,  Prev: Test,  Up: Simple ShellCommand Subclasses

6.1.4.4 TreeSize
................

This is a simple command that uses the 'du' tool to measure the size
of the code tree. It puts the size (as a count of 1024-byte blocks,
aka 'KiB' or 'kibibytes') on the step's status text, and sets a build
property named 'tree-size-KiB' with the same value.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Build Properties,  Prev: TreeSize,  Up: Simple ShellCommand Subclasses

6.1.4.5 Build Properties
........................

Each build has a set of "Build Properties", which can be used by its
BuildStep to modify their actions. For example, the SVN revision
number of the source code being built is available as a build
property, and a ShellCommand step could incorporate this number into a
command which create a numbered release tarball.

   Some build properties are set when the build starts, such as the
SourceStamp information. Other properties can be set by BuildSteps as
they run, for example the various Source steps will set the
`got_revision' property to the source revision that was actually
checked out (which can be useful when the SourceStamp in use merely
requested the "latest revision": `got_revision' will tell you what
was actually built).

   In custom BuildSteps, you can get and set the build properties with
the `getProperty'/`setProperty' methods. Each takes a string for the
name of the property, and returns or accepts an arbitrary(1) object.
For example:

     class MakeTarball(ShellCommand):
         def start(self):
             self.setCommand(["tar", "czf",
                              "build-%s.tar.gz" % self.getProperty("revision"),
                              "source"])
             ShellCommand.start(self)

   You can use build properties in ShellCommands by using the
`WithProperties' wrapper when setting the arguments of the
ShellCommand. This interpolates the named build properties into the
generated shell command. You can also use a `WithProperties' as the
`workdir=' argument: this allows the working directory for a command
to be varied for each build, depending upon various build properties.

     from buildbot.steps.shell import ShellCommand, WithProperties

     f.addStep(ShellCommand,
               command=["tar", "czf",
                        WithProperties("build-%s.tar.gz", "revision"),
                        "source"])

   If this BuildStep were used in a tree obtained from Subversion, it
would create a tarball with a name like `build-1234.tar.gz'.

   The `WithProperties' function does `printf'-style string
interpolation, using strings obtained by calling
`build.getProperty(propname)'. Note that for every `%s' (or `%d',
etc), you must have exactly one additional argument to indicate which
build property you want to insert.

   You can also use python dictionary-style string interpolation by
using the `%(propname)s' syntax. In this form, the property name goes
in the parentheses, and WithProperties takes _no_ additional
arguments:

     f.addStep(ShellCommand,
               command=["tar", "czf",
                        WithProperties("build-%(revision)s.tar.gz"),
                        "source"])

   Don't forget the extra "s" after the closing parenthesis! This is
the cause of many confusing errors. Also note that you can only use
WithProperties in the list form of the command= definition. You cannot
currently use it in the (discouraged) `command="stuff"' single-string
form. However, you can use something like `command=["/bin/sh", "-c",
"stuff", WithProperties(stuff)]' to use both shell expansion and
WithProperties interpolation.

   Note that, like python, you can either do positional-argument
interpolation _or_ keyword-argument interpolation, not both. Thus you
cannot use a string like `WithProperties("foo-%(revision)s-%s",
"branch")'.

   At the moment, the only way to set build properties is by writing a
custom BuildStep.

Common Build Properties
=======================

The following build properties are set when the build is started, and
are available to all steps.

`branch'
     This comes from the build's SourceStamp, and describes which
     branch is being checked out. This will be `None' (which
     interpolates into `WithProperties' as an empty string) if the
     build is on the default branch, which is generally the trunk.
     Otherwise it will be a string like "branches/beta1.4". The exact
     syntax depends upon the VC system being used.

`revision'
     This also comes from the SourceStamp, and is the revision of the
     source code tree that was requested from the VC system. When a
     build is requested of a specific revision (as is generally the
     case when the build is triggered by Changes), this will contain
     the revision specification. The syntax depends upon the VC
     system in use: for SVN it is an integer, for Mercurial it is a
     short string, for Darcs it is a rather large string, etc.

     If the "force build" button was pressed, the revision will be
     `None', which means to use the most recent revision available.
     This is a "trunk build". This will be interpolated as an empty
     string.

`got_revision'
     This is set when a Source step checks out the source tree, and
     provides the revision that was actually obtained from the VC
     system.  In general this should be the same as `revision',
     except for trunk builds, where `got_revision' indicates what
     revision was current when the checkout was performed. This can
     be used to rebuild the same source code later.

     Note that for some VC systems (Darcs in particular), the
     revision is a large string containing newlines, and is not
     suitable for interpolation into a filename.

`buildername'
     This is a string that indicates which Builder the build was a
     part of.  The combination of buildername and buildnumber
     uniquely identify a build.

`buildnumber'
     Each build gets a number, scoped to the Builder (so the first
     build performed on any given Builder will have a build number of
     0). This integer property contains the build's number.

`slavename'
     This is a string which identifies which buildslave the build is
     running on.


   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Build properties are serialized along with the build results,
so they must be serializable. For this reason, the value of any build
property should be simple inert data: strings, numbers, lists,
tuples, and dictionaries. They should not contain class instances.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Python BuildSteps,  Next: Transferring Files,  Prev: Simple ShellCommand Subclasses,  Up: Build Steps

6.1.5 Python BuildSteps
-----------------------

Here are some BuildSteps that are specifcally useful for projects
implemented in Python.

* Menu:

* BuildEPYDoc::
* PyFlakes::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: BuildEPYDoc,  Next: PyFlakes,  Prev: Python BuildSteps,  Up: Python BuildSteps

6.1.5.1 BuildEPYDoc
...................

epydoc (http://epydoc.sourceforge.net/) is a tool for generating API
documentation for Python modules from their docstrings. It reads all
the .py files from your source tree, processes the docstrings
therein, and creates a large tree of .html files (or a single .pdf
file).

   The `buildbot.steps.python.BuildEPYDoc' step will run `epydoc' to
produce this API documentation, and will count the errors and
warnings from its output.

   You must supply the command line to be used. The default is `make
epydocs', which assumes that your project has a Makefile with an
"epydocs" target. You might wish to use something like `epydoc -o
apiref source/PKGNAME' instead. You might also want to add `--pdf' to
generate a PDF file instead of a large tree of HTML files.

   The API docs are generated in-place in the build tree (under the
workdir, in the subdirectory controlled by the "-o" argument). To
make them useful, you will probably have to copy them to somewhere
they can be read. A command like `rsync -ad apiref/
dev.example.com:~public_html/current-apiref/' might be useful. You
might instead want to bundle them into a tarball and publish it in the
same place where the generated install tarball is placed.

     from buildbot.steps.python import BuildEPYDoc

     ...
     f.addStep(BuildEPYDoc, command=["epydoc", "-o", "apiref", "source/mypkg"])


File: buildbot.info,  Node: PyFlakes,  Prev: BuildEPYDoc,  Up: Python BuildSteps

6.1.5.2 PyFlakes
................

PyFlakes (http://divmod.org/trac/wiki/DivmodPyflakes) is a tool to
perform basic static analysis of Python code to look for simple
errors, like missing imports and references of undefined names. It is
like a fast and simple form of the C "lint" program. Other tools
(like pychecker) provide more detailed results but take longer to run.

   The `buildbot.steps.python.PyFlakes' step will run pyflakes and
count the various kinds of errors and warnings it detects.

   You must supply the command line to be used. The default is `make
pyflakes', which assumes you have a top-level Makefile with a
"pyflakes" target. You might want to use something like `pyflakes .'
or `pyflakes src'.

     from buildbot.steps.python import PyFlakes

     ...
     f.addStep(PyFlakes, command=["pyflakes", "src"])


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Transferring Files,  Next: Triggering Schedulers,  Prev: Python BuildSteps,  Up: Build Steps

6.1.6 Transferring Files
------------------------

Most of the work involved in a build will take place on the
buildslave. But occasionally it is useful to do some work on the
buildmaster side. The most basic way to involve the buildmaster is
simply to move a file from the slave to the master, or vice versa.
There are a pair of BuildSteps named `FileUpload' and `FileDownload'
to provide this functionality. `FileUpload' moves a file _up to_ the
master, while `FileDownload' moves a file _down from_ the master.

   As an example, let's assume that there is a step which produces an
HTML file within the source tree that contains some sort of generated
project documentation. We want to move this file to the buildmaster,
into a `~/public_html' directory, so it can be visible to developers.
This file will wind up in the slave-side working directory under the
name `docs/reference.html'. We want to put it into the master-side
`~/public_html/ref.html'.

     from buildbot.steps.shell import ShellCommand
     from buildbot.steps.transfer import FileUpload

     f.addStep(ShellCommand, command=["make", "docs"])
     f.addStep(FileUpload,
               slavesrc="docs/reference.html",
               masterdest="~/public_html/ref.html")

   The `masterdest=' argument will be passed to os.path.expanduser,
so things like "~" will be expanded properly. Non-absolute paths will
be interpreted relative to the buildmaster's base directory.
Likewise, the `slavesrc=' argument will be expanded and interpreted
relative to the builder's working directory.

   To move a file from the master to the slave, use the
`FileDownload' command. For example, let's assume that some step
requires a configuration file that, for whatever reason, could not be
recorded in the source code repository or generated on the buildslave
side:

     from buildbot.steps.shell import ShellCommand
     from buildbot.steps.transfer import FileUpload

     f.addStep(FileDownload
               mastersrc="~/todays_build_config.txt",
               slavedest="build_config.txt")
     f.addStep(ShellCommand, command=["make", "config"])

   Like `FileUpload', the `mastersrc=' argument is interpreted
relative to the buildmaster's base directory, and the `slavedest='
argument is relative to the builder's working directory. If the
buildslave is running in `~buildslave', and the builder's "builddir"
is something like `tests-i386', then the workdir is going to be
`~buildslave/tests-i386/build', and a `slavedest=' of `foo/bar.html'
will get put in `~buildslave/tests-i386/build/foo/bar.html'. Remember
that neither of these commands will create missing directories for
you.

Other Parameters
----------------

The `maxsize=' argument lets you set a maximum size for the file to
be transferred. This may help to avoid surprises: transferring a
100MB coredump when you were expecting to move a 10kB status file
might take an awfully long time. The `blocksize=' argument controls
how the file is sent over the network: larger blocksizes are slightly
more efficient but also consume more memory on each end, and there is
a hard-coded limit of about 640kB.

   The `mode=' argument allows you to control the access permissions
of the target file, traditionally expressed as an octal integer. The
most common value is probably 0755, which sets the "x" executable bit
on the file (useful for shell scripts and the like). The default
value for `mode=' is None, which means the permission bits will
default to whatever the umask of the writing process is. The default
umask tends to be fairly restrictive, but at least on the buildslave
you can make it less restrictive with a -umask command-line option at
creation time (*note Buildslave Options::).


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Triggering Schedulers,  Next: Writing New BuildSteps,  Prev: Transferring Files,  Up: Build Steps

6.1.7 Triggering Schedulers
---------------------------

The counterpart to the Triggerable described in section *note Build
Dependencies:: is the Trigger BuildStep.

     from buildbot.steps.trigger import Trigger
     f.addStep(Trigger, schedulerNames=['build-prep'],
                        waitForFinish=True,
                        updateSourceStamp=True)

   The `schedulerNames=' argument lists the Triggerables that should
be triggered when this step is executed.  Note that it is possible,
but not advisable, to create a cycle where a build continually
triggers itself, because the schedulers are specified by name.

   If `waitForFinish' is True, then the step will not finish until
all of the builds from the triggered schedulers have finished. If this
argument is False (the default) or not given, then the buildstep
succeeds immediately after triggering the schedulers.

