[Buildbot-devel] Has anyone looked at changing buildbot to use ssh to connect to the slaves?

[Douglas Philips]

On 2008 Mar 26, at 7:50 AM, Nathaniel Smith wrote:
> Err, your buildmaster is running commands like "check out code from
> this remote repository that I don't control and then execute that code
> on my machine", right?  Unless you want to set up a full-fledged VM,
> running a buildslave and allowing ssh access are pretty much
> equivalent as far as security goes.

Theoretically, I agree.

Practically, the ease of abuse of ssh access and the risk of stolen  
keys from a compromised server is higher than the likelihood of a  
malicious makefile/source-code hack, IMHO. (crude analogy: I don't  
trust a cold-call claiming to be from "my credit card company," but I  
do trust that someone hasn't sent me a faux billing statement with a  
bogus 800 number.)

> I've actually requested before that the buildmaster *get* interactive
> access to a shell on buildslaves, just because it would save so many
> hours (and hours and hours) of trying to debug build configurations.

I can see the temptation... but... it would be better to have a build  
step that 'validates the build environment' than to re-implement  
telnet/ssh inside of buildbot. It is not buildbot's core competency  
to have unfettered "shell-like" remote access (aren't there already  
too many of those kinds of half-maintained tools out there already?).  
It would, imho, be a huge distraction and maintenance pita to boot.

--Doug