Regression testing with TeamCity

This documentation concerns the setup of the continuous integration service. For information about the tests themselves see ../testing. The quality of the mCRL2 toolset is continuously monitored through regression tests, which are run automatically in a TeamCity setup. The results of the regression tests can be found at http://mcrl2build1.win.tue.nl:8111. (You will need an account to access it)

In TeamCity there are two top-level projects that are of importance:

  • Debug is a continuous build that is run on all supported platforms in Debug mode after every commit to any branch (includes pull requests).
  • Nightly is a build that is run every night and builds the master branch on all supported platforms in Release mode, after which the resulting builds are packaged. Nightly also builds the website including the documentation from the Sphinx sources. When all builds pass, the website, documentation and nightly packages are uploaded to http://mcrl2.org.

Setup

The TeamCity build system runs on 4 different machines:

  • mcrl2build1 (Ubuntu Linux)
  • mcrl2build2 (Ubuntu Linux)
  • mcrl2build3 (Mac OS X, Mac Mini)
  • mcrl2build4 (Ubuntu Linux)

On mcrl2build3, we only run MacOSX and the corresponding builds. On each of the other machines, a number of virtual machines is run using KVM. A nice overview of how to configure virtual machines on Ubuntu using KVM can be found on http://www.howtogeek.com/117635/how-to-install-kvm-and-create-virtual-machines-on-ubuntu/. Some notes on managing LVM in Ubuntu are described here (http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/40702/how-to-manage-and-use-lvm-logical-volume-management-in-ubuntu/).

The main system running the TeamCity server is mcrl2build1. On all systems and virtual machines a TeamCity agent is run.

TeamCity project configuration

In TeamCity, build configurations are contained in projects. Projects can contain other projects in a tree-like structure. Projects and build configurations inherit configuration from their parent projects.

A single project can contain multiple build configurations. Build configurations can be based on templates.

For the mCRL2 toolset, the TeamCity projects are structured as follows:

  • Root project - TeamCity’s root project. Has no configuration related to mCRL2.
  • mCRL2 project - This project contains the default configuration for all other projects. This project also contains all build configuration templates used in the child projects.
  • Build type level - These projects contain the configuration specific to the build types Debug or Nightly. On this level, environment variables are configured that configure the correct build types in the CMake files. There is also a Release project on this level but this is not used right now.
  • Build tool level - This level contains the configuration for certain build tools, eg. gcc, clang and Visual Studio.
  • Build platform level - This level contains the configuration for the different platforms, eg. Ubuntu, Fedora and Windows.

The lowest project levels contain one or more build configurations each based on a template. The following templates are currently in use for building mCRL2 in the projects:

  • Build & Test Unix Fast - Triggers a build on changes in the mCRL2 repository. Each build consists of 4 steps:

    • Configure – runs a CMake configure step
    • Build – runs a CMake build step
    • Test – executes the tests
    • CPack – runs a CPack step

    The steps will be explained later.

  • Build & Test Unix Delayed - Triggers a build on changes in the mCRL2 repository. The build is delayed for 90 minutes to collect multiple changes to the repository. The steps are the same as the Build & Test Unix Fast template.

  • Build & Test Windows Fast - Triggers a build on changes in the mCRL2 repository. Has the same 4 steps as the Unix builds and one additional step (before the configure step) to setup the Visual Studio build environment.

Build steps

Configure

The configure build step is a Meta-runner called mcrl2_Conf with the following script:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<meta-runner name="Configure">
  <description>Configure mCRL2</description>
  <settings>
    <build-runners>
      <runner name="CMake Configure" type="jetbrains-cmake-conf">
        <parameters>
          <param name="teamcity.build.workingDir" value="build" />
          <param name="teamcity.step.mode" value="default" />
          <param name="ui-jetbrains-cmake-conf-additional-cmd-params"><![CDATA[-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=%cfg_buildtype%
%cfg_mcrl2_options%
%cfg_compiler%]]></param>
          <param name="ui-jetbrains-cmake-conf-developer-warnings" value="%cfg_developer_warnings%" />
          <param name="ui-jetbrains-cmake-conf-makefile-generator" value="%cfg_generator%" />
          <param name="ui-jetbrains-cmake-conf-redirect-stderr" value="true" />
          <param name="ui-jetbrains-cmake-conf-source-path" value="../src" />
          <param name="ui-jetbrains-cmake-conf-warn-unused-vars" value="false" />
        </parameters>
      </runner>
    </build-runners>
    <requirements />
  </settings>
</meta-runner>