   If `updateSourceStamp' is True (the default), then step updates
the SourceStamp given to the Triggerables to include `got_revision'
(the revision actually used in this build) as `revision' (the
revision to use in the triggered builds). This is useful to ensure
that all of the builds use exactly the same SourceStamp, even if
other Changes have occurred while the build was running.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Writing New BuildSteps,  Prev: Triggering Schedulers,  Up: Build Steps

6.1.8 Writing New BuildSteps
----------------------------

While it is a good idea to keep your build process self-contained in
the source code tree, sometimes it is convenient to put more
intelligence into your Buildbot configuration. One was to do this is
to write a custom BuildStep. Once written, this Step can be used in
the `master.cfg' file.

   The best reason for writing a custom BuildStep is to better parse
the results of the command being run. For example, a BuildStep that
knows about JUnit could look at the logfiles to determine which tests
had been run, how many passed and how many failed, and then report
more detailed information than a simple `rc==0' -based "good/bad"
decision.

   TODO: add more description of BuildSteps.

* Menu:

* BuildStep LogFiles::
* Reading Logfiles::
* Adding LogObservers::
* BuildStep URLs::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: BuildStep LogFiles,  Next: Reading Logfiles,  Prev: Writing New BuildSteps,  Up: Writing New BuildSteps

6.1.8.1 BuildStep LogFiles
..........................

Each BuildStep has a collection of "logfiles". Each one has a short
name, like "stdio" or "warnings". Each LogFile contains an arbitrary
amount of text, usually the contents of some output file generated
during a build or test step, or a record of everything that was
printed to stdout/stderr during the execution of some command.

   These LogFiles are stored to disk, so they can be retrieved later.

   Each can contain multiple "channels", generally limited to three
basic ones: stdout, stderr, and "headers". For example, when a
ShellCommand runs, it writes a few lines to the "headers" channel to
indicate the exact argv strings being run, which directory the command
is being executed in, and the contents of the current environment
variables. Then, as the command runs, it adds a lot of "stdout" and
"stderr" messages. When the command finishes, a final "header" line
is added with the exit code of the process.

   Status display plugins can format these different channels in
different ways. For example, the web page shows LogFiles as text/html,
with header lines in blue text, stdout in black, and stderr in red. A
different URL is available which provides a text/plain format, in
which stdout and stderr are collapsed together, and header lines are
stripped completely. This latter option makes it easy to save the
results to a file and run `grep' or whatever against the output.

   Each BuildStep contains a mapping (implemented in a python
dictionary) from LogFile name to the actual LogFile objects. Status
plugins can get a list of LogFiles to display, for example, a list of
HREF links that, when clicked, provide the full contents of the
LogFile.

Using LogFiles in custom BuildSteps
===================================

The most common way for a custom BuildStep to use a LogFile is to
summarize the results of a ShellCommand (after the command has
finished running). For example, a compile step with thousands of lines
of output might want to create a summary of just the warning messages.
If you were doing this from a shell, you would use something like:

     grep "warning:" output.log >warnings.log

   In a custom BuildStep, you could instead create a "warnings"
LogFile that contained the same text. To do this, you would add code
to your `createSummary' method that pulls lines from the main output
log and creates a new LogFile with the results:

         def createSummary(self, log):
             warnings = []
             for line in log.readlines():
                 if "warning:" in line:
                     warnings.append()
             self.addCompleteLog('warnings', "".join(warnings))

   This example uses the `addCompleteLog' method, which creates a new
LogFile, puts some text in it, and then "closes" it, meaning that no
further contents will be added. This LogFile will appear in the HTML
display under an HREF with the name "warnings", since that is the
name of the LogFile.

   You can also use `addHTMLLog' to create a complete (closed)
LogFile that contains HTML instead of plain text. The normal LogFile
will be HTML-escaped if presented through a web page, but the HTML
LogFile will not. At the moment this is only used to present a pretty
HTML representation of an otherwise ugly exception traceback when
something goes badly wrong during the BuildStep.

   In contrast, you might want to create a new LogFile at the
beginning of the step, and add text to it as the command runs. You
can create the LogFile and attach it to the build by calling
`addLog', which returns the LogFile object. You then add text to this
LogFile by calling methods like `addStdout' and `addHeader'. When you
are done, you must call the `finish' method so the LogFile can be
closed. It may be useful to create and populate a LogFile like this
from a LogObserver method *Note Adding LogObservers::.

   The `logfiles=' argument to `ShellCommand' (see *note
ShellCommand::) creates new LogFiles and fills them in realtime by
asking the buildslave to watch a actual file on disk. The buildslave
will look for additions in the target file and report them back to
the BuildStep. These additions will be added to the LogFile by
calling `addStdout'. These secondary LogFiles can be used as the
source of a LogObserver just like the normal "stdio" LogFile.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Reading Logfiles,  Next: Adding LogObservers,  Prev: BuildStep LogFiles,  Up: Writing New BuildSteps

6.1.8.2 Reading Logfiles
........................

Once a LogFile has been added to a BuildStep with `addLog()',
`addCompleteLog()', `addHTMLLog()', or `logfiles=', your BuildStep
can retrieve it by using `getLog()':

     class MyBuildStep(ShellCommand):
         logfiles = { "nodelog": "_test/node.log" }

         def evaluateCommand(self, cmd):
             nodelog = self.getLog("nodelog")
             if "STARTED" in nodelog.getText():
                 return SUCCESS
             else:
                 return FAILURE

   For a complete list of the methods you can call on a LogFile,
please see the docstrings on the `IStatusLog' class in
`buildbot/interfaces.py'.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Adding LogObservers,  Next: BuildStep URLs,  Prev: Reading Logfiles,  Up: Writing New BuildSteps

6.1.8.3 Adding LogObservers
...........................

Most shell commands emit messages to stdout or stderr as they operate,
especially if you ask them nicely with a `--verbose' flag of some
sort. They may also write text to a log file while they run. Your
BuildStep can watch this output as it arrives, to keep track of how
much progress the command has made. You can get a better measure of
progress by counting the number of source files compiled or test cases
run than by merely tracking the number of bytes that have been written
to stdout. This improves the accuracy and the smoothness of the ETA
display.

   To accomplish this, you will need to attach a `LogObserver' to one
of the log channels, most commonly to the "stdio" channel but perhaps
to another one which tracks a log file. This observer is given all
text as it is emitted from the command, and has the opportunity to
parse that output incrementally. Once the observer has decided that
some event has occurred (like a source file being compiled), it can
use the `setProgress' method to tell the BuildStep about the progress
that this event represents.

   There are a number of pre-built `LogObserver' classes that you can
choose from (defined in `buildbot.process.buildstep', and of course
you can subclass them to add further customization. The
`LogLineObserver' class handles the grunt work of buffering and
scanning for end-of-line delimiters, allowing your parser to operate
on complete stdout/stderr lines. (Lines longer than a set maximum
length are dropped; the maximum defaults to 16384 bytes, but you can
change it by calling `setMaxLineLength()' on your `LogLineObserver'
instance.  Use `sys.maxint' for effective infinity.)

   For example, let's take a look at the `TrialTestCaseCounter',
which is used by the Trial step to count test cases as they are run.
As Trial executes, it emits lines like the following:

     buildbot.test.test_config.ConfigTest.testDebugPassword ... [OK]
     buildbot.test.test_config.ConfigTest.testEmpty ... [OK]
     buildbot.test.test_config.ConfigTest.testIRC ... [FAIL]
     buildbot.test.test_config.ConfigTest.testLocks ... [OK]

   When the tests are finished, trial emits a long line of "======"
and then some lines which summarize the tests that failed. We want to
avoid parsing these trailing lines, because their format is less
well-defined than the "[OK]" lines.

   The parser class looks like this:

     from buildbot.process.buildstep import LogLineObserver

     class TrialTestCaseCounter(LogLineObserver):
         _line_re = re.compile(r'^([\w\.]+) \.\.\. \[([^\]]+)\]$')
         numTests = 0
         finished = False

         def outLineReceived(self, line):
             if self.finished:
                 return
             if line.startswith("=" * 40):
                 self.finished = True
                 return

             m = self._line_re.search(line.strip())
             if m:
                 testname, result = m.groups()
                 self.numTests += 1
                 self.step.setProgress('tests', self.numTests)

   This parser only pays attention to stdout, since that's where trial
writes the progress lines. It has a mode flag named `finished' to
ignore everything after the "====" marker, and a scary-looking
regular expression to match each line while hopefully ignoring other
messages that might get displayed as the test runs.

   Each time it identifies a test has been completed, it increments
its counter and delivers the new progress value to the step with
`self.step.setProgress'. This class is specifically measuring
progress along the "tests" metric, in units of test cases (as opposed
to other kinds of progress like the "output" metric, which measures
in units of bytes). The Progress-tracking code uses each progress
metric separately to come up with an overall completion percentage
and an ETA value.

   To connect this parser into the `Trial' BuildStep,
`Trial.__init__' ends with the following clause:

             # this counter will feed Progress along the 'test cases' metric
             counter = TrialTestCaseCounter()
             self.addLogObserver('stdio', counter)

   This creates a TrialTestCaseCounter and tells the step that the
counter wants to watch the "stdio" log. The observer is automatically
given a reference to the step in its `.step' attribute.

A Somewhat Whimsical Example
----------------------------

Let's say that we've got some snazzy new unit-test framework called
Framboozle. It's the hottest thing since sliced bread. It slices, it
dices, it runs unit tests like there's no tomorrow. Plus if your unit
tests fail, you can use its name for a Web 2.1 startup company, make
millions of dollars, and hire engineers to fix the bugs for you, while
you spend your afternoons lazily hang-gliding along a scenic pacific
beach, blissfully unconcerned about the state of your tests.(1)

   To run a Framboozle-enabled test suite, you just run the
'framboozler' command from the top of your source code tree. The
'framboozler' command emits a bunch of stuff to stdout, but the most
interesting bit is that it emits the line "FNURRRGH!" every time it
finishes running a test case(2). You'd like to have a test-case
counting LogObserver that watches for these lines and counts them,
because counting them will help the buildbot more accurately
calculate how long the build will take, and this will let you know
exactly how long you can sneak out of the office for your
hang-gliding lessons without anyone noticing that you're gone.

   This will involve writing a new BuildStep (probably named
"Framboozle") which inherits from ShellCommand. The BuildStep class
definition itself will look something like this:

     # START
     from buildbot.steps.shell import ShellCommand
     from buildbot.process.buildstep import LogLineObserver

     class FNURRRGHCounter(LogLineObserver):
         numTests = 0
         def outLineReceived(self, line):
             if "FNURRRGH!" in line:
                 self.numTests += 1
                 self.step.setProgress('tests', self.numTests)

     class Framboozle(ShellCommand):
         command = ["framboozler"]

         def __init__(self, **kwargs):
             ShellCommand.__init__(self, **kwargs)   # always upcall!
             counter = FNURRRGHCounter())
             self.addLogObserver(counter)
     # FINISH

   So that's the code that we want to wind up using. How do we
actually deploy it?

   You have a couple of different options.

   Option 1: The simplest technique is to simply put this text
(everything from START to FINISH) in your master.cfg file, somewhere
before the BuildFactory definition where you actually use it in a
clause like:

     f = BuildFactory()
     f.addStep(SVN(svnurl="stuff"))
     f.addStep(Framboozle())

   Remember that master.cfg is secretly just a python program with one
job: populating the BuildmasterConfig dictionary. And python programs
are allowed to define as many classes as they like. So you can define
classes and use them in the same file, just as long as the class is
defined before some other code tries to use it.

