This article explains how to setup all parts of the openSUSE buildservice. It will describe the needed steps to get it running with the latest sourcecode from svn, ready to use it and develop it.

If you just want to use the buildservice and are not interested in the latest code and it's development, it is recommended to simply use the openSUSE instance, or install it from rpm (howto for 11.0).

The buildservice consists of various parts, mainly the backend, the frontend (API), and different clients that connect to the API, we will set it up with the webclient.

At first we need to check out the buildservice code:

svn co https://forgesvn1.novell.com/svn/opensuse/trunk/buildservice

Setting up the backend:

We need to initialize the config file, add a buildservice user, and create the working directories:

cd src/backend
cp BSConfig.pm.template BSConfig.pm
sudo useradd obsrun -s /bin/false
sudo /usr/sbin/groupadd obsrun

sudo mkdir -p /srv/obs/run /srv/obs/projects
sudo chown -R obsrun /srv/obs/

This needs to be done as root or with sudo rights. To change the default directory or the user edit the BSConfig.pm file.

Now we are ready to start the servers. You should start each one in it's own terminal to see the logfiles.

sudo ./bs_srcserver sudo ./bs_repserver sudo ./bs_dispatch sudo mkdir /tmp/state sudo ./bs_worker --root /tmp/build --statedir /tmp/state

Setting up the frontend (API):

We can create a config file for the development machine, so we don't have to change the original one:

cd frontend; pushd config/environments; 
cp development_base.rb development.`hostname`.rb; 
popd;

Now we need to set up a database for the frontend, simply configure a database user in config/database.yml, crete the database and run:

rake db:migrate

now the database should be correctly initialized. Starting the API server with:

./script/server -p3001

makes it available at: http://127.0.0.1:3001. Using a browser on this address you can change some administrative stuff. The pre-configured admin user has the credentials: Admin:opensuse
The API documentation is now available here: http://127.0.0.1:3001/apidocs/
This API can now be used by different clients, or standard tools like curl (howto).

Setting up the webclient:

Setting up the weblient for usage with the openSUSE.org API is very easy, and explained in the wiki. To use it with our local frontend, we just need to change some config values:

cd webclient; pushd config/environments/; 
cp development_base.rb development.`hostname`.rb; 
popd;

and set:

FRONTEND_HOST = "localhost"
FRONTEND_PORT = 3001
FRONTEND_PROTOCOL = 'http'

Let's start it on default port 3000 with: ./script/server

Link your instance to the openSUSE.org buildservice

As our backend does not yet have any repositories we could build packages against, the easiest way to get started is to link it against the openSUSE buildservice, so we are able to build against all repositories from there. This is unfortunately not yet possible from the admin interface, so we have to use the API directly with curl:

curl -u Admin:opensuse -T opensuse_link 
http://localhost:3001/source/openSUSE.org/_meta

with opensuse_link being a file with this content: 

<project name="openSUSE.org" >
<title>openSUSE.org build link</title>
<description>Build against projects from build.opensuse.org</description>
<remoteurl>https://api.opensuse.org/public</remoteurl>
</project>

The linked project shown in the webclient

Now I want to create a project that builds against this repository, and build a package inside of it to show that everything is really working. For that, we create a home project for the admin user by clicking on "Home Project".

We need to use curl again to add a repository from the linked buildservice as a build target:

curl -u Admin:opensuse -T _meta 
http://localhost:3001/source/home:Admin/_meta

with _meta being a file with this content: 

<project name="home:Admin">
  <title>Admin's Home Project</title>
  <description></description>
  <repository name="openSUSE_11.1">
  <path project="openSUSE.org:openSUSE:11.1" repository="standard"/>
  <arch>i586
  </repository>
  <person role="maintainer" userid="Admin"/>
  <person role="bugowner" userid="Admin"/>
</project>

The project is now ready to build packages against the openSUSE 11.1 repository from the linked buildservice. We could now create new packages and upload the sources and .spec files, but I will just link a package from the openSUSE buildservice to build it unchanged.

YAY! After some time we can see that the first package was build by our local buildservice and the RPMs are ready!

Did you get interested in buildservice development, or did you run into some limitations that you want to fix? There also is a wiki page at: http://en.opensuse.org/Build_Service/Junior_Projects that lists some tasks that can be done.

The buildservice community can be found on irc at #opensuse-buildservice at freenode, and on opensuse-buildservice@opensuse.org (subscribe).

SWAMP (SWAMP Workflow Administration And Management Project) is our tool to implement workflows inside SUSE.

Development started some years ago to be able to represent processes that involve many different people and working steps in a structured way.

The main feature of SWAMP is, that it does not hardcode any business logic in it's engine, but reads the workflow definitions from a XML based meta language. Therefore changes in the processes (that happen nearly every day) can be done quite easily.

Beside the standard workflow 'patterns' like simple actions, decisions, selections, and loops SWAMP also can call custom java code and embedded groovy scripts at any time.
SWAMP can interact the autobuild system and Novell bugzilla, and offers web, SOAP and RSS interfaces.

We do use the system to track L3 support cases, the CD production process, Maintenance updates (maybe you recently encountered those automatic whiteboard entries in Bugzilla: 'maint:released:sles10:20694' for example) and up until now for tracking Job offers and job applications, including management of the application documents and ratings.

Since HR migrated to Novell's corporate tool, we are able to release the JobTracker workflow to the public! It is already included in the current beta builds of swamp (RPMS svn).

As the SUSE Studio is in public beta and pretty good shape now, I decided to build an
appliance with the current SWAMP, including the JobTracker. So you can give SWAMP including the JobTracker a try at the swamp demo server or on your own system by using one of the following flavours:

USB Stick image:

Download, 385Mb. Instructions how to install this image to a USB stick.

Live CD:

Download, 354Mb. You can burn this image on a CD, or boot it with an emulator such as VMWare or VirtualBox.
The Live CD has the package "yast2-live-installer" included, that allows
to install the system from the running session.

VMWare image:

Download, 385Mb.
Links how to use VMWare images: openSUSE wiki, VMWare player download.

I finished my BlinkenLED project and released the sourcecode for controlling it from Linux. It is a 144 (18*8) pixel matrix display which can display scrolling texts and the original *.blm movies from CCC's installation in Berlin.

· An interesting article of the species geek. · I fixed the flashgame highscores, happy gaming!