We have our own GitLab-CI runner, but with only one we can't run many
jobs in parallel so it takes a very long time before all the tests have
completed. In addition, if that runner goes down, we have nothing at
all.
GitLab offers the following machine types for hosted runners on Linux
x86-64 [1]. The default is the "small" runner. Using a larger runner
increases the "Cost factor" [2].
For opensource projects, the Cost factor is reduced to 0.5 (1 minute per
2 minutes of job time) whatever the runner type.
Runner Tag vCPUs Memory Storage Cost factor (OSS)
saas-linux-small-amd64 (default) 2 8 GB 30 GB 1 (0.5)
saas-linux-medium-amd64 4 16 GB 50 GB 2 (0.5)
saas-linux-large-amd64 (Premium and Ultimate only) 8 32 GB 100 GB 3 (0.5)
saas-linux-xlarge-amd64 (Premium and Ultimate only) 16 64 GB 200 GB 6 (0.5)
saas-linux-2xlarge-amd64 (Premium and Ultimate only) 32 128 GB 200 GB 12 (0.5)
Compute minutes consumed by a job is calculated by:
Job duration / 60 * Cost factor
(Job duration: The time, in seconds, that a job took to run, not
including time spent in the created or pending statuses.)
Thanks to the GitLab OSS program [3], Buildroot benefits from a free
Ultimate subscription and can use GitLab shared runners tagged with
saas-linux-{large, xlarge, 2xlarge}-amd64. In addition, we receive
50,000 free runner minutes per month.
In order to use one of those tags in Buildroot GitLab-CI jobs, we have
to classify all tests by resource requirement, to make sure the job
doesn't fail because it times out or has insufficient memory or disk
space. While we usually shouldn't use the largest runner for
everything, we can use larger runner without cost penalty thanks to
the cost factor reduced to 0.5 for opensource projects. This will
reduce the CI minutes consumed by a CPU intensive job.
First we introduce some new templates used to add the corresponding
runner tag to a runtime test job (reusing the GitLab terminology).
.runner-{small,medium,large,xlarge,2xlarge}
Most of our tests are fast (checkpackage, test_external_bootlin...), so
saas-linux-small-amd64 runner tag is enough. Default to this tag if
nothing else is specified.
Add a comment next to the test class to provide the runner tag.
This runner tag is retrieved when generating the
generated-gitlab-ci.yml file used to create the child pipeline where
the runtime test jobs are executed.
We use the list of runtime tests returned by node2:
"tests.boot.test_edk2.TestEdk2.test_run"
We convert each element of this list to get the path to the test source
file and the name of the test:
"support/testing/tests/boot/test_edk2.py"
TestEdk2
With that, we can grep into the test source file to retrieve the runner
tag placed one line above the test class:
# GitLab-runner: large
class TestEdk2(infra.basetest.BRTest):
Once the runner tag is retrieved, it's used to use the corresponding
runner template to the runtime test job:
tests.boot.test_edk2.TestEdk2.test_run: { extends: [ .runtime_test_base, .runner-large ]}
GitLab runners hosted by the Buildroot project should be able to run
any jobs, so they should be tagged with Gitlab runner tags
(saas-linux-{small,medium,large,xlarge,2xlarge}-amd64).
A specific runner tag "buildroot-runner" can be used to allow running
a job only on such runners.
If a test can't be executed by any shared GitLab-CI runners, we have
to use a runner owned by the Buildroot project. In this case we have
to use a specific template ".runner-buildroot-runner-only" in order to
add the specific runner tag "buildroot-runner" to the job running the
test. There is no such runtime test at the moment.
The proposed classification is based on a previous pipeline analysis
[5]:
- Tests lasting more than 3 hours will use 2xlarge runners.
- Tests lasting more than 2 hours will use xlarge runners.
- Tests lasting more than 1 hours will use large runners.
- Tests building a kernel or a toolchain will use medium runners.
