2024-10 sdarwin summary

Author: sdarwin

_posts/2024-10-21-SamsQ3Update.md

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+---
+layout: post
+nav-class: dark
+categories: sam
+title: Cloud  and Infrastructure Update Q3 2024
+author-id: sam
+---
+
+### Boost release process boostorg/release-tools
+
+In the previous quarter, publish_release.py included features to support the Fastly CDN at archives.boost.io. This quarter, that functionality was put into action with the release of Boost 1.86.0, and it was a chance to fine-tune and improve the script. More error checking. Adding a preflight phase to test SSH. Adjusting the publish_release.py script to stage windows executables for Tom Kent, so they are relocated to a publicly visible folder during a release.
+Generally the file upload target is AWS S3, and from there the CDN origin servers download the archives.
+Revamping build_docs scripts: add python venv to mac and windows. Support macos-14.
+Briefly investigating docca - python issue that affected boost builds.
+Deployed 24.04 version of docker image for the main boostorg/boost jobs. Fixed zip and 7z failures appearing on 24.04.
+
+### Boost website boostorg/website-v2
+
+Composed a cost inventory spreadsheet of the new infrastructure. Debugging an outage of the site that was traced back to redis -> django-health-check -> celery. Frank Wiles from Revsys ultimately solved this puzzle by adjusting a celery configuration variable.
+
+Wrote local website development bootstrap scripts that will install all prerequisites for local development and then even launch docker-compose. Versions for mac, windows, linux. Updated the corresponding documentation, such that it's equally feasible to go through the steps manually to see what's being installed and then launch docker-compose from the command-line.
+
+Researched how to selectively purge the Fastly CDN cache - and specifically applying that to /release/ on boost.io.  
+
+### Mailman project
+
+Revising runbook (steps to go-live in the future).
+Incorporated Greg's changes to install a boost.io header on the mailing lists. Reduced and consolidated those files. Created ansible deployment for that feature. Now temporarily removing customizations before deployment. They may be returned later.
+Upgraded the operating system on all mm3 test instances. Tested. Switched the search engine from Elastic Search to Xapian, which is better supported in terms of the Django modules.
+Submitted upstream pull requests (merged) which
+- document an improved Xapian installation method
+- further document how the core and web components interact in terms of the db
+
+### Slack
+
+Discussing slackbot implementations with Kenneth.
+
+### wowbagger
+
+Documented and published issues about the various problems on the legacy web server.
+Contributed to Kenneth's docker-compose strategy for the original boost.org website to allow local development via docker-compose, by downloading boost archives so the local environment is functional.
+Worked with Rob to include Plausible analytics on boost.org.
+
+### Jenkins
+
+Investigate/repair doc builds of mrdocs, http_proto.
+Modify doc builds of beast, url.
+Generated PR doc builds of safe-cpp. Added a GHA step to render the html upon commit.
+Upgraded the Jenkins executable, and plugins.
+Set up previews of boostlook. master/develop and PRs.
+
+### JSON Benchmarks
+
+After experimenting on a Hetzner server, switched JSON Benchmarks to a new Xeon processor from KnownHost. Intel core processors are aimed at the consumer market while Xeon is a server architecture and is more consistent when running benchmark tests. Replaced Jenkins runner, canceled previous server.
+
+### GHA
+
+Debugging certain boost library jobs. Also, with the hosted runners, determined there was a systematic problem that the bootprocess was timing out too quickly. Adjusted terraform settings and redeployed. Would be good to propose a PR upstream to terraform: the timeout is too fast.
+Enabled billing for math-cuda gpu tests.
+Macminivault billing issues.
+Resizing terraform runner Windows 2022, to add 30GB more disk space, and Pagefile (memory).
+Built new Ubuntu runners, newer kernel, adjusting OS versions on boostorg/unordered GHA to fix sanitizers.
+
+### Drone
+
+Assisted developers in debugging jobs.
+Scripted docker image cleanup on drone instances. 
+Installed a cron job to clear the autoscaler, solving an issue that occasionally jobs get stuck in pending mode, preventing the instances from scaling.