[Buildbot-devel] 'latent' build host on network power switch

[Andy Howell]

Hello,

	I have a host thats only used once in awhile. Most of the time it functions more as a 
heater and noise maker than anything else.

The machine is connected to a networked power switch. I've got a python class to turn the 
power on and off.

I'm implementing a subclass of AbstractLatentBuildSlave to control it. The basic idea is 
when start_instance is called, I check with the switch to make sure its turned on and ping 
the host to check that its up. If its not powered up, I power it up and wait until I can 
ping it.

I haven't quite worked out the shutdown aspect of it. I guess I'll have servlet on the 
slave that stop_instance can poke when it wants to shut it down. I'll likely have a 
mechanism for manual override, so that I can keep the slave up if needed.

I'm working on a unit test for it now, though it slow going trying to wrap me head around 
testing deferreds and catching exceptions.

I used ec2buildslave as my template, though maybe I should have used libvirtbuildslave 
instead. ec2buildslave uses deferToThread to bring up the machine.

Does this seem like a reasonable approach?

Thanks,

	Andy