- All other tests will use small runners when possible.
CI minute cost estimate:
tests.package.test_clang.TestClangCompilerRT.test_run lasts 4h25 on the
Buildroot runner. If we this duration for 2xlarge runners, the CI
minute consumed would be:
(15900 / 60) * 0.5 = 133
With 6 jobs using a 2xlarge runners we used ~795 CI minutes.
tests.package.test_kmscube.TestKmsCube.test_run list 2h04 on the
Buildroot runner. If we this duration for xlarge runners, the CI
minute consumed would be:
(7440 / 60) * 0.5 = 62
With 4 jobs using a xlarge runners we used ~248 CI minutes.
tests.package.test_weston.TestWeston.test_run last 1h15 on th
Buildroot runner. If we this duration for large runners, the CI
minute consumed would be:
(4500 / 60) * 0.5 = 37.5
With 28 jobs using a large runners we used ~1050 CI minutes.
tests.package.test_gstreamer1.TestGstreamer1.test_run last 46min on the
Buildroot runner. If we this duration for large runners, the CI
minute consumed would be:
(2760 / 60) * 0.5 = 23
With 31 jobs using a medium runners we used ~713 CI minutes.
tests.package.test_python.TestPython3Py.test_run last 13min on the
Buildroot runner. If we this duration for large runners, the CI
minute consumed would be:
(780 / 60) * 0.5 = 6.5
With 691 jobs using a medium runners we used ~4491 CI minutes.
In total, one pipeline for the runtime tests cost ~7297 CI minutes.
After a first try [6], we are actually using 8000 CI minutes per
pipeline.
We run such pipeline once a week (on Monday), one for each Buildroot
releases every 3 month, one for each stable and LTS release per month,
and one for each release candidate (3).
Worst case (release month):
(4 weeks + 1 release + 1 stable + 1 LTS + 3 release candidate) * 8000 CI
minutes: 80000 CI minutes / 50000.
So we would spend the minutes very quickly in the worst case scenario.
We have to keep one pipeline under 5000 CI minutes.
[1] https://docs.gitlab.com/ci/runners/hosted_runners/linux/#machine-types-available-for-linux---x86-64
[2] https://docs.gitlab.com/ci/pipelines/compute_minutes/#cost-factorshttps://docs.gitlab.com/ci/pipelines/compute_minutes/#compute-usage-calculationhttps://docs.gitlab.com/ci/pipelines/compute_minutes/#cost-factors-of-hosted-runners-for-gitlabcom
[3] https://gitlab.com/buildroot.org/gitlab-oss
[4] https://docs.gitlab.com/ci/runners/hosted_runners/#gitlabcom-hosted-runner-workflow
[5] https://gitlab.com/buildroot.org/buildroot/-/pipelines/2416603721
[6] https://gitlab.com/buildroot.org/buildroot/-/pipelines/2562421098
Signed-off-by: Romain Naour <romain.naour@smile.fr>
[Arnout:
- simplify parsing of test_file and test_name;
- match the entire test_name instead of substring;
- assume "small" by default;
- remove the "small" tags;
- use "gitlab-runner" instead of "Gitlab-runner".
]
Signed-off-by: Arnout Vandecappelle <arnout@rnout.be>
Signed-off-by: Arnout Vandecappelle <arnout@rnout.be>
We have our own GitLab-CI runner, but with only one we can't run many
jobs in parallel so it takes a very long time before all the tests have
completed. In addition, if that runner goes down, we have nothing at
all.