   This is easy, and it keeps the point of definition very close to
the point of use, and whoever replaces you after that unfortunate
hang-gliding accident will appreciate being able to easily figure out
what the heck this stupid "Framboozle" step is doing anyways. The
downside is that every time you reload the config file, the Framboozle
class will get redefined, which means that the buildmaster will think
that you've reconfigured all the Builders that use it, even though
nothing changed. Bleh.

   Option 2: Instead, we can put this code in a separate file, and
import it into the master.cfg file just like we would the normal
buildsteps like ShellCommand and SVN.

   Create a directory named ~/lib/python, put everything from START to
FINISH in ~/lib/python/framboozle.py, and run your buildmaster using:

      PYTHONPATH=~/lib/python buildbot start MASTERDIR

   or use the `Makefile.buildbot' to control the way `buildbot start'
works. Or add something like this to something like your ~/.bashrc or
~/.bash_profile or ~/.cshrc:

      export PYTHONPATH=~/lib/python

   Once we've done this, our master.cfg can look like:

     from framboozle import Framboozle
     f = BuildFactory()
     f.addStep(SVN(svnurl="stuff"))
     f.addStep(Framboozle())

   or:

     import framboozle
     f = BuildFactory()
     f.addStep(SVN(svnurl="stuff"))
     f.addStep(framboozle.Framboozle())

   (check out the python docs for details about how "import" and
"from A import B" work).

   What we've done here is to tell python that every time it handles
an "import" statement for some named module, it should look in our
~/lib/python/ for that module before it looks anywhere else. After our
directories, it will try in a bunch of standard directories too
(including the one where buildbot is installed). By setting the
PYTHONPATH environment variable, you can add directories to the front
of this search list.

   Python knows that once it "import"s a file, it doesn't need to
re-import it again. This means that reconfiguring the buildmaster
(with "buildbot reconfig", for example) won't make it think the
Framboozle class has changed every time, so the Builders that use it
will not be spuriously restarted. On the other hand, you either have
to start your buildmaster in a slightly weird way, or you have to
modify your environment to set the PYTHONPATH variable.

   Option 3: Install this code into a standard python library
directory

   Find out what your python's standard include path is by asking it:

     80:warner@luther% python
     Python 2.4.4c0 (#2, Oct  2 2006, 00:57:46)
     [GCC 4.1.2 20060928 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.1-15)] on linux2
     Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
     >>> import sys
     >>> print sys.path
     ['', '/usr/lib/python24.zip', '/usr/lib/python2.4', '/usr/lib/python2.4/plat-linux2', '/usr/lib/python2.4/lib-tk', '/usr/lib/python2.4/lib-dynload', '/usr/local/lib/python2.4/site-packages', '/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages', '/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/Numeric', '/var/lib/python-support/python2.4', '/usr/lib/site-python']
     >>>

   In this case, putting the code into
/usr/local/lib/python2.4/site-packages/framboozle.py would work just
fine. We can use the same master.cfg "import framboozle" statement as
in Option 2. By putting it in a standard include directory (instead of
the decidedly non-standard ~/lib/python), we don't even have to set
PYTHONPATH to anything special. The downside is that you probably have
to be root to write to one of those standard include directories.

   Option 4: Submit the code for inclusion in the Buildbot
distribution

   Contribute the code in an Enhancement Request on SourceForge, via
http://buildbot.sf.net . Lobby, convince, coerce, bribe, badger,
harass, threaten, or otherwise encourage the author to accept the
patch. This lets you do something like:

     from buildbot.steps import framboozle
     f = BuildFactory()
     f.addStep(SVN(svnurl="stuff"))
     f.addStep(framboozle.Framboozle())

   And then you don't even have to install framboozle.py anywhere on
your system, since it will ship with Buildbot. You don't have to be
root, you don't have to set PYTHONPATH. But you do have to make a
good case for Framboozle being worth going into the main
distribution, you'll probably have to provide docs and some unit test
cases, you'll need to figure out what kind of beer the author likes,
and then you'll have to wait until the next release. But in some
environments, all this is easier than getting root on your
buildmaster box, so the tradeoffs may actually be worth it.

   Putting the code in master.cfg (1) makes it available to that
buildmaster instance. Putting it in a file in a personal library
directory (2) makes it available for any buildmasters you might be
running. Putting it in a file in a system-wide shared library
directory (3) makes it available for any buildmasters that anyone on
that system might be running. Getting it into the buildbot's upstream
repository (4) makes it available for any buildmasters that anyone in
the world might be running. It's all a matter of how widely you want
to deploy that new class.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) framboozle.com is still available. Remember, I get 10% :).

   (2) Framboozle gets very excited about running unit tests.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: BuildStep URLs,  Prev: Adding LogObservers,  Up: Writing New BuildSteps

6.1.8.4 BuildStep URLs
......................

Each BuildStep has a collection of "links". Like its collection of
LogFiles, each link has a name and a target URL. The web status page
creates HREFs for each link in the same box as it does for LogFiles,
except that the target of the link is the external URL instead of an
internal link to a page that shows the contents of the LogFile.

   These external links can be used to point at build information
hosted on other servers. For example, the test process might produce
an intricate description of which tests passed and failed, or some
sort of code coverage data in HTML form, or a PNG or GIF image with a
graph of memory usage over time. The external link can provide an
easy way for users to navigate from the buildbot's status page to
these external web sites or file servers. Note that the step itself is
responsible for insuring that there will be a document available at
the given URL (perhaps by using `scp' to copy the HTML output to a
`~/public_html/' directory on a remote web server). Calling `addURL'
does not magically populate a web server.

   To set one of these links, the BuildStep should call the `addURL'
method with the name of the link and the target URL. Multiple URLs can
be set.

   In this example, we assume that the `make test' command causes a
collection of HTML files to be created and put somewhere on the
coverage.example.org web server, in a filename that incorporates the
build number.

     class TestWithCodeCoverage(BuildStep):
         command = ["make", "test",
                    WithProperties("buildnum=%s" % "buildnumber")]

         def createSummary(self, log):
             buildnumber = self.getProperty("buildnumber")
             url = "http://coverage.example.org/builds/%s.html" % buildnumber
             self.addURL("coverage", url)

   You might also want to extract the URL from some special message
output by the build process itself:

     class TestWithCodeCoverage(BuildStep):
         command = ["make", "test",
                    WithProperties("buildnum=%s" % "buildnumber")]

         def createSummary(self, log):
             output = StringIO(log.getText())
             for line in output.readlines():
                 if line.startswith("coverage-url:"):
                     url = line[len("coverage-url:"):].strip()
                     self.addURL("coverage", url)
                     return

   Note that a build process which emits both stdout and stderr might
cause this line to be split or interleaved between other lines. It
might be necessary to restrict the getText() call to only stdout with
something like this:

             output = StringIO("".join([c[1]
                                        for c in log.getChunks()
                                        if c[0] == LOG_CHANNEL_STDOUT]))

   Of course if the build is run under a PTY, then stdout and stderr
will be merged before the buildbot ever sees them, so such
interleaving will be unavoidable.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Interlocks,  Next: Build Factories,  Prev: Build Steps,  Up: Build Process

6.2 Interlocks
==============

For various reasons, you may want to prevent certain Steps (or perhaps
entire Builds) from running simultaneously. Limited CPU speed or
network bandwidth to the VC server, problems with simultaneous access
to a database server used by unit tests, or multiple Builds which
access shared state may all require some kind of interlock to prevent
corruption, confusion, or resource overload. These resources might
require completely exclusive access, or it might be sufficient to
establish a limit of two or three simultaneous builds.

   `Locks' are the mechanism used to express these kinds of
constraints on when Builds or Steps can be run. There are two kinds of
`Locks', each with their own scope: `MasterLock' instances are scoped
to the buildbot as a whole, while `SlaveLock's are scoped to a single
buildslave. This means that each buildslave has a separate copy of
each `SlaveLock', which could enforce a one-Build-at-a-time limit for
each machine, but still allow as many simultaneous builds as there
are machines.

   Each `Lock' is created with a unique name. Each lock gets a count
of how many owners it may have: how many processes can claim it at ths
same time. This limit defaults to one, and is controllable through the
`maxCount' argument. On `SlaveLock's you can set the owner count on a
per-slave basis by providing a dictionary (that maps from slavename
to maximum owner count) to its `maxCountForSlave' argument. Any
buildslaves that aren't mentioned in `maxCountForSlave' get their
owner count from `maxCount'.

   To use a lock, simply include it in the `locks=' argument of the
`BuildStep' object that should obtain the lock before it runs.  This
argument accepts a list of `Lock' objects: the Step will acquire all
of them before it runs.

   To claim a lock for the whole Build, add a `'locks'' key to the
builder specification dictionary with the same list of `Lock'
objects. (This is the dictionary that has the `'name'',
`'slavename'', `'builddir'', and `'factory'' keys). The `Build'
object also accepts a `locks=' argument, but unless you are writing
your own `BuildFactory' subclass then it will be easier to set the
locks in the builder dictionary.

   Note that there are no partial-acquire or partial-release
semantics: this prevents deadlocks caused by two Steps each waiting
for a lock held by the other(1). This also means that waiting to
acquire a `Lock' can take an arbitrarily long time: if the
buildmaster is very busy, a Step or Build which requires only one
`Lock' may starve another that is waiting for that `Lock' plus some
others.

   In the following example, we run the same build on three different
platforms. The unit-test steps of these builds all use a common
database server, and would interfere with each other if allowed to run
simultaneously. The `Lock' prevents more than one of these builds
from happening at the same time.

     from buildbot import locks
     from buildbot.steps import source, shell
     from buildbot.process import factory

     db_lock = locks.MasterLock("database")
     f = factory.BuildFactory()
     f.addStep(source.SVN(svnurl="http://example.org/svn/Trunk"))
     f.addStep(shell.ShellCommand(command="make all"))
     f.addStep(shell.ShellCommand(command="make test", locks=[db_lock]))
     b1 = {'name': 'full1', 'slavename': 'bot-1', builddir='f1', 'factory': f}
     b2 = {'name': 'full2', 'slavename': 'bot-2', builddir='f2', 'factory': f}
     b3 = {'name': 'full3', 'slavename': 'bot-3', builddir='f3', 'factory': f}
     c['builders'] = [b1, b2, b3]

   In the next example, we have one buildslave hosting three separate
Builders (each running tests against a different version of Python).
The machine which hosts this buildslave is not particularly fast, so
we want to prevent all three builds from all happening at the same
time. (Assume we've experimentally determined that one build leaves
unused CPU capacity, three builds causes a lot of disk thrashing, but
two builds at a time is Just Right). We use a `SlaveLock' because the
builds happening on this one slow slave should not affect builds
running on other slaves, and we use the lock on the build as a whole
because the slave is so slow that even multiple simultaneous SVN
checkouts would be too taxing. We set `maxCount=2' to achieve our
goal of two simultaneous builds per slave.

     from buildbot import locks
     from buildbot.steps import source
     from buildbot.process import s, factory

     slow_lock = locks.SlaveLock("cpu", maxCount=2)
     source = s(source.SVN, svnurl="http://example.org/svn/Trunk")
     f22 = factory.Trial(source, trialpython=["python2.2"])
     f23 = factory.Trial(source, trialpython=["python2.3"])
     f24 = factory.Trial(source, trialpython=["python2.4"])
     b1 = {'name': 'p22', 'slavename': 'bot-1', builddir='p22', 'factory': f22,
           'locks': [slow_lock] }
     b2 = {'name': 'p23', 'slavename': 'bot-1', builddir='p23', 'factory': f23,
           'locks': [slow_lock] }
     b3 = {'name': 'p24', 'slavename': 'bot-1', builddir='p24', 'factory': f24,
           'locks': [slow_lock] }
     c['builders'] = [b1, b2, b3]

