Time for drm-ci-next?

Fri Mar 7 16:42:46 UTC 2025

On Tue, Sep 24, 2024 at 5:27 AM Vignesh Raman
<vignesh.raman at collabora.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> On 12/09/24 11:18, Dmitry Baryshkov wrote:
> > On Mon, Sep 09, 2024 at 07:34:04AM GMT, Rob Clark wrote:
> >> On Mon, Sep 9, 2024 at 2:54 AM Dmitry Baryshkov
> >> <dmitry.baryshkov at linaro.org> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, 9 Sept 2024 at 10:50, Maxime Ripard <mripard at redhat.com> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Hi,
> >>>>
> >>>> On Tue, Jul 09, 2024 at 01:27:51AM GMT, Dmitry Baryshkov wrote:
> >>>>> On Mon, 8 Jul 2024 at 21:38, Rob Clark <robdclark at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On Mon, Jul 8, 2024 at 1:52 AM Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter at ffwll.ch> wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> On Fri, Jul 05, 2024 at 12:31:36PM -0700, Rob Clark wrote:
> >>>>>>>> On Fri, Jul 5, 2024 at 3:36 AM Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter at ffwll.ch> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> On Thu, Jul 04, 2024 at 08:40:26AM -0700, Rob Clark wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>> On Thu, Jul 4, 2024 at 7:08 AM Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter at ffwll.ch> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Jul 02, 2024 at 05:32:39AM -0700, Rob Clark wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>> On Fri, Jun 28, 2024 at 10:44 AM Daniel Vetter <daniel at ffwll.ch> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> On Thu, Jun 27, 2024 at 11:51:37AM -0700, Rob Clark wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Jun 26, 2024 at 10:47 AM Daniel Vetter <daniel at ffwll.ch> wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Jun 26, 2024 at 11:38:30AM +0300, Dmitry Baryshkov wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Jun 26, 2024 at 09:32:44AM GMT, Daniel Vetter wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Mon, Jun 24, 2024 at 10:25:25AM -0300, Helen Koike wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 24/06/2024 02:34, Vignesh Raman wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Hi,
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 15/03/24 22:50, Rob Clark wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Basically, I often find myself needing to merge CI patches on top of
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> msm-next in order to run CI, and then after a clean CI run, reset HEAD
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> back before the merge and force-push.  Which isn't really how things
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> should work.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> This sounds more like you want an integration tree like drm-tip. Get msm
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> branches integrated there, done. Backmerges just for integration testing
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are not a good idea indeed.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> But AFAIU this doesn't help for pre-merge testing, ie. prior to a
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> patch landing in msm-next
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> My idea was to have a drm-ci-next managed similar to drm-misc-next, if
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> we have needed drm/ci patches we could push them to drm-ci-next, and
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> then merge that into the driver tree (along with a PR from drm-ci-next
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> to Dave).
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> I guess I'm confused about what kind of pre-merge testing we're talking
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> about then ... Or maybe this just doesn't work too well with the linux
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> kernel. The model is that you have some pile of trees, they're split up,
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> and testing of all the trees together is done in integration trees like
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> linux-next or drm-tip.
> >>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> pre-merge: for msm we've been collecting up patches from list into a
> >>>>>>>>>>>> fast-forward MR which triggers CI before merging to msm-next/msm-fixes
> >>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> Ideally drm-misc and other trees would do similar, we'd catch more
> >>>>>>>>>>>> regressions that way.  For example, in msm-next the nodebugfs build is
> >>>>>>>>>>>> currently broken, because we merged drm-misc-next at a time when
> >>>>>>>>>>>> komeda was broken:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/drm/msm/-/jobs/60575681#L9520
> >>>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> If drm-misc was using pre-merge CI this would have been caught and the
> >>>>>>>>>>>> offending patch dropped.
> >>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>> That sounds more like we should push on the drm-misc pre-merge CI boulder
> >>>>>>>>>>> to move it uphill, than add even more trees to make it even harder to get
> >>>>>>>>>>> there long term ...
> >>>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>>> Short term it helps locally to have finer trees, but only short term and
> >>>>>>>>>>> only very locally.
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> The path to have fewer trees (ideally only one for all of drm) is to
> >>>>>>>>>> use gitlab MRs to land everything :-)
> >>>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>>> drm-ci-next is only a stop-gap.. but one that we need.  The
> >>>>>>>>>> ${branchname}-external-fixes trick covers _most_ cases where we need
> >>>>>>>>>> unrelated patches (ie. to fix random ToT breakage outside of drm or in
> >>>>>>>>>> core drm), but it doesn't help when the needed changes are yml
> >>>>>>>>>> (because gitlab processes all the yml before merging the
> >>>>>>>>>> -external-fixes branch).  This is where we need drm-ci-next, otherwise
> >>>>>>>>>> we are having to create a separate MR which cherry-picks drm/ci
> >>>>>>>>>> patches for doing the CI.  This is a rather broken process.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> So what I don't get is ... if we CI drm-misc, how does that not help
> >>>>>>>>> improve the situation here? Step one would be post-merge (i.e. just enable
> >>>>>>>>> CI in the repo), then get MRs going.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> I guess post-merge is better than nothing.. but pre-merge is better.
> >>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> post-merge can work if you have a "sheriff" system where someone
> >>>>>>>> (perhaps on a rotation) is actively monitoring results and "revert and
> >>>>>>>> ask questions later" when something breaks.  Pre-merge ensures the
> >>>>>>>> interested party is involved in the process ;-)
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> So ... make that happen? And it doesn't have to be for all of drm-misc,
> >>>>>>> mesa after all switched over to MR also on a bit a driver/area basis. So
> >>>>>>> agreeing among all drm-ci folks to use gitlab MR in drm-misc for pre-merge
> >>>>>>> testing shouldn't be that hard to make happen. And unlike a separate
> >>>>>>> branch it's not some kind of detour with a good chance to get stuck in a
> >>>>>>> local optimum.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Tree vs branch doesn't really have much in the way of distinction,
> >>>>>> modulo gitlab permissions.  In that it doesn't do much good if drm/ci
> >>>>>> patches are landing on a different branch.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> I guess what you are suggesting is that we have a single tree/branch
> >>>>>> that drm/ci + drm/msm + (plus whoever else wants to get in on the
> >>>>>> drm/ci, so probably at least vkms) lands patches into via gitlab MRs?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> This again brings a separate CI-enabled tree. I think it has been
> >>>>> suggested to start with enabling DRM CI for drm-misc branches. Then we
> >>>>> can possibly start landing MRs with CI testing (probably starting with
> >>>>> vkms).
> >>>>
> >>>> It's something we've discussed with Sima for a while, but enabling CI on
> >>>> drm-misc at some point will make sense so we could just as well start
> >>>> now.
> >>>>
> >>>> The biggest unknown at the moment to start doing so is how we could keep
> >>>> drm-tip and the rerere repo with MR.
> >>>
> >>> Let's do a slow start and begin with post-merge testing. At least this
> >>> gives us an idea of how stable it is (and what does it take to keep it
> >>> green). Maybe we can perform post-merge testing for both drm-misc and
> >>> drm-tip.
> >>
> >> The one thing is that currently the runtime for igt is quite long
> >> (~1hr) because you can't really parallelize kms tests.  So maybe
> >> nightly scheduled runs would be a better idea.
> >
> > SGTM. So, the question would be, who can set it up?
> >
>
> We will test the nightly pipelines in a forked repo and then will
> set it up for drm-misc and drm-tip.
>