GitLab offers the following machine types for hosted runners on Linux
x86-64 [1]. The default is the "small" runner. Using a larger runner
increases the "Cost factor" [2]:
Runner Tag vCPUs Memory Storage Cost factor
saas-linux-small-amd64 (default) 2 8 GB 30 GB 1
saas-linux-medium-amd64 4 16 GB 50 GB 2
saas-linux-large-amd64 (Premium and Ultimate only) 8 32 GB 100 GB 3
saas-linux-xlarge-amd64 (Premium and Ultimate only) 16 64 GB 200 GB 6
saas-linux-2xlarge-amd64 (Premium and Ultimate only) 32 128 GB 200 GB 12
Compute minutes consumed by a job is calculated by:
Job duration / 60 * Cost factor
(Job duration: The time, in seconds, that a job took to run, not
including time spent in the created or pending statuses.)
Thanks to the GitLab OSS program [3], Buildroot benefits from a free
Ultimate subscription and can use GitLab shared runners tagged with
saas-linux-{large, xlarge, 2xlarge}-amd64. In addition, we receive
50,000 free runner minutes per month.
For opensource projects, the Cost factor is reduced by 0,5 (1 minute per
2 minutes of job time).
In order to use one of those tags in Buildroot GitLab-CI jobs, we have
to classify all tests by resource requirement, to make sure the job
doesn't fail because it times out or has insufficient memory or disk
space. We also don't want to use the largest runner for everything
because that would spend the minutes very quickly while the resources
aren't used efficiently (mostly serialized).
First we introduce some new templates used to add the corresponding
runner tag to a runtime test job (reusing the GitLab terminology).
.runner-{small,medium,large,xlarge,2xlarge}
Most of our tests are fast (checkpackage, test_external_bootlin...), so
saas-linux-small-amd64 runner tag is enough. Default to this tag if
nothing else is specified.
Add a comment next to the test class to provide the runner tag.
This runner tag is retrieved when generating the
generated-gitlab-ci.yml file used to create the child pipeline where
the runtime test jobs are executed.
We use the list of runtime tests returned by node2:
"tests.boot.test_edk2.TestEdk2.test_run"
We convert each element of this list to get the path to the test source
file and the name of the test:
"support/testing/tests/boot/test_edk2.py"
TestEdk2
With that, we can grep into the test source file to retrieve the runner
tag placed one line above the test class:
# GitLab-runner: large
class TestEdk2(infra.basetest.BRTest):
Once the runner tag is retrieved, it's used to use the corresponding
runner template to the runtime test job:
tests.boot.test_edk2.TestEdk2.test_run: { extends: [ .runtime_test_base, .runner-large ]}
GitLab runners hosted by the Buildroot project should be able to run any
jobs, so a specific runner tag "buildroot-runner" is used to allow
running a job on such runners. The "buildroot-runner" tag is used in
addition to GitLab ones to run a job on the Buildroot runner or on a
shared GitLab-CI runner.
If a test can't be executed by any shared GitLab-CI runners, we have
to use a runner owned by the Buildroot project. In this case we have
to use a specific template ".runner-buildroot-runner-only". There is no
such runtime test at the moment.
The proposed classification is based on a previous pipeline analysis
[5]:
- Tests lasting more than 3 hours will use 2xlarge runners.
- Tests lasting more than 2 hours will use xlarge runners.
- Tests lasting more than 1 hours will use large runners.
- Tests building a kernel or a toolchain will use medium runners.
- All other tests will use small runners when possible.
CI minute cost estimate:
tests.package.test_clang.TestClangCompilerRT.test_run lasts 4h25 on the
Buildroot runner. If we this duration for 2xlarge runners, the CI
minute consumed would be:
(265 / 60) * 12 * 0.5 = 26,5
With 6 jobs using a 2xlarge runners we used ~160 CI minutes.
tests.package.test_kmscube.TestKmsCube.test_run list 2h04 on the
Buildroot runner. If we this duration for xlarge runners, the CI
minute consumed would be:
(124 / 60) * 6 * 0.5 = 6,2
With 4 jobs using a xlarge runners we used ~37 CI minutes.
tests.package.test_weston.TestWeston.test_run last 1h15 on th
Buildroot runner. If we this duration for large runners, the CI
minute consumed would be:
(75 / 60) * 3 * 0.5 = 1.87
With 28 jobs using a large runners we used ~53 CI minutes.