   In the last example, we use two Locks at the same time. In this
case, we're concerned about both of the previous constraints, but
we'll say that only the tests are computationally intensive, and that
they have been split into those which use the database and those
which do not.  In addition, two of the Builds run on a fast machine
which does not need to worry about the cpu lock, but which still must
be prevented from simultaneous database access. We use
`maxCountForSlave' to limit the slow machine to one simultanous
build, but allow practically unlimited concurrent builds on the fast
machine.

     from buildbot import locks
     from buildbot.steps import source, shell
     from buildbot.process import factory

     db_lock = locks.MasterLock("database")
     slavecounts = {"bot-slow": 1, "bot-fast": 100}
     cpu_lock = locks.SlaveLock("cpu", maxCountForSlave=slavecounts)
     f = factory.BuildFactory()
     f.addStep(source.SVN(svnurl="http://example.org/svn/Trunk"))
     f.addStep(shell.ShellCommand(command="make all", locks=[cpu_lock]))
     f.addStep(shell.ShellCommand(command="make test", locks=[cpu_lock]))
     f.addStep(shell.ShellCommand(command="make db-test", locks=[db_lock, cpu_lock]))

     b1 = {'name': 'full1', 'slavename': 'bot-slow', builddir='full1',
           'factory': f}
     b2 = {'name': 'full2', 'slavename': 'bot-slow', builddir='full2',
           'factory': f}
     b3 = {'name': 'full3', 'slavename': 'bot-fast', builddir='full3',
           'factory': f}
     b4 = {'name': 'full4', 'slavename': 'bot-fast', builddir='full4',
           'factory': f}
     c['builders'] = [b1, b2, b3, b4]

   As a final note, remember that a unit test system which breaks when
multiple people run it at the same time is fragile and should be
fixed. Asking your human developers to serialize themselves when
running unit tests will just discourage them from running the unit
tests at all. Find a way to fix this: change the database tests to
create a new (uniquely-named) user or table for each test run, don't
use fixed listening TCP ports for network tests (instead listen on
port 0 to let the kernel choose a port for you and then query the
socket to find out what port was allocated). `MasterLock's can be
used to accomodate broken test systems like this, but are really
intended for other purposes: build processes that store or retrieve
products in shared directories, or which do things that human
developers would not (or which might slow down or break in ways that
require human attention to deal with).

   `SlaveLocks's can be used to keep automated performance tests from
interfering with each other, when there are multiple Builders all
using the same buildslave. But they can't prevent other users from
running CPU-intensive jobs on that host while the tests are running.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Also note that a clever buildmaster admin could still create
the opportunity for deadlock: Build A obtains Lock 1, inside which
Step A.two tries to acquire Lock 2 at the Step level.  Meanwhile
Build B obtains Lock 2, and has a Step B.two which wants to acquire
Lock 1 at the Step level. Don't Do That.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Build Factories,  Prev: Interlocks,  Up: Build Process

6.3 Build Factories
===================

Each Builder is equipped with a "build factory", which is responsible
for producing the actual `Build' objects that perform each build.
This factory is created in the configuration file, and attached to a
Builder through the `factory' element of its dictionary.

   The standard `BuildFactory' object creates `Build' objects by
default. These Builds will each execute a collection of BuildSteps in
a fixed sequence. Each step can affect the results of the build, but
in general there is little intelligence to tie the different steps
together. You can create subclasses of `Build' to implement more
sophisticated build processes, and then use a subclass of
`BuildFactory' (or simply set the `buildClass' attribute) to create
instances of your new Build subclass.

* Menu:

* BuildStep Objects::
* BuildFactory::
* Process-Specific build factories::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: BuildStep Objects,  Next: BuildFactory,  Prev: Build Factories,  Up: Build Factories

6.3.1 BuildStep Objects
-----------------------

The steps used by these builds are all subclasses of `BuildStep'.
The standard ones provided with Buildbot are documented later, *Note
Build Steps::. You can also write your own subclasses to use in
builds.

   The basic behavior for a `BuildStep' is to:

   * run for a while, then stop

   * possibly invoke some RemoteCommands on the attached build slave

   * possibly produce a set of log files

   * finish with a status described by one of four values defined in
     buildbot.status.builder: SUCCESS, WARNINGS, FAILURE, SKIPPED

   * provide a list of short strings to describe the step

   * define a color (generally green, orange, or red) with which the
     step should be displayed

   More sophisticated steps may produce additional information and
provide it to later build steps, or store it in the factory to provide
to later builds.

* Menu:

* BuildFactory Attributes::
* Quick builds::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: BuildFactory,  Next: Process-Specific build factories,  Prev: BuildStep Objects,  Up: Build Factories

6.3.2 BuildFactory
------------------

The default `BuildFactory', provided in the
`buildbot.process.factory' module, contains an internal list of
"BuildStep specifications": a list of `(step_class, kwargs)' tuples
for each. These specification tuples are constructed when the config
file is read, by asking the instances passed to `addStep' for their
subclass and arguments.

   When asked to create a Build, the `BuildFactory' puts a copy of
the list of step specifications into the new Build object. When the
Build is actually started, these step specifications are used to
create the actual set of BuildSteps, which are then executed one at a
time. This serves to give each Build an independent copy of each step.
For example, a build which consists of a CVS checkout followed by a
`make build' would be constructed as follows:

     from buildbot.steps import source, shell
     from buildbot.process import factory

     f = factory.BuildFactory()
     f.addStep(source.CVS(cvsroot=CVSROOT, cvsmodule="project", mode="update"))
     f.addStep(shell.Compile(command=["make", "build"]))

   (To support config files from buildbot-0.7.5 and earlier,
`addStep' also accepts the `f.addStep(shell.Compile,
command=["make","build"])' form, although its use is discouraged
because then the `Compile' step doesn't get to validate or complain
about its arguments until build time. The modern pass-by-instance
approach allows this validation to occur while the config file is
being loaded, where the admin has a better chance of noticing
problems).

   It is also possible to pass a list of steps into the
`BuildFactory' when it is created. Using `addStep' is usually
simpler, but there are cases where is is more convenient to create
the list of steps ahead of time.:

     from buildbot.steps import source, shell
     from buildbot.process import factory

     all_steps = [source.CVS(cvsroot=CVSROOT, cvsmodule="project", mode="update"),
                  shell.Compile(command=["make", "build"]),
                 ]
     f = factory.BuildFactory(all_steps)

   Each step can affect the build process in the following ways:

   * If the step's `haltOnFailure' attribute is True, then a failure
     in the step (i.e. if it completes with a result of FAILURE) will
     cause the whole build to be terminated immediately: no further
     steps will be executed. This is useful for setup steps upon
     which the rest of the build depends: if the CVS checkout or
     `./configure' process fails, there is no point in trying to
     compile or test the resulting tree.

   * If the `flunkOnFailure' or `flunkOnWarnings' flag is set, then a
     result of FAILURE or WARNINGS will mark the build as a whole as
     FAILED. However, the remaining steps will still be executed.
     This is appropriate for things like multiple testing steps: a
     failure in any one of them will indicate that the build has
     failed, however it is still useful to run them all to completion.

   * Similarly, if the `warnOnFailure' or `warnOnWarnings' flag is
     set, then a result of FAILURE or WARNINGS will mark the build as
     having WARNINGS, and the remaining steps will still be executed.
     This may be appropriate for certain kinds of optional build or
     test steps.  For example, a failure experienced while building
     documentation files should be made visible with a WARNINGS
     result but not be serious enough to warrant marking the whole
     build with a FAILURE.


   In addition, each Step produces its own results, may create
logfiles, etc. However only the flags described above have any effect
on the build as a whole.

   The pre-defined BuildSteps like `CVS' and `Compile' have
reasonably appropriate flags set on them already. For example, without
a source tree there is no point in continuing the build, so the `CVS'
class has the `haltOnFailure' flag set to True. Look in
`buildbot/steps/*.py' to see how the other Steps are marked.

   Each Step is created with an additional `workdir' argument that
indicates where its actions should take place. This is specified as a
subdirectory of the slave builder's base directory, with a default
value of `build'. This is only implemented as a step argument (as
opposed to simply being a part of the base directory) because the
CVS/SVN steps need to perform their checkouts from the parent
directory.

* Menu:

* BuildFactory Attributes::
* Quick builds::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: BuildFactory Attributes,  Next: Quick builds,  Prev: BuildFactory,  Up: BuildFactory

6.3.2.1 BuildFactory Attributes
...............................

Some attributes from the BuildFactory are copied into each Build.

`useProgress'
     (defaults to True): if True, the buildmaster keeps track of how
     long each step takes, so it can provide estimates of how long
     future builds will take. If builds are not expected to take a
     consistent amount of time (such as incremental builds in which a
     random set of files are recompiled or tested each time), this
     should be set to False to inhibit progress-tracking.



File: buildbot.info,  Node: Quick builds,  Prev: BuildFactory Attributes,  Up: BuildFactory

6.3.2.2 Quick builds
....................

The difference between a "full build" and a "quick build" is that
quick builds are generally done incrementally, starting with the tree
where the previous build was performed. That simply means that the
source-checkout step should be given a `mode='update'' flag, to do
the source update in-place.

   In addition to that, the `useProgress' flag should be set to
False. Incremental builds will (or at least the ought to) compile as
few files as necessary, so they will take an unpredictable amount of
time to run. Therefore it would be misleading to claim to predict how
long the build will take.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Process-Specific build factories,  Prev: BuildFactory,  Up: Build Factories

6.3.3 Process-Specific build factories
--------------------------------------

Many projects use one of a few popular build frameworks to simplify
the creation and maintenance of Makefiles or other compilation
structures. Buildbot provides several pre-configured BuildFactory
subclasses which let you build these projects with a minimum of fuss.

* Menu:

* GNUAutoconf::
* CPAN::
* Python distutils::
* Python/Twisted/trial projects::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: GNUAutoconf,  Next: CPAN,  Prev: Process-Specific build factories,  Up: Process-Specific build factories

6.3.3.1 GNUAutoconf
...................

GNU Autoconf (http://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf/) is a software
portability tool, intended to make it possible to write programs in C
(and other languages) which will run on a variety of UNIX-like
systems. Most GNU software is built using autoconf. It is frequently
used in combination with GNU automake. These tools both encourage a
build process which usually looks like this:

     % CONFIG_ENV=foo ./configure --with-flags
     % make all
     % make check
     # make install

   (except of course the Buildbot always skips the `make install'
part).

   The Buildbot's `buildbot.process.factory.GNUAutoconf' factory is
designed to build projects which use GNU autoconf and/or automake. The
configuration environment variables, the configure flags, and command
lines used for the compile and test are all configurable, in general
the default values will be suitable.

   Example:

     # use the s() convenience function defined earlier
     f = factory.GNUAutoconf(source=s(step.SVN, svnurl=URL, mode="copy"),
                             flags=["--disable-nls"])

   Required Arguments:

`source'
     This argument must be a step specification tuple that provides a
     BuildStep to generate the source tree.

   Optional Arguments:

`configure'
     The command used to configure the tree. Defaults to
     `./configure'. Accepts either a string or a list of shell argv
     elements.

`configureEnv'
     The environment used for the initial configuration step. This
     accepts a dictionary which will be merged into the buildslave's
     normal environment. This is commonly used to provide things like
     `CFLAGS="-O2 -g"' (to turn off debug symbols during the compile).
     Defaults to an empty dictionary.

