CASA Build and Test Group Meeting

Charlottesville: Tuessday, 14th April, 2015, 12:00; Room ER331.

Participants

Present: Mark, Darrell, Ville, Andy, Akeem

Apologies: (None)

Post-meeting edits and additions in blue text.

Agenda

  • Status of current CASA packages
    • Release - 4.3.1 out for OS X (10.8) and RHEL 5 and 6
    • 4.4 test/stable packages routinely being produced for RHEL5 and 6
    • Pre-release branch creation currently blocked by ASAP-related build issues for OS X (10.10). Any other roadblocks currently anticipated (e.g. 3rd party packages, etc.)?
      • Pyfits issue raised two weeks ago - OK?
      • Prospective 4.4 release date? Could we do end of April? Start of second week of May targeted.
  • Staffing
    • CASA SD User Testing oversight transferred from Bunyo Hatsukade to Erik Muller as of April 1st
    • Joe Depa has left NRAO
  • Build and Test Review Status
    • No news
  • Casacore unification - Being worked on now. For reference, Jim's proposed plan was as follows:
    • 0.5. Attempt to build against the GC casacore and identify problems. Done.
    • 0.75. Iteratively fix bugs and attempt to build again. This was Shinnosuke's B&T primary assignment. Done.
    • 1. Merge our Casacore into GC casacore. This will require us to flush all casacore mods in and then let Ger do the final merge (finally). Done.
    • 2. Build CASA against GC casacore (platforms?) Done for Linux.
    • 3. Test CASA/GC casacore against our various regression tests, etc. Done for Linux - can pass.
    • 4. Create a Jenkins job that will handle B&T of codebase using GC casacore. Discussed at the previous meeting
    • 5. Keep a cached, read-only copy of GC casacore locally(?) to prevent a glitch at googlecode/github from allowing us to build. Also we should maintain periodic a backup copies.
    • 5.5. Survive the migration from GC to GitHub...
    • 6. Go live and live happily ever after. wink
  • B&T news/items from EA.
    • N/A (for now)
  • B&T news/items from Charlottesville.
    • First regression testing of OS X (10.10 and 10.9 test packages). 12 tests currently failing (1 on Linux). Pre-release branch created on April 27th, following wvrgcal fixes for OS X by Dirk and the successful production of Linux stable packages for RHEL5 and 6 (~5-8 linger test failures for OS X).
    • Need a good clean write-up / script / whatever of how to build CASA on OS X and Linux (for developers).
      • Some post-meeting suggestions made, including automatically producing a summary of the cmake commands used (with a full list of options selected) for each package build. For us to provide a full description of the build process, though, we would also need to document the environment used (which 3rd-party packages are installed, which versions, etc.). Also, B&T Group to try to help maintain Kumar's page.
      • We need to decide on a single place for instructions about building for developers, identify it to all the developers & get rid of the other, outdated documentation pages.
      • Longer term, we will need a new build system...
    • Some discussion took place regarding how to bets integrate commits to various different other (related) repositories, etc. We could pull from various sources (GitHub, Subversion repositories, etc. (on a per platform basis) into a Git sandbox, try to build and run the standard regression tests on that. If that all works, only then would we produce a package. Question: If we adopt that approach, what place is there for "test" packages? Everything would then be a "stable".
    • "Extended" tests to be run on the tarball versions.
    • Mark was asked at the last HPC meeting to try to write down instructions for casa/casapy launch instructions for specific environments (for developers, multiple nodes, etc.) had received an initial e-mail from Julian about his understanding of the situation. Discuss? Not much in the way of notes on this...
    • Review short-term task priority lists
      • Ville: Was going to spend a bit more time looking at the casa-cbts server set-up, and on nightly test reporting improvements. Other pending work included starting assessing developer tools, and packaging (and testing) automation for OS X. We are already close to having one set of scripts that will handle RHEL and OS X. It was previously decided during the meeting that Ville's high priority items for the short term should be:
        • OS X build machine set-up and automation; Ville asked about the availability of OS X machines that could be used for running the nightly regression test suites. Some of the Macs he is aware of at the AOC are currently in use by developers. Status?
        • Look into the building of the tasks/tools documentation. The plan will be to muddle through as best we can for the 4.4 release, and seriously review the documentation requirements (and hence their production) post-4.4. Status: Currently builds, some parts probably look a bit unreadable right now. Mark R. to review.
    • Documentation (task/tools) - longer-term plans? Mark to push for an internal review of this, post-4.4. To be informed by Ville's experience of working with it for 4.4 (see above).
    • Publicizing the process of submitting newly developed tests to be added to the framework. Andy had drafted a wiki page for this. Status?
  • Old Action Items
    • Andy: Discuss Jenkins test for check-ins on OS X with Alexis: same (or different?) smoke tests for OS X as for Linux? Related: machines in Socorro for this? (See above). It is noted that this AI is not a pressing issue at this point. Andy had started to have some discussion with Alexis about this. Smoke tests will be run on the new Test Group Macs. They still need to discuss test coverage for OS X and Linux. Ongoing, with the understanding that this is a lower priority item than Alexis' other work, and that his remaining contract period is limited.
  • Next meeting: ??th April, 2015.
  • Any Other Business
    • Suggestion: We get a "floater" developer Mac Mini for Charlottesville. Probably most practical to set it up in Dave Mehringer's office?

New Action Items Arising

  • TBA
-- MarkRawlings - 2015-04-14
Topic revision: r3 - 2015-04-27, MarkRawlings
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