Tails

#3 Updated by anonym 2020-01-15 12:35:16

intrigeri wrote:
> Enabling the new cachewebsite build option (Feature #15342) should lower by 25% the total runtime of a Tails images build job on our CI.
> It would take up to 5 extra GiB on isobuilders’ /var/lib/libvirt/images.

A great trade-off, IMHO!

> Any reasons why we should not enable this option?

I don’t think so. Well, this adds another instance of where a caching bug can occur, which generally is tricky to even notice, but I don’t think that should be a deterrent (imagine where we would be without any caching). It is very clear to me that the code that disables this cache for releases is correct, and that’s the most import bit. Let’s just keep it that way!

> If not, I could:
>
> * ask our developers to use the cachewebsite option locally, in order to iron out whatever bugs are left in the implementation (I think I’ll do that anyway)
> * enable this on my local Jenkins for a few weeks, in order to learn about potential Jenkins-specific problems this may cause

Sounds good! In fact, I think we should consider making cachewebsite the default since it will improve the developer UX story and we get less fragmented options among developers. In my experience, opt-in for a nice feature generally results in more fragmentation compared to opt-out — with opt-in for a desirable feature, only users that read the docs will know about it and thus possibly/likely enable it.

#4 Updated by intrigeri 2020-01-15 12:46:27

> In fact, I think we should consider making cachewebsite the default since it will improve the developer UX story and we get less fragmented options among developers. In my experience, opt-in for a nice feature generally results in more fragmentation compared to opt-out — with opt-in for a desirable feature, only users that read the docs will know about it and thus possibly/likely enable it.

Agreed. I made it opt-in to start with only out of humility and because I did not want to affect our CI so soon.
So perhaps this ticket becomes “Consider enabling the cachewebsite build option by default, including on our CI”.
And then we’ll need a nocachewebsite option, I guess.

#5 Updated by segfault 2020-01-15 17:50:55

anonym wrote:
> intrigeri wrote:
> > Enabling the new cachewebsite build option (Feature #15342) should lower by 25% the total runtime of a Tails images build job on our CI.
> > It would take up to 5 extra GiB on isobuilders’ /var/lib/libvirt/images.
>
> A great trade-off, IMHO!
>
> > Any reasons why we should not enable this option?
>
> I don’t think so. Well, this adds another instance of where a caching bug can occur, which generally is tricky to even notice, but I don’t think that should be a deterrent (imagine where we would be without any caching).

I agree.