`configureFlags'
     A list of flags to be appended to the argument list of the
     configure command. This is commonly used to enable or disable
     specific features of the autoconf-controlled package, like
     `["--without-x"]' to disable windowing support. Defaults to an
     empty list.

`compile'
     this is a shell command or list of argv values which is used to
     actually compile the tree. It defaults to `make all'. If set to
     None, the compile step is skipped.

`test'
     this is a shell command or list of argv values which is used to
     run the tree's self-tests. It defaults to `make check'. If set to
     None, the test step is skipped.



File: buildbot.info,  Node: CPAN,  Next: Python distutils,  Prev: GNUAutoconf,  Up: Process-Specific build factories

6.3.3.2 CPAN
............

Most Perl modules available from the CPAN (http://www.cpan.org/)
archive use the `MakeMaker' module to provide configuration, build,
and test services. The standard build routine for these modules looks
like:

     % perl Makefile.PL
     % make
     % make test
     # make install

   (except again Buildbot skips the install step)

   Buildbot provides a `CPAN' factory to compile and test these
projects.

   Arguments:
`source'
     (required): A step specification tuple, that that used by
     GNUAutoconf.

`perl'
     A string which specifies the `perl' executable to use. Defaults
     to just `perl'.



File: buildbot.info,  Node: Python distutils,  Next: Python/Twisted/trial projects,  Prev: CPAN,  Up: Process-Specific build factories

6.3.3.3 Python distutils
........................

Most Python modules use the `distutils' package to provide
configuration and build services. The standard build process looks
like:

     % python ./setup.py build
     % python ./setup.py install

   Unfortunately, although Python provides a standard unit-test
framework named `unittest', to the best of my knowledge `distutils'
does not provide a standardized target to run such unit tests. (please
let me know if I'm wrong, and I will update this factory).

   The `Distutils' factory provides support for running the build
part of this process. It accepts the same `source=' parameter as the
other build factories.

   Arguments:
`source'
     (required): A step specification tuple, that that used by
     GNUAutoconf.

`python'
     A string which specifies the `python' executable to use. Defaults
     to just `python'.

`test'
     Provides a shell command which runs unit tests. This accepts
     either a string or a list. The default value is None, which
     disables the test step (since there is no common default command
     to run unit tests in distutils modules).



File: buildbot.info,  Node: Python/Twisted/trial projects,  Prev: Python distutils,  Up: Process-Specific build factories

6.3.3.4 Python/Twisted/trial projects
.....................................

Twisted provides a unit test tool named `trial' which provides a few
improvements over Python's built-in `unittest' module. Many python
projects which use Twisted for their networking or application
services also use trial for their unit tests. These modules are
usually built and tested with something like the following:

     % python ./setup.py build
     % PYTHONPATH=build/lib.linux-i686-2.3 trial -v PROJECTNAME.test
     % python ./setup.py install

   Unfortunately, the `build/lib' directory into which the
built/copied .py files are placed is actually architecture-dependent,
and I do not yet know of a simple way to calculate its value. For many
projects it is sufficient to import their libraries "in place" from
the tree's base directory (`PYTHONPATH=.').

   In addition, the PROJECTNAME value where the test files are
located is project-dependent: it is usually just the project's
top-level library directory, as common practice suggests the unit test
files are put in the `test' sub-module. This value cannot be guessed,
the `Trial' class must be told where to find the test files.

   The `Trial' class provides support for building and testing
projects which use distutils and trial. If the test module name is
specified, trial will be invoked. The library path used for testing
can also be set.

   One advantage of trial is that the Buildbot happens to know how to
parse trial output, letting it identify which tests passed and which
ones failed. The Buildbot can then provide fine-grained reports about
how many tests have failed, when individual tests fail when they had
been passing previously, etc.

   Another feature of trial is that you can give it a series of source
.py files, and it will search them for special `test-case-name' tags
that indicate which test cases provide coverage for that file.  Trial
can then run just the appropriate tests. This is useful for quick
builds, where you want to only run the test cases that cover the
changed functionality.

   Arguments:
`source'
     (required): A step specification tuple, like that used by
     GNUAutoconf.

`buildpython'
     A list (argv array) of strings which specifies the `python'
     executable to use when building the package. Defaults to just
     `['python']'. It may be useful to add flags here, to supress
     warnings during compilation of extension modules. This list is
     extended with `['./setup.py', 'build']' and then executed in a
     ShellCommand.

`testpath'
     Provides a directory to add to `PYTHONPATH' when running the unit
     tests, if tests are being run. Defaults to `.' to include the
     project files in-place. The generated build library is frequently
     architecture-dependent, but may simply be `build/lib' for
     pure-python modules.

`trialpython'
     Another list of strings used to build the command that actually
     runs trial. This is prepended to the contents of the `trial'
     argument below. It may be useful to add `-W' flags here to
     supress warnings that occur while tests are being run. Defaults
     to an empty list, meaning `trial' will be run without an explicit
     interpreter, which is generally what you want if you're using
     `/usr/bin/trial' instead of, say, the `./bin/trial' that lives
     in the Twisted source tree.

`trial'
     provides the name of the `trial' command. It is occasionally
     useful to use an alternate executable, such as `trial2.2' which
     might run the tests under an older version of Python. Defaults to
     `trial'.

`tests'
     Provides a module name or names which contain the unit tests for
     this project. Accepts a string, typically `PROJECTNAME.test', or
     a list of strings. Defaults to None, indicating that no tests
     should be run. You must either set this or `useTestCaseNames' to
     do anyting useful with the Trial factory.

`useTestCaseNames'
     Tells the Step to provide the names of all changed .py files to
     trial, so it can look for test-case-name tags and run just the
     matching test cases. Suitable for use in quick builds. Defaults
     to False.

`randomly'
     If `True', tells Trial (with the `--random=0' argument) to run
     the test cases in random order, which sometimes catches subtle
     inter-test dependency bugs. Defaults to `False'.

`recurse'
     If `True', tells Trial (with the `--recurse' argument) to look
     in all subdirectories for additional test cases. It isn't clear
     to me how this works, but it may be useful to deal with the
     unknown-PROJECTNAME problem described above, and is currently
     used in the Twisted buildbot to accomodate the fact that test
     cases are now distributed through multiple
     twisted.SUBPROJECT.test directories.


   Unless one of `trialModule' or `useTestCaseNames' are set, no
tests will be run.

   Some quick examples follow. Most of these examples assume that the
target python code (the "code under test") can be reached directly
from the root of the target tree, rather than being in a `lib/'
subdirectory.

     #  Trial(source, tests="toplevel.test") does:
     #   python ./setup.py build
     #   PYTHONPATH=. trial -to toplevel.test

     #  Trial(source, tests=["toplevel.test", "other.test"]) does:
     #   python ./setup.py build
     #   PYTHONPATH=. trial -to toplevel.test other.test

     #  Trial(source, useTestCaseNames=True) does:
     #   python ./setup.py build
     #   PYTHONPATH=. trial -to --testmodule=foo/bar.py..  (from Changes)

     #  Trial(source, buildpython=["python2.3", "-Wall"], tests="foo.tests"):
     #   python2.3 -Wall ./setup.py build
     #   PYTHONPATH=. trial -to foo.tests

     #  Trial(source, trialpython="python2.3", trial="/usr/bin/trial",
     #        tests="foo.tests") does:
     #   python2.3 -Wall ./setup.py build
     #   PYTHONPATH=. python2.3 /usr/bin/trial -to foo.tests

     # For running trial out of the tree being tested (only useful when the
     # tree being built is Twisted itself):
     #  Trial(source, trialpython=["python2.3", "-Wall"], trial="./bin/trial",
     #        tests="foo.tests") does:
     #   python2.3 -Wall ./setup.py build
     #   PYTHONPATH=. python2.3 -Wall ./bin/trial -to foo.tests

   If the output directory of `./setup.py build' is known, you can
pull the python code from the built location instead of the source
directories. This should be able to handle variations in where the
source comes from, as well as accomodating binary extension modules:

     # Trial(source,tests="toplevel.test",testpath='build/lib.linux-i686-2.3')
     # does:
     #  python ./setup.py build
     #  PYTHONPATH=build/lib.linux-i686-2.3 trial -to toplevel.test


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Status Delivery,  Next: Command-line tool,  Prev: Build Process,  Up: Top

7 Status Delivery
*****************

More details are available in the docstrings for each class, use a
command like `pydoc buildbot.status.html.WebStatus' to see them.
Most status delivery objects take a `categories=' argument, which can
contain a list of "category" names: in this case, it will only show
status for Builders that are in one of the named categories.

   (implementor's note: each of these objects should be a
service.MultiService which will be attached to the BuildMaster object
when the configuration is processed. They should use
`self.parent.getStatus()' to get access to the top-level IStatus
object, either inside `startService' or later. They may call
`status.subscribe()' in `startService' to receive notifications of
builder events, in which case they must define `builderAdded' and
related methods. See the docstrings in `buildbot/interfaces.py' for
full details.)

* Menu:

* WebStatus::
* MailNotifier::
* IRC Bot::
* PBListener::
* Writing New Status Plugins::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: WebStatus,  Next: MailNotifier,  Prev: Status Delivery,  Up: Status Delivery

7.1 WebStatus
=============

The `buildbot.status.html.WebStatus' status target runs a small web
server inside the buildmaster. You can point a browser at this web
server and retrieve information about every build the buildbot knows
about, as well as find out what the buildbot is currently working on.

   The first page you will see is the "Welcome Page", which contains
links to all the other useful pages. This page is simply served from
the `public_html/index.html' file in the buildmaster's base
directory, where it is created by the `buildbot create-master'
command along with the rest of the buildmaster.

   The most complex resource provided by `WebStatus' is the
"Waterfall Display", which shows a time-based chart of events. This
somewhat-busy display provides detailed information about all steps of
all recent builds, and provides hyperlinks to look at individual build
logs and source changes. By simply reloading this page on a regular
basis, you will see a complete description of everything the buildbot
is currently working on.

   There are also pages with more specialized information. For
example, there is a page which shows the last 20 builds performed by
the buildbot, one line each. Each line is a link to detailed
information about that build. By adding query arguments to the URL
used to reach this page, you can narrow the display to builds that
involved certain branches, or which ran on certain Builders. These
pages are described in great detail below.

   When the buildmaster is created, a subdirectory named
`public_html/' is created in its base directory. `WebStatus' will
serve files from this directory: for example, when a user points
their browser at the buildbot's `WebStatus' URL, they will see the
contents of the `public_html/index.html' file. Likewise,
`public_html/robots.txt', `public_html/buildbot.css', and
`public_html/favicon.ico' are all useful things to have in there.
The first time a buildmaster is created, the `public_html' directory
is populated with some sample files, which you will probably want to
customize for your own project. These files are all static: the
buildbot does not modify them in any way as it serves them to HTTP
clients.

     from buildbot.status.html import WebStatus
     c['status'].append(WebStatus(8080))

   Note that the initial robots.txt file has Disallow lines for all of
the dynamically-generated buildbot pages, to discourage web spiders
and search engines from consuming a lot of CPU time as they crawl
through the entire history of your buildbot. If you are running the
buildbot behind a reverse proxy, you'll probably need to put the
robots.txt file somewhere else (at the top level of the parent web
server), and replace the URL prefixes in it with more suitable values.

   In addition, if you are familiar with twisted.web _Resource
Trees_, you can write code to add additional pages at places inside
this web space. Just use `webstatus.putChild' to place these
resources.

   The following section describes the special URLs and the status
views they provide.