tests.package.test_gstreamer1.TestGstreamer1.test_run last 46min on the
Buildroot runner. If we this duration for large runners, the CI
minute consumed would be:
(46 / 60) * 2 * 0.5 = 0.76
With 31 jobs using a medium runners we used ~24 CI minutes.
tests.package.test_python.TestPython3Py.test_run last 13min on the
Buildroot runner. If we this duration for large runners, the CI
minute consumed would be:
(13 / 60) * 1 * 0.5 = 0.1
With 691 jobs using a medium runners we used ~69 CI minutes.
In total, one pipeline for the runtime tests cost ~350 CI minutes.
We run such pipeline once a week (on Monday), one for each Buildroot
releases every 3 month, one for each stable and LTS release per month,
and one for each release candidate (3).
Worst case (realse month):
(4 weeks + 1 release + 1 stable + 1 LTS + 3 release candidate) * 350 CI
minutes: 3500 CI minutes / 50000.
So we should be able to run our pipeline without exhausting our CI
minutes credit.
[1] https://docs.gitlab.com/ci/runners/hosted_runners/linux/#machine-types-available-for-linux---x86-64
[2] https://docs.gitlab.com/ci/pipelines/compute_minutes/#cost-factorshttps://docs.gitlab.com/ci/pipelines/compute_minutes/#compute-usage-calculationhttps://docs.gitlab.com/ci/pipelines/compute_minutes/#cost-factors-of-hosted-runners-for-gitlabcom
[3] https://gitlab.com/buildroot.org/gitlab-oss
[4] https://docs.gitlab.com/ci/runners/hosted_runners/#gitlabcom-hosted-runner-workflow
[5] https://gitlab.com/buildroot.org/buildroot/-/pipelines/2416603721
Signed-off-by: Romain Naour <romain.naour@smile.fr>
[Arnout:
- simplify parsing of test_file and test_name;
- match the entire test_name instead of substring;
- assume "small" by default;
- remove the "small" tags;
- use "gitlab-runner" instead of "Gitlab-runner".
]
Signed-off-by: Arnout Vandecappelle <arnout@rnout.be>
Update the Device Tree name for the vexpress platform to match the
new directory structure introduced in Linux 6.5.
Since kernel 6.5, the 'arch/arm/boot/dts/' directory was restructured
to avoid having thousands of files in a single folder. Device Trees
for ARM (32-bit) are now organized into subdirectories. For the
Versatile Express platform, the DTS file moved to the 'arm/'
subdirectory.
The build was failing with:
make[3]: *** No rule to make target 'arch/arm/boot/dts/vexpress-v2p-ca9.dtb'. Stop.
Adjust BR2_LINUX_KERNEL_INTREE_DTS_NAME from "vexpress-v2p-ca9" to
"arm/vexpress-v2p-ca9".
Signed-off-by: Dowan Gullient <dowan.gullient@smile.fr>
Signed-off-by: Julien Olivain <ju.o@free.fr>
Removed patch that fixed building with libseccomp and old kernel headers
as systemd has fixed that upstream now.
Notable changes:
- Add -Dlibmount=enabled to host and target build. Disabling this
option disables building most of systemd's tools apart from
libsystemd.
- remove gcrypt and gnutls from dependencies and build options.
openssl is the only supported crypto library now.
- Disable nspawn build for host variant and add a Config.in option
for the target variant.
- systemd now requires kernel >= 5.4 while the recommended kernel
version moved to >=5.7. This make systemd depend on
BR2_TOOLCHAIN_HEADERS_AT_LEAST_5_4, removing various dependencies
on older kernel header versions from sub options.
- The sha256sum of LICENSES/README.md changed due to various
license clarification, removal of some vendored files as well as
changing some file paths. Licensing did not actually change.
