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Build Overview

The build server is a single server with solid state disks (SSDs). It runs two self-hosted Github action runners to perform builds. Conceptually, this is like using free GitHub actions except we register our own server to run the build. Using self-hosted runners is required as all known free options to run builds are too small (typically in disk size) to run the AmberELEC build.

A major advantage of using GitHub actions with a self hosted server - as opposed to a full self hosted build system like Jenkins - is that the server is effectively stateless. Build folders are cached, but can easily be rebuilt, making it easy to replace the server.

Runners

  • main Driven by build-main.yaml
    • Logic: An 'incremental' build (no make clean) is run on every commit to main. All build. directories are saved between builds.
    • If a 'full' build is required. make clean can be run manually by AmberELEC admins via the Github UI. Driven by: clean-main.yaml
  • Pull Requests. Driven by build-pr.yaml
    • Logic: An 'incremental' build (no make clean) is run on every PR which is from a previous committer.
      • Limiting the PRs built is done for security to ensure randomly submitted PRs are not built without some level of review (only AmberELEC admins are allowed to request reviewers)
    • If a 'full' PR build is required make clean can be run manually by AmberELEC admins for the PR builder. Driven by: clean-pr.yaml

This two-runner design is to ensure that 'main' builds are not clogged up by random PR pushes, etc.

NOTE: Only a single build will be queued for a given PR or main at a time.

Dev Artifacts

The 'main' branch publishes .img.gz and .tar updates for every build. They are split into two packages, one for RG351P and another RG351V.
Unfortunately, GitHub actions currently has a limitation that all artifacts must be zipped. This means that the .tar.gz and .tar file will be inside a zip. This is primarily a GitHub UI limitation and may be addressed in the future as artifacts are stored separately and the zip is dynamically created. See: https://github.com/actions/upload-artifact#zipped-artifact-downloads

PR's currently only publish .tar updates as fresh flashing from the .img.gz is not typically needed. This is just done to speed up PR builds.

Hosting Options and Alternatives

It is not ideal to require a non-free build system for an open source project. However, at this time, it appears to be the only realistic option due to the large build size (~160GB) combined with the long duration for full builds (~5 hours).

See: Hosting Options for more details on why the current design (single server) along with GitHub actions was chosen.

Build Server Setup

Due to requiring a build server - as opposed to cloud/hosted options - it is imporant to ensure that the build server itself can be easily swapped out for another server. The following link documents how to create a new build server.

See: Build Server Setup for more details on provisioning the build server and configuring GitHub.

Troubleshooting Build Server issues

If builds aren't working correctly and you have permissions to AmberELEC GitHub and/or the build server, see: Build Server Troubleshooting