* Menu:

* WebStatus Configuration Parameters::
* Buildbot Web Resources::
* XMLRPC server::
* HTML Waterfall::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: WebStatus Configuration Parameters,  Next: Buildbot Web Resources,  Prev: WebStatus,  Up: WebStatus

7.1.1 WebStatus Configuration Parameters
----------------------------------------

The most common way to run a `WebStatus' is on a regular TCP port. To
do this, just pass in the TCP port number when you create the
`WebStatus' instance; this is called the `http_port' argument:

     from buildbot.status.html import WebStatus
     c['status'].append(WebStatus(8080))

   The `http_port' argument is actually a "strports specification"
for the port that the web server should listen on. This can be a
simple port number, or a string like `tcp:8080:interface=127.0.0.1'
(to limit connections to the loopback interface, and therefore to
clients running on the same host)(1).

   If instead (or in addition) you provide the `distrib_port'
argument, a twisted.web distributed server will be started either on a
TCP port (if `distrib_port' is like `"tcp:12345"') or more likely on
a UNIX socket (if `distrib_port' is like `"unix:/path/to/socket"').

   The `distrib_port' option means that, on a host with a
suitably-configured twisted-web server, you do not need to consume a
separate TCP port for the buildmaster's status web page. When the web
server is constructed with `mktap web --user', URLs that point to
`http://host/~username/' are dispatched to a sub-server that is
listening on a UNIX socket at `~username/.twisted-web-pb'. On such a
system, it is convenient to create a dedicated `buildbot' user, then
set `distrib_port' to
`"unix:"+os.path.expanduser("~/.twistd-web-pb")'. This configuration
will make the HTML status page available at `http://host/~buildbot/'
. Suitable URL remapping can make it appear at
`http://host/buildbot/', and the right virtual host setup can even
place it at `http://buildbot.host/' .

   The other `WebStatus' argument is `allowForce'. If set to True,
then the web page will provide a "Force Build" button that allows
visitors to manually trigger builds. This is useful for developers to
re-run builds that have failed because of intermittent problems in
the test suite, or because of libraries that were not installed at
the time of the previous build. You may not wish to allow strangers
to cause a build to run: in that case, set this to False to remove
these buttons. The default value is False.

   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) It may even be possible to provide SSL access by using a
specification like
`"ssl:12345:privateKey=mykey.pen:certKey=cert.pem"', but this is
completely untested


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Buildbot Web Resources,  Next: XMLRPC server,  Prev: WebStatus Configuration Parameters,  Up: WebStatus

7.1.2 Buildbot Web Resources
----------------------------

Certain URLs are "magic", and the pages they serve are created by
code in various classes in the `buildbot.status.web' package instead
of being read from disk. The most common way to access these pages is
for the buildmaster admin to write or modify the `index.html' page to
contain links to them. Of course other project web pages can contain
links to these buildbot pages as well.

   Many pages can be modified by adding query arguments to the URL.
For example, a page which shows the results of the most recent build
normally does this for all builders at once. But by appending
"?builder=i386" to the end of the URL, the page will show only the
results for the "i386" builder. When used in this way, you can add
multiple "builder=" arguments to see multiple builders. Remembering
that URL query arguments are separated _from each other_ with
ampersands, a URL that ends in "?builder=i386&builder=ppc" would show
builds for just those two Builders.

   The `branch=' query argument can be used on some pages. This
filters the information displayed by that page down to only the builds
or changes which involved the given branch. Use `branch=trunk' to
reference the trunk: if you aren't intentionally using branches,
you're probably using trunk. Multiple `branch=' arguments can be used
to examine multiple branches at once (so appending
`?branch=foo&branch=bar' to the URL will show builds involving either
branch). No `branch=' arguments means to show builds and changes for
all branches.

   Some pages may include the Builder name or the build number in the
main part of the URL itself. For example, a page that describes Build
#7 of the "i386" builder would live at `/builders/i386/builds/7'.

   The table below lists all of the internal pages and the URLs that
can be used to access them.

   NOTE: of the pages described here, `/slave_status_timeline' and
`/last_build' have not yet been implemented, and `/xmlrpc' has only a
few methods so far. Future releases will improve this.

`/waterfall'
     This provides a chronologically-oriented display of the activity
     of all builders. It is the same display used by the Waterfall
     display.

     By adding one or more "builder=" query arguments, the Waterfall
     is restricted to only showing information about the given
     Builders. By adding one or more "branch=" query arguments, the
     display is restricted to showing information about the given
     branches. In addition, adding one or more "category=" query
     arguments to the URL will limit the display to Builders that
     were defined with one of the given categories.

     A 'show_events=true' query argument causes the display to include
     non-Build events, like slaves attaching and detaching, as well as
     reconfiguration events. 'show_events=false' hides these events.
     The default is to show them.

     The `last_time=', `first_time=', and `show_time=' arguments will
     control what interval of time is displayed. The default is to
     show the latest events, but these can be used to look at earlier
     periods in history. The `num_events=' argument also provides a
     limit on the size of the displayed page.

     The Waterfall has references to resources many of the other
     portions of the URL space: `/builders' for access to individual
     builds, `/changes' for access to information about source code
     changes, etc.

`/builders/$BUILDERNAME'
     This describes the given Builder, and provides buttons to force
     a build.

`/builders/$BUILDERNAME/builds/$BUILDNUM'
     This describes a specific Build.

`/builders/$BUILDERNAME/builds/$BUILDNUM/steps/$STEPNAME'
     This describes a specific BuildStep.

`/builders/$BUILDERNAME/builds/$BUILDNUM/steps/$STEPNAME/logs/$LOGNAME'
     This provides an HTML representation of a specific logfile.

`/builders/$BUILDERNAME/builds/$BUILDNUM/steps/$STEPNAME/logs/$LOGNAME/text'
     This returns the logfile as plain text, without any HTML coloring
     markup. It also removes the "headers", which are the lines that
     describe what command was run and what the environment variable
     settings were like. This maybe be useful for saving to disk and
     feeding to tools like 'grep'.

`/changes'
     This provides a brief description of the ChangeSource in use
     (*note Change Sources::).

`/changes/NN'
     This shows detailed information about the numbered Change: who
     was the author, what files were changed, what revision number
     was represented, etc.

`/buildslaves'
     This summarizes each BuildSlave, including which Builders are
     configured to use it, whether the buildslave is currently
     connected or not, and host information retrieved from the
     buildslave itself.

`/one_line_per_build'
     This page shows one line of text for each build, merging
     information from all Builders(1). Each line specifies the name
     of the Builder, the number of the Build, what revision it used,
     and a summary of the results. Successful builds are in green,
     while failing builds are in red. The date and time of the build
     are added to the right-hand edge of the line. The lines are
     ordered by build finish timestamp.

     One or more `builder=' or `branch=' arguments can be used to
     restrict the list. In addition, a `numbuilds=' argument will
     control how many lines are displayed (20 by default).

`/one_box_per_builder'
     This page shows a small table, with one box for each Builder,
     containing the results of the most recent Build. It does not
     show the individual steps, or the current status. This is a
     simple summary of buildbot status: if this page is green, then
     all tests are passing.

     As with `/one_line_per_build', this page will also honor
     `builder=' and `branch=' arguments.

`/about'
     This page gives a brief summary of the Buildbot itself: software
     version, versions of some libraries that the Buildbot depends
     upon, etc. It also contains a link to the buildbot.net home page.

`/slave_status_timeline'
     (note: this page has not yet been implemented)

     This provides a chronological display of configuration and
     operational events: master startup/shutdown, slave
     connect/disconnect, and config-file changes. When a config-file
     reload is abandoned because of an error in the config file, the
     error is displayed on this page.

     This page does not show any builds.

`/last_build/$BUILDERNAME/status.png'
     This returns a PNG image that describes the results of the most
     recent build, which can be referenced in an IMG tag by other
     pages, perhaps from a completely different site. Use it as you
     would a webcounter.


   There are also a set of web-status resources that are intended for
use by other programs, rather than humans.

`/xmlrpc'
     This runs an XML-RPC server which can be used to query status
     information about various builds. See *note XMLRPC server:: for
     more details.


   ---------- Footnotes ----------

   (1) Apparently this is the same way http://buildd.debian.org
displays build status


File: buildbot.info,  Node: XMLRPC server,  Next: HTML Waterfall,  Prev: Buildbot Web Resources,  Up: WebStatus

7.1.3 XMLRPC server
-------------------

When using WebStatus, the buildbot runs an XML-RPC server at
`/xmlrpc' that can be used by other programs to query build status.
The following table lists the methods that can be invoked using this
interface.

`getAllBuildsInInterval(start, stop)'
     Return a list of builds that have completed after the 'start'
     timestamp and before the 'stop' timestamp. This looks at all
     Builders.

     The timestamps are integers, interpreted as standard unix
     timestamps (seconds since epoch).

     Each Build is returned as a tuple in the form: `(buildername,
     buildnumber, build_end, branchname, revision, results, text)'

     The buildnumber is an integer. 'build_end' is an integer (seconds
     since epoch) specifying when the build finished.

     The branchname is a string, which may be an empty string to
     indicate None (i.e. the default branch). The revision is a
     string whose meaning is specific to the VC system in use, and
     comes from the 'got_revision' build property. The results are
     expressed as a string, one of ('success', 'warnings', 'failure',
     'exception'). The text is a list of short strings that ought to
     be joined by spaces and include slightly more data about the
     results of the build.

`getBuild(builder_name, build_number)'
     Return information about a specific build.

     This returns a dictionary (aka "struct" in XMLRPC terms) with
     complete information about the build. It does not include the
     contents of the log files, but it has just about everything else.



File: buildbot.info,  Node: HTML Waterfall,  Prev: XMLRPC server,  Up: WebStatus

7.1.4 HTML Waterfall
--------------------

The `Waterfall' status target, deprecated as of 0.7.6, is a subset of
the regular `WebStatus' resource (*note WebStatus::).  This section
(and the `Waterfall' class itself) will be removed from a future
release.

     from buildbot.status import html
     w = html.Waterfall(http_port=8080)
     c['status'].append(w)


File: buildbot.info,  Node: MailNotifier,  Next: IRC Bot,  Prev: WebStatus,  Up: Status Delivery

7.2 MailNotifier
================

The buildbot can also send email when builds finish. The most common
use of this is to tell developers when their change has caused the
build to fail. It is also quite common to send a message to a mailing
list (usually named "builds" or similar) about every build.

   The `MailNotifier' status target is used to accomplish this. You
configure it by specifying who mail should be sent to, under what
circumstances mail should be sent, and how to deliver the mail. It can
be configured to only send out mail for certain builders, and only
send messages when the build fails, or when the builder transitions
from success to failure. It can also be configured to include various
build logs in each message.

   By default, the message will be sent to the Interested Users list
(*note Doing Things With Users::), which includes all developers who
made changes in the build. You can add additional recipients with the
extraRecipients argument.

   Each MailNotifier sends mail to a single set of recipients. To send
different kinds of mail to different recipients, use multiple
MailNotifiers.

   The following simple example will send an email upon the
completion of each build, to just those developers whose Changes were
included in the build. The email contains a description of the Build,
its results, and URLs where more information can be obtained.

     from buildbot.status.mail import MailNotifier
     mn = MailNotifier(fromaddr="buildbot@example.org", lookup="example.org")
     c['status'].append(mn)

   To get a simple one-message-per-build (say, for a mailing list),
use the following form instead. This form does not send mail to
individual developers (and thus does not need the `lookup=' argument,
explained below), instead it only ever sends mail to the "extra
recipients" named in the arguments:

     mn = MailNotifier(fromaddr="buildbot@example.org",
                       sendToInterestedUsers=False,
                       extraRecipients=['listaddr@example.org'])

MailNotifier arguments
======================

`fromaddr'
     The email address to be used in the 'From' header.