For changelog, see:
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob/v258.3/NEWS
Tested with `./support/testing/run-tests tests.init.test_systemd`
All tests passed
One of the tests now needs a bigger rootfs size.
Signed-off-by: Marcus Hoffmann <buildroot@bubu1.eu>
[Peter: fix check-package warnings]
Signed-off-by: Peter Korsgaard <peter@korsgaard.com>
Since version 256, systemd will taint the system if /usr/bin and
/usr/sbin are not merged, known as merged-bin:
# systemctl --no-pager status
● buildroot
State: running
Units: 166 loaded (incl. loaded aliases)
Jobs: 0 queued
Failed: 0 units
Since: Mon 2025-07-07 19:48:05 UTC; 19s ago
systemd: 257.7
Tainted: unmerged-bin
CGroup: /
├─init.scope
[...]
Although this is not yet an error, it will be in the future.
To be as ready as we can be when that happens, forcibly enable
merged-bin, like we did when we initially added merged-usr (except
this time we carry the select from systemd, even though it is not
yet strictly required, rather than from the init entry).
Extend the runtime test to catch any tainted flag.
Signed-off-by: Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
Cc: Arnout Vandecappelle <arnout@mind.be>
Cc: Norbert Lange <nolange79@gmail.com>
Cc: Sen Hastings <sen@hastings.org>
Signed-off-by: Romain Naour <romain.naour@smile.fr>
The prebuilt kernel has been updated to 5.10.202, sync the kernel
built by InitSystemSystemdBaseOverlayfs.
Signed-off-by: Romain Naour <romain.naour@smile.fr>
Signed-off-by: Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
Signed-off-by: Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
[Arnout:
- use a simple mount unit for
TestInitSystemSystemdRoFullOverlayfsVarBacking;
- change the test of TestInitSystemSystemdRoFullOverlayfsVarBacking to
check that the exact expected mount was performed;
- add a test of var backing with fstab instead of mount unit.
]
Signed-off-by: Arnout Vandecappelle <arnout@mind.be>
Add four new tests for systemd (rw and ro in each case):
- use dbus-broker instead of the original dbus
- use the original dbus, with dbus-broker installed
The first two extend the existing IfUpDown test cases by just enabling
dbus-broker; the second ones extend this further, by explicitly enabling
the original dbus.
For one of the tests, we overload the test_run() function to test that
the dbus-broker daemon is indeed running as root. We need not replicate
that check in the other dbus-broker-only test, and it does not make
sense to test that in tests that have the original dbus enabled.
Presence of the original dbus and dbus-broker on the same system is
valid: the original dbus is used as the default system bus daemon. We do
not test switching between the two at runtime, though as this is really
too corner-case specific. We just test to ensure the original dbus
system bus daemon is not impacted by the presence of dbus-broker.
Note: the 'full' test-case enables all systemd options, and some of them
do pull the original dbus package, so we can't use that to test the
integration of dbus-broker; instead, we extend the ifupdown case, which
does not enable the original dbus.
The default external toolchain for cortex-A9 is the old ARM toolchain
which has kernel headers 4.10 Since dbus-broker needs toolchain headers
>= 4.17, it can't be selected with this toolchain. Switch the systemd
tests to the Bootlin toolchains instead. We switch all of them to make
things easier. Note that we will need to take care in the future that
the headers version used in the bootlin toolchain doesn't get bigger
than the kernel that is used. The kernel is currently 5.10, the headers
in the bleeding edge bootlin toolchain are 5.4.
Signed-off-by: Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
Cc: Norbert Lange <nolange79@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <arnout@mind.be>
Since systemd requires a relatively new kernel, we switched to a
self-built 4.19.204 kernel. However, since then, the downloaded kernel
used by the tests has been updated to 5.10, which is certainly recent
enough to support systemd. Switch to this one. This reduces the test
time significantly.
Signed-off-by: Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <arnout@mind.be>
Signed-off-by: Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
The first three lines of all systemd runtime tests are identical, and
they already call into a common function. Therefore, move those lines
into the common function as well.