Revisiting this old thread...

It's becoming increasingly clear that landing drm/ci changes via drm-misc
(where gitlab CI is not used) isn't working out.  On the drm/msm side, we
pretty regularly end up needing a 2nd dummy MR with additional drm/ci, etc
patches on top for running our CI pipelines, which is really _not_ the way
this is supposed to work.

So I think we want a single tree to merge drm/ci, drm/msm, and changes for
any other driver that wants to participate in the CI process.  We could
call it drm-gitlab or drm-ci or whatever.  The rules would be:

* _Only_ land changes via MR with passing CI pipeline.  We should configure
  the gitlab tree to disallow MRs without a green pipeline.

* All drm/ci changes go thru this tree.

* When we need to backmerge drm-next/files or drm-misc-next/fixes, that
  goes via an MR into this shared tree, just like any other change.

  If there are expectation updates (tests start to fail or pass, we make
  the fails/flakes/skips changes on the same MR, no questions asked.
  (But would be polite to tag the associated driver maintainer on the
  MR for visibility.)

* Once we've done this, we could conceivable use similar file-path rules
  like mesa does to only run applicable jobs.  Ie. if the MR only touches
  drm/msm there is no need to run i915 CI jobs.  So we could optimize
  the CI runner utilization this way.

* Only ff-merges.  At least to start with it would be only driver
  maintainers submitting MRs with patches collected up from list, so
  it would be few enough people that this shouldn't be a problem to
  coordinate.

* I'd be open to the idea of allowing drm core and cross-driver changes
  thru this tree.  These are especially the sorts of things that we'd
  like to see have a clean CI pipeline.  But not sure how this would
  conflict with drm-misc.  One possible future is that it replaces
  drm-misc eventually.

* We would alternate amongst the maintainers using this tree about who
  tags and sends the PRs to Dave and Sima.

Thoughts?

BR,
-R