`sendToInterestedUsers'
     (boolean). If True (the default), send mail to all of the
     Interested Users. If False, only send mail to the
     extraRecipients list.

`extraRecipients'
     (tuple of strings). A list of email addresses to which messages
     should be sent (in addition to the InterestedUsers list, which
     includes any developers who made Changes that went into this
     build). It is a good idea to create a small mailing list and
     deliver to that, then let subscribers come and go as they please.

`subject'
     (string). A string to be used as the subject line of the message.
     `%(builder)s' will be replaced with the name of the builder which
     provoked the message.

`mode'
     (string). Default to 'all'. One of:
    `all'
          Send mail about all builds, bothpassing and failing

    `failing'
          Only send mail about builds which fail

    `problem'
          Only send mail about a build which failed when the previous
          build has passed.  If your builds usually pass, then this
          will only send mail when a problem occurs.

`builders'
     (list of strings). A list of builder names for which mail should
     be sent. Defaults to None (send mail for all builds). Use either
     builders or categories, but not both.

`categories'
     (list of strings). A list of category names to serve status
     information for. Defaults to None (all categories). Use either
     builders or categories, but not both.

`addLogs'
     (boolean). If True, include all build logs as attachments to the
     messages. These can be quite large. This can also be set to a
     list of log names, to send a subset of the logs. Defaults to
     False.

`relayhost'
     (string). The host to which the outbound SMTP connection should
     be made. Defaults to 'localhost'

`lookup'
     (implementor of `IEmailLookup'). Object which provides
     IEmailLookup, which is responsible for mapping User names (which
     come from the VC system) into valid email addresses. If not
     provided, the notifier will only be able to send mail to the
     addresses in the extraRecipients list. Most of the time you can
     use a simple Domain instance. As a shortcut, you can pass as
     string: this will be treated as if you had provided Domain(str).
     For example, lookup='twistedmatrix.com' will allow mail to be
     sent to all developers whose SVN usernames match their
     twistedmatrix.com account names. See buildbot/status/mail.py for
     more details.



File: buildbot.info,  Node: IRC Bot,  Next: PBListener,  Prev: MailNotifier,  Up: Status Delivery

7.3 IRC Bot
===========

The `buildbot.status.words.IRC' status target creates an IRC bot
which will attach to certain channels and be available for status
queries. It can also be asked to announce builds as they occur, or be
told to shut up.

     from twisted.status import words
     irc = words.IRC("irc.example.org", "botnickname",
                     channels=["channel1", "channel2"],
                     password="mysecretpassword")
     c['status'].append(irc)

   Take a look at the docstring for `words.IRC' for more details on
configuring this service. The `password' argument, if provided, will
be sent to Nickserv to claim the nickname: some IRC servers will not
allow clients to send private messages until they have logged in with
a password.

   To use the service, you address messages at the buildbot, either
normally (`botnickname: status') or with private messages (`/msg
botnickname status'). The buildbot will respond in kind.

   Some of the commands currently available:

`list builders'
     Emit a list of all configured builders

`status BUILDER'
     Announce the status of a specific Builder: what it is doing
     right now.

`status all'
     Announce the status of all Builders

`watch BUILDER'
     If the given Builder is currently running, wait until the Build
     is finished and then announce the results.

`last BUILDER'
     Return the results of the last build to run on the given Builder.

`help COMMAND'
     Describe a command. Use `help commands' to get a list of known
     commands.

`source'
     Announce the URL of the Buildbot's home page.

`version'
     Announce the version of this Buildbot.

   If the `allowForce=True' option was used, some addtional commands
will be available:

`force build BUILDER REASON'
     Tell the given Builder to start a build of the latest code. The
     user requesting the build and REASON are recorded in the Build
     status. The buildbot will announce the build's status when it
     finishes.

`stop build BUILDER REASON'
     Terminate any running build in the given Builder. REASON will be
     added to the build status to explain why it was stopped. You
     might use this if you committed a bug, corrected it right away,
     and don't want to wait for the first build (which is destined to
     fail) to complete before starting the second (hopefully fixed)
     build.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: PBListener,  Next: Writing New Status Plugins,  Prev: IRC Bot,  Up: Status Delivery

7.4 PBListener
==============

     import buildbot.status.client
     pbl = buildbot.status.client.PBListener(port=int, user=str,
                                             passwd=str)
     c['status'].append(pbl)

   This sets up a PB listener on the given TCP port, to which a
PB-based status client can connect and retrieve status information.
`buildbot statusgui' (*note statusgui::) is an example of such a
status client. The `port' argument can also be a strports
specification string.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Writing New Status Plugins,  Prev: PBListener,  Up: Status Delivery

7.5 Writing New Status Plugins
==============================

TODO: this needs a lot more examples

   Each status plugin is an object which provides the
`twisted.application.service.IService' interface, which creates a
tree of Services with the buildmaster at the top [not strictly true].
The status plugins are all children of an object which implements
`buildbot.interfaces.IStatus', the main status object. From this
object, the plugin can retrieve anything it wants about current and
past builds. It can also subscribe to hear about new and upcoming
builds.

   Status plugins which only react to human queries (like the
Waterfall display) never need to subscribe to anything: they are idle
until someone asks a question, then wake up and extract the
information they need to answer it, then they go back to sleep.
Plugins which need to act spontaneously when builds complete (like
the MailNotifier plugin) need to subscribe to hear about new builds.

   If the status plugin needs to run network services (like the HTTP
server used by the Waterfall plugin), they can be attached as Service
children of the plugin itself, using the `IServiceCollection'
interface.


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Command-line tool,  Next: Resources,  Prev: Status Delivery,  Up: Top

8 Command-line tool
*******************

The `buildbot' command-line tool can be used to start or stop a
buildmaster or buildbot, and to interact with a running buildmaster.
Some of its subcommands are intended for buildmaster admins, while
some are for developers who are editing the code that the buildbot is
monitoring.

* Menu:

* Administrator Tools::
* Developer Tools::
* Other Tools::
* .buildbot config directory::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Administrator Tools,  Next: Developer Tools,  Prev: Command-line tool,  Up: Command-line tool

8.1 Administrator Tools
=======================

The following `buildbot' sub-commands are intended for buildmaster
administrators:

create-master
=============

This creates a new directory and populates it with files that allow it
to be used as a buildmaster's base directory.

     buildbot create-master BASEDIR

create-slave
============

This creates a new directory and populates it with files that let it
be used as a buildslave's base directory. You must provide several
arguments, which are used to create the initial `buildbot.tac' file.

     buildbot create-slave BASEDIR MASTERHOST:PORT SLAVENAME PASSWORD

start
=====

This starts a buildmaster or buildslave which was already created in
the given base directory. The daemon is launched in the background,
with events logged to a file named `twistd.log'.

     buildbot start BASEDIR

stop
====

This terminates the daemon (either buildmaster or buildslave) running
in the given directory.

     buildbot stop BASEDIR

sighup
======

This sends a SIGHUP to the buildmaster running in the given directory,
which causes it to re-read its `master.cfg' file.

     buildbot sighup BASEDIR


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Developer Tools,  Next: Other Tools,  Prev: Administrator Tools,  Up: Command-line tool

8.2 Developer Tools
===================

These tools are provided for use by the developers who are working on
the code that the buildbot is monitoring.

* Menu:

* statuslog::
* statusgui::
* try::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: statuslog,  Next: statusgui,  Prev: Developer Tools,  Up: Developer Tools

8.2.1 statuslog
---------------

     buildbot statuslog --master MASTERHOST:PORT

   This command starts a simple text-based status client, one which
just prints out a new line each time an event occurs on the
buildmaster.

   The `--master' option provides the location of the
`buildbot.status.client.PBListener' status port, used to deliver
build information to realtime status clients. The option is always in
the form of a string, with hostname and port number separated by a
colon (`HOSTNAME:PORTNUM'). Note that this port is _not_ the same as
the slaveport (although a future version may allow the same port
number to be used for both purposes). If you get an error message to
the effect of "Failure: twisted.cred.error.UnauthorizedLogin:", this
may indicate that you are connecting to the slaveport rather than a
`PBListener' port.

   The `--master' option can also be provided by the `masterstatus'
name in `.buildbot/options' (*note .buildbot config directory::).


File: buildbot.info,  Node: statusgui,  Next: try,  Prev: statuslog,  Up: Developer Tools

8.2.2 statusgui
---------------

If you have set up a PBListener (*note PBListener::), you will be able
to monitor your Buildbot using a simple Gtk+ application invoked with
the `buildbot statusgui' command:

     buildbot statusgui --master MASTERHOST:PORT

   This command starts a simple Gtk+-based status client, which
contains a few boxes for each Builder that change color as events
occur. It uses the same `--master' argument as the `buildbot
statuslog' command (*note statuslog::).


File: buildbot.info,  Node: try,  Prev: statusgui,  Up: Developer Tools

8.2.3 try
---------

This lets a developer to ask the question "What would happen if I
committed this patch right now?". It runs the unit test suite (across
multiple build platforms) on the developer's current code, allowing
them to make sure they will not break the tree when they finally
commit their changes.

   The `buildbot try' command is meant to be run from within a
developer's local tree, and starts by figuring out the base revision
of that tree (what revision was current the last time the tree was
updated), and a patch that can be applied to that revision of the tree
to make it match the developer's copy. This (revision, patch) pair is
then sent to the buildmaster, which runs a build with that
SourceStamp. If you want, the tool will emit status messages as the
builds run, and will not terminate until the first failure has been
detected (or the last success).

   There is an alternate form which accepts a pre-made patch file
(typically the output of a command like 'svn diff'). This "-diff"
form does not require a local tree to run from. See *Note try
--diff::.

   For this command to work, several pieces must be in place:

TryScheduler
============

The buildmaster must have a `scheduler.Try' instance in the config
file's `c['schedulers']' list. This lets the administrator control
who may initiate these "trial" builds, which branches are eligible
for trial builds, and which Builders should be used for them.

   The `TryScheduler' has various means to accept build requests: all
of them enforce more security than the usual buildmaster ports do.
Any source code being built can be used to compromise the buildslave
accounts, but in general that code must be checked out from the VC
repository first, so only people with commit privileges can get
control of the buildslaves. The usual force-build control channels can
waste buildslave time but do not allow arbitrary commands to be
executed by people who don't have those commit privileges. However,
the source code patch that is provided with the trial build does not
have to go through the VC system first, so it is important to make
sure these builds cannot be abused by a non-committer to acquire as
much control over the buildslaves as a committer has. Ideally, only
developers who have commit access to the VC repository would be able
to start trial builds, but unfortunately the buildmaster does not, in
general, have access to VC system's user list.

   As a result, the `TryScheduler' requires a bit more configuration.
There are currently two ways to set this up:

*jobdir (ssh)*
     This approach creates a command queue directory, called the
     "jobdir", in the buildmaster's working directory. The buildmaster
     admin sets the ownership and permissions of this directory to
     only grant write access to the desired set of developers, all of
     whom must have accounts on the machine. The `buildbot try'
     command creates a special file containing the source stamp
     information and drops it in the jobdir, just like a standard
     maildir. When the buildmaster notices the new file, it unpacks
     the information inside and starts the builds.

     The config file entries used by 'buildbot try' either specify a
     local queuedir (for which write and mv are used) or a remote one
     (using scp and ssh).