We need to pass an additional argument for the rootfs type. This changes
the signature, which could create confustion with
InitSystemBase.check_init() that has a different signature. Therefore,
rename the function to check_systemd(). That also allows us to call
self.check_init() directly instead of going through super().
Signed-off-by: Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
Signed-off-by: Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <arnout@mind.be>
The kernel 4.11.3 curently used by the test doesn't build with host
gcc >= 10 due the gcc default -fno-common. See GCC 10 porting guide [1].
/usr/bin/ld: scripts/dtc/dtc-parser.tab.o:(.bss+0x20): multiple definition of `yylloc'; scripts/dtc/dtc-lexer.lex.o:(.bss+0x0): first defined here
Bump to the next LTS release.
[1] https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-10/porting_to.html
Signed-off-by: Romain Naour <romain.naour@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <arnout@mind.be>
The BRTest() class implements an assertRunOk() method that does the
very common work of running a command inside the emulator, and
checking that it is successful.
This commit changes all locations where this .assertRunOk() method can
be used, instead of open-coding the same logic.
Signed-off-by: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@bootlin.com>
Signed-off-by: Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
While investigating [1] one units failed due to missing kernel option
CONFIG_BINFMT_MISC needed by "proc-sys-fs-binfmt_misc.mount" service.
It's because the kernel support autofs4 but not MISC binaries.
Since the systemd test infra use the default defconfig (vexpress),
we need to provide a linux fragment to enable CONFIG_BINFMT_MISC.
[1] https://gitlab.com/buildroot.org/buildroot/-/jobs/454255917
Signed-off-by: Romain Naour <romain.naour@smile.fr>
Cc: Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
[yann.morin.1998@free.fr:
- move the kernel config with the others in conf/
]
Tested-by: Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
Signed-off-by: Yann E. MORIN <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
Recent systemd bump has broken DBus dameon and DBus applications can no
longer find the daemon. So we want to catch those kind of failures
early.
We also want to check that the system as a whole is stable: no unit
should be failed.
Finally, ensure that we can read the jounrnal, even when we are doing our
tricks on read-only systems.
Signed-off-by: "Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
Signed-off-by: Peter Korsgaard <peter@korsgaard.com>
Fix the trivial warnings from flake8:
- remove modules imported but unused;
- use 2 lines before class or module level method;
- remove blank line at end of file.
Signed-off-by: Ricardo Martincoski <ricardo.martincoski@gmail.com>
Acked-by: "Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
Signed-off-by: Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <arnout@mind.be>
We add the 3 following combinations:
- basic systemd, read-only, network w/ ifupdown
- basic systemd, read-only, network w/ networkd
- full systemd, read-only, network w/ networkd
The tests just verify what the /sbin/init binary is, and that we were
able to grab an IP address. More tests can be added later, for example
to check each systemd features (journal, tmpfiles...)
Signed-off-by: "Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
Cc: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>
[Arnout: regenerate .gitlab-ci.yml]
Signed-off-by: Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <arnout@mind.be>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>
The "builtin" kernel does not boot a systemd-based system, so
we resort to building the same one as currently used by our
qemu_arm_vexpress_defconfig.
We test the 8 following combinations:
- busybox, read-only, without network
- busybox, read-only, with network
- busybox, read-write, without network
- busybox, read-write, with network
- basic systemd, read-write, network w/ ifupdown
- basic systemd, read-write, network w/ networkd
- full systemd, read-write, network w/ networkd
- no init system, read-only, without network
The tests just verify what the /sbin/init binary is, and that we were
able to grab an IP address. More tests can be added later, for example
to check each systemd features (journal, tmpfiles...)
Signed-off-by: "Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
Cc: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>
Cc: Arnout Vandecappelle <arnout@mind.be>
[Arnout: update .gitlab-ci.yml]
Signed-off-by: Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <arnout@mind.be>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>