This meta-runner executes the CMake Configure build runner from the TeamCity CMake plugin with additional parameters:

  • cfg_buildtype - CMake build type. Either Release or Debug. Configured on the Build type level projects.
  • cfg_mcrl2_options - Additional mCRL2 build options. For example -DMCRL2_ENABLE_EXPERIMENTAL=ON -DMCRL2_ENABLE_DEPRECATED=ON -DMCRL2_SKIP_LONG_TESTS=ON. Configured on various levels.
  • cfg_compiler - The compiler to use. For example -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=/usr/bin/gcc-6 -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=/usr/bin/g++-6. Configured on the Build tool level projects.
  • cfg_developer_warnings - Enable or disable developer warnings. Either true or false. Configured on the Build type level projects.
  • cfg_generator - Always empty

Build

The build build step is a Meta-runner called mcrl2_BuildTools with the following script:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<meta-runner name="BuildTools">
  <description>Build mCRL2 tools</description>
  <settings>
    <build-runners>
      <runner name="CMake build" type="jetbrains-cmake-build">
        <parameters>
          <param name="teamcity.build.workingDir" value="build" />
          <param name="teamcity.step.mode" value="default" />
          <param name="ui-jetbrains-cmake-build-native-tool-params" value="-j%build_jobs%" />
          <param name="ui-jetbrains-cmake-build-redirect-stderr" value="true" />
        </parameters>
      </runner>
    </build-runners>
    <requirements />
  </settings>
</meta-runner>

This meta-runner executes the CMake Builder build runner from the TeamCity CMake plugin with one additional parameter:

  • build_jobs - Number of make jobs (-j argument of make). This parameter is configured in the .ini file of build agents. It is usually configured as one more than the number of CPUs available to the agent.

Test

The test build step is a Meta-runner called mcrl2_Test with the following script:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<meta-runner name="Test">
  <description>Test mCRL2</description>
  <settings>
    <build-runners>
      <runner name="Test" type="simpleRunner">
        <parameters>
          <param name="command.executable" value="ctest" />
          <param name="command.parameters" value="-T Test --output-on-failure --no-compress-output -j%build_jobs% %test_mcrl2_headertest%" />
          <param name="teamcity.build.workingDir" value="build" />
          <param name="teamcity.step.mode" value="default" />
        </parameters>
      </runner>
    </build-runners>
    <requirements />
  </settings>
</meta-runner>

This meta-runner executes a simpleRunner build running built-in into TeamCity executing the ctest command. It has two additional parameters:

  • build_jobs - Number of make jobs (-j argument of make). This parameter is configured in the .ini file of build agents. It is usually configured as one more than the number of CPUs available to the agent.
  • test_mcrl2_headertest - An additional option used by some projects. This is either empty or contains the string -LE headertest. Configured on the Build type level projects.

CPack

The cpack build step is a command line runner that executes a command line with one configurable parameter.

The executed command is cpack. The command is executed with the arguments -G %pack_type%. This has one configurable parameter:

  • pack_type - A string that defines the generator to use. See the CPack documentation for the possible values. This is configured on the Build platform level.

Setup VS Env

This special build step is only required for Windows builds. It is used to set up the required environment variables for Visual Studio. This step executes a windows shell script using the Command line runner

REM - execute script to update environment
IF EXIST "C:\Program Files (x86)\%visual_studio_version%\VC\vcvarsall.bat" (
  CALL "C:\Program Files (x86)\%visual_studio_version%\VC\vcvarsall.bat" x86_amd64
) ELSE (
  CALL "C:\Program Files\%visual_studio_version%\VC\vcvarsall.bat" x86
)

REM - make TeamCity update build environment
%env.TEAMCITY_CAPTURE_ENV%

The special instruction %env.TEAMCITY_CAPTURE_ENV% instructs TeamCity to capture the current environment and use this for the following build steps.

This script calls the vcvarsall.bat script supplied by Visual Studio. It contains one configurable parameter:

  • visual_studio_version - A string that contains the installation directory, including the version number, of the Visual Studio installation to use. For example, Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0. Configured on the Build tool level projects for Windows platforms.