     The advantage of this scheme is that it is quite secure, the
     disadvantage is that it requires fiddling outside the buildmaster
     config (to set the permissions on the jobdir correctly). If the
     buildmaster machine happens to also house the VC repository,
     then it can be fairly easy to keep the VC userlist in sync with
     the trial-build userlist. If they are on different machines,
     this will be much more of a hassle. It may also involve granting
     developer accounts on a machine that would not otherwise require
     them.

     To implement this, the buildslave invokes 'ssh -l username host
     buildbot tryserver ARGS', passing the patch contents over stdin.
     The arguments must include the inlet directory and the revision
     information.

*user+password (PB)*
     In this approach, each developer gets a username/password pair,
     which are all listed in the buildmaster's configuration file.
     When the developer runs `buildbot try', their machine connects
     to the buildmaster via PB and authenticates themselves using
     that username and password, then sends a PB command to start the
     trial build.

     The advantage of this scheme is that the entire configuration is
     performed inside the buildmaster's config file. The
     disadvantages are that it is less secure (while the "cred"
     authentication system does not expose the password in plaintext
     over the wire, it does not offer most of the other security
     properties that SSH does). In addition, the buildmaster admin is
     responsible for maintaining the username/password list, adding
     and deleting entries as developers come and go.


   For example, to set up the "jobdir" style of trial build, using a
command queue directory of `MASTERDIR/jobdir' (and assuming that all
your project developers were members of the `developers' unix group),
you would first create that directory (with `mkdir MASTERDIR/jobdir
MASTERDIR/jobdir/new MASTERDIR/jobdir/cur MASTERDIR/jobdir/tmp; chgrp
developers MASTERDIR/jobdir MASTERDIR/jobdir/*; chmod g+rwx,o-rwx
MASTERDIR/jobdir MASTERDIR/jobdir/*'), and then use the following
scheduler in the buildmaster's config file:

     from buildbot.scheduler import Try_Jobdir
     s = Try_Jobdir("try1", ["full-linux", "full-netbsd", "full-OSX"],
                    jobdir="jobdir")
     c['schedulers'] = [s]

   Note that you must create the jobdir before telling the
buildmaster to use this configuration, otherwise you will get an
error. Also remember that the buildmaster must be able to read and
write to the jobdir as well. Be sure to watch the `twistd.log' file
(*note Logfiles::) as you start using the jobdir, to make sure the
buildmaster is happy with it.

   To use the username/password form of authentication, create a
`Try_Userpass' instance instead. It takes the same `builderNames'
argument as the `Try_Jobdir' form, but accepts an addtional `port'
argument (to specify the TCP port to listen on) and a `userpass' list
of username/password pairs to accept. Remember to use good passwords
for this: the security of the buildslave accounts depends upon it:

     from buildbot.scheduler import Try_Userpass
     s = Try_Userpass("try2", ["full-linux", "full-netbsd", "full-OSX"],
                      port=8031, userpass=[("alice","pw1"), ("bob", "pw2")] )
     c['schedulers'] = [s]

   Like most places in the buildbot, the `port' argument takes a
strports specification. See `twisted.application.strports' for
details.

locating the master
===================

The `try' command needs to be told how to connect to the
`TryScheduler', and must know which of the authentication approaches
described above is in use by the buildmaster. You specify the
approach by using `--connect=ssh' or `--connect=pb' (or `try_connect
= 'ssh'' or `try_connect = 'pb'' in `.buildbot/options').

   For the PB approach, the command must be given a `--master'
argument (in the form HOST:PORT) that points to TCP port that you
picked in the `Try_Userpass' scheduler. It also takes a `--username'
and `--passwd' pair of arguments that match one of the entries in the
buildmaster's `userpass' list. These arguments can also be provided
as `try_master', `try_username', and `try_password' entries in the
`.buildbot/options' file.

   For the SSH approach, the command must be given `--tryhost',
`--username', and optionally `--password' (TODO: really?) to get to
the buildmaster host. It must also be given `--trydir', which points
to the inlet directory configured above. The trydir can be relative
to the user's home directory, but most of the time you will use an
explicit path like `~buildbot/project/trydir'. These arguments can be
provided in `.buildbot/options' as `try_host', `try_username',
`try_password', and `try_dir'.

   In addition, the SSH approach needs to connect to a PBListener
status port, so it can retrieve and report the results of the build
(the PB approach uses the existing connection to retrieve status
information, so this step is not necessary). This requires a
`--master' argument, or a `masterstatus' entry in `.buildbot/options',
in the form of a HOSTNAME:PORT string.

choosing the Builders
=====================

A trial build is performed on multiple Builders at the same time, and
the developer gets to choose which Builders are used (limited to a set
selected by the buildmaster admin with the TryScheduler's
`builderNames=' argument). The set you choose will depend upon what
your goals are: if you are concerned about cross-platform
compatibility, you should use multiple Builders, one from each
platform of interest. You might use just one builder if that platform
has libraries or other facilities that allow better test coverage than
what you can accomplish on your own machine, or faster test runs.

   The set of Builders to use can be specified with multiple
`--builder' arguments on the command line. It can also be specified
with a single `try_builders' option in `.buildbot/options' that uses
a list of strings to specify all the Builder names:

     try_builders = ["full-OSX", "full-win32", "full-linux"]

specifying the VC system
========================

The `try' command also needs to know how to take the developer's
current tree and extract the (revision, patch) source-stamp pair.
Each VC system uses a different process, so you start by telling the
`try' command which VC system you are using, with an argument like
`--vc=cvs' or `--vc=tla'.  This can also be provided as `try_vc' in
`.buildbot/options'.

   The following names are recognized: `cvs' `svn' `baz' `tla' `hg'
`darcs'

finding the top of the tree
===========================

Some VC systems (notably CVS and SVN) track each directory
more-or-less independently, which means the `try' command needs to
move up to the top of the project tree before it will be able to
construct a proper full-tree patch. To accomplish this, the `try'
command will crawl up through the parent directories until it finds a
marker file. The default name for this marker file is
`.buildbot-top', so when you are using CVS or SVN you should `touch
.buildbot-top' from the top of your tree before running `buildbot
try'. Alternatively, you can use a filename like `ChangeLog' or
`README', since many projects put one of these files in their
top-most directory (and nowhere else). To set this filename, use
`--try-topfile=ChangeLog', or set it in the options file with
`try_topfile = 'ChangeLog''.

   You can also manually set the top of the tree with
`--try-topdir=~/trees/mytree', or `try_topdir = '~/trees/mytree''. If
you use `try_topdir', in a `.buildbot/options' file, you will need a
separate options file for each tree you use, so it may be more
convenient to use the `try_topfile' approach instead.

   Other VC systems which work on full projects instead of individual
directories (tla, baz, darcs, monotone, mercurial, git) do not require
`try' to know the top directory, so the `--try-topfile' and
`--try-topdir' arguments will be ignored.

   If the `try' command cannot find the top directory, it will abort
with an error message.

determining the branch name
===========================

Some VC systems record the branch information in a way that "try" can
locate it, in particular Arch (both `tla' and `baz'). For the others,
if you are using something other than the default branch, you will
have to tell the buildbot which branch your tree is using. You can do
this with either the `--branch' argument, or a `try_branch' entry in
the `.buildbot/options' file.

determining the revision and patch
==================================

Each VC system has a separate approach for determining the tree's base
revision and computing a patch.

`CVS'
     `try' pretends that the tree is up to date. It converts the
     current time into a `-D' time specification, uses it as the base
     revision, and computes the diff between the upstream tree as of
     that point in time versus the current contents. This works, more
     or less, but requires that the local clock be in reasonably good
     sync with the repository.

`SVN'
     `try' does a `svn status -u' to find the latest repository
     revision number (emitted on the last line in the "Status against
     revision: NN" message). It then performs an `svn diff -rNN' to
     find out how your tree differs from the repository version, and
     sends the resulting patch to the buildmaster. If your tree is not
     up to date, this will result in the "try" tree being created with
     the latest revision, then _backwards_ patches applied to bring it
     "back" to the version you actually checked out (plus your actual
     code changes), but this will still result in the correct tree
     being used for the build.

`baz'
     `try' does a `baz tree-id' to determine the fully-qualified
     version and patch identifier for the tree
     (ARCHIVE/VERSION-patch-NN), and uses the VERSION-patch-NN
     component as the base revision. It then does a `baz diff' to
     obtain the patch.

`tla'
     `try' does a `tla tree-version' to get the fully-qualified
     version identifier (ARCHIVE/VERSION), then takes the first line
     of `tla logs --reverse' to figure out the base revision. Then it
     does `tla changes --diffs' to obtain the patch.

`Darcs'
     `darcs changes --context' emits a text file that contains a list
     of all patches back to and including the last tag was made. This
     text file (plus the location of a repository that contains all
     these patches) is sufficient to re-create the tree. Therefore
     the contents of this "context" file _are_ the revision stamp for
     a Darcs-controlled source tree.

     So `try' does a `darcs changes --context' to determine what your
     tree's base revision is, and then does a `darcs diff -u' to
     compute the patch relative to that revision.

`Mercurial'
     `hg identify' emits a short revision ID (basically a truncated
     SHA1 hash of the current revision's contents), which is used as
     the base revision. `hg diff' then provides the patch relative to
     that revision. For `try' to work, your working directory must
     only have patches that are available from the same
     remotely-available repository that the build process'
     `step.Mercurial' will use.

`Git'
     `git branch -v' lists all the branches available in the local
     repository along with the revision ID it points to and a short
     summary of the last commit. The line containing the currently
     checked out branch begins with '* ' (star and space) while all
     the others start with '  ' (two spaces). `try' scans for this
     line and extracts the branch name and revision from it. Then it
     generates a diff against the base revision.


waiting for results
===================

If you provide the `--wait' option (or `try_wait = True' in
`.buildbot/options'), the `buildbot try' command will wait until your
changes have either been proven good or bad before exiting. Unless
you use the `--quiet' option (or `try_quiet=True'), it will emit a
progress message every 60 seconds until the builds have completed.

* Menu:

* try --diff::


File: buildbot.info,  Node: try --diff,  Prev: try,  Up: try

8.2.3.1 try -diff
.................

Sometimes you might have a patch from someone else that you want to
submit to the buildbot. For example, a user may have created a patch
to fix some specific bug and sent it to you by email. You've inspected
the patch and suspect that it might do the job (and have at least
confirmed that it doesn't do anything evil). Now you want to test it
out.

   One approach would be to check out a new local tree, apply the
patch, run your local tests, then use "buildbot try" to run the tests
on other platforms. An alternate approach is to use the `buildbot try
--diff' form to have the buildbot test the patch without using a
local tree.

   This form takes a `--diff' argument which points to a file that
contains the patch you want to apply. By default this patch will be
applied to the TRUNK revision, but if you give the optional
`--baserev' argument, a tree of the given revision will be used as a
starting point instead of TRUNK.

   You can also use `buildbot try --diff=-' to read the patch from
stdin.

   Each patch has a "patchlevel" associated with it. This indicates
the number of slashes (and preceding pathnames) that should be
stripped before applying the diff. This exactly corresponds to the
`-p' or `--strip' argument to the `patch' utility. By default
`buildbot try --diff' uses a patchlevel of 0, but you can override
this with the `-p' argument.

   When you use `--diff', you do not need to use any of the other
options that relate to a local tree, specifically `--vc',
`--try-topfile', or `--try-topdir'. These options will be ignored. Of
course you must still specify how to get to the buildmaster (with
`--connect', `--tryhost', etc).


File: buildbot.info,  Node: Other Tools,  Next: .buildbot config directory,  Prev: Developer Tools,  Up: Command-line tool

8.3 Other Tools
===============

These tools are generally used by buildmaster administrators.

* Menu:

* sendchange::
* debugclient::

