Currently, builds are distributed to talos boxes sequentially (box 1 is always preferred, if it isn't available then box 2 is selected, etc). This can mean that box 3, 4, etc are never touched for tests that run quicker than builds are generated. We can also end up in bad states where box 1 is failing out quickly but then immediately served another build - consuming all available builds without managing to test anything. I'd like to more equitably distribute builds to test boxes using this patch: http://buildbot.net/trac/ticket/36

note that this will affect all other instances of buildbot on qm-rhel02, namely the unittest master and talos staging master (for now). This shouldn't be a problem. Are we going to apply this to the production branch?

We should go with the patch that made it into buildbot: http://buildbot.net/trac/changeset?format=diff&new=349&old=310&new_path=buildbot%2Fprocess%2Fbuilder.py&old_path=buildbot%2Fprocess%2Fbuilder.py

I'm taking this. I need to run this on the unittest staging environment for a day or so to make sure nothing breaks there.

somehow I missed installing this on qm-buildbot01. Below is the console output from a successful install. [root@qm-buildbot01 buildbot]# patch -p0 <random.patch patching file buildbot/process/builder.py Hunk #1 succeeded at 1 with fuzz 2. Hunk #2 succeeded at 227 (offset 2 lines). [root@qm-buildbot01 buildbot]# python setup.py build running build running build_py copying buildbot/process/builder.py -> build/lib/buildbot/process running build_scripts [root@qm-buildbot01 buildbot]# python setup.py install running install running build running build_py running build_scripts running install_lib copying build/lib/buildbot/process/builder.py -> /tools/python/lib/python2.5/site-packages/buildbot/process byte-compiling /tools/python/lib/python2.5/site-packages/buildbot/process/builder.py to builder.pyc /tools/python/lib/python2.5/site-packages/buildbot/process/builder.py:386: Warning: 'with' will become a reserved keyword in Python 2.6 /tools/python/lib/python2.5/site-packages/buildbot/process/builder.py:387: Warning: 'with' will become a reserved keyword in Python 2.6 /tools/python/lib/python2.5/site-packages/buildbot/process/builder.py:388: Warning: 'with' will become a reserved keyword in Python 2.6 /tools/python/lib/python2.5/site-packages/buildbot/process/builder.py:392: Warning: 'with' will become a reserved keyword in Python 2.6 running install_scripts changing mode of /tools/python/bin/buildbot to 775 running install_data running install_egg_info Removing /tools/python/lib/python2.5/site-packages/buildbot-0.7.5-py2.5.egg-info Writing /tools/python/lib/python2.5/site-packages/buildbot-0.7.5-py2.5.egg-info [root@qm-buildbot01 buildbot]# restarting the buildbot master. Should see builds coming up on random machines now. Hopefully. Can we get this installed into BUILDBOT_MOZILLA_PRODUCTION?

This seems like it would be useful for all the masters used by build also. Can we also get this installed on staging-1.8-master, staging-1.9-master, production-1.8-master, production-1.9-master?

(In reply to comment #5) > This seems like it would be useful for all the masters used by build also. Can > we also get this installed on staging-1.8-master, staging-1.9-master, > production-1.8-master, production-1.9-master? > AFAIK all of these only have one slave right now. Even with two, dep builds would still only alternate between the builders (because they build continuously). It's a bit of a PITA to upgrade Buildbot right now so we may as well wait until we upgrade Buildbot on these to pick this up.