[Buildbot-devel] Virtual Server Slaves

[Duncan Ferguson]

Hiya list,

I have been looking through the wiki and the mailing list archive to  
find a way to make best use of virtual servers for builds; the last  
reference I have so far found was back at the end of 2006, and doesn't  
seem to provide me with much help.

Basically, we are using buildbot to create a series of RPM's and .debs  
across multiple platforms so our release process is much simplified.   
Each of the OS's the packages are built on are virtual servers.  The  
only time these vm's are used are at package build time.

What is the best way to use these vm's in the build process?  I would  
prefer to have the build process start up the vm when the build starts  
and shut it down at the end but cannot see a way to achieve this  
currently (the suggested 'make test-in-vm' style step wouldnt help I  
think here since multiple OS's are used for the build).

I was thinking some form of pre-build step (with timeout) that would  
be executed on the master that could shell out to a single script, and  
that script manages the startup of the vm.  Same idea for a post-build  
step to shut it all down again after the build has finished (ok or  
failed), idea being that the pre and post steps are generic enough to  
be used for other purposes should they arise.  Would/is this be  
possible?

Thanks

   Duncs