Jenkins World Tour 2015 London, UK 23-24 June

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#jenkinsconf

Jenkins-based CI for heterogeneous Hardware/Software projects

Oleg Nenashev Jenkins Developer @ CloudBees

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#jenkinsconf > whoami •  https://ru.linkedin.com/in/onenashev •  Background: ~10 years of…

–  R&D: HW and Embedded systems –  CI in HW, Embedded and EDA areas –  Department-wide CI frameworks

•  Current: –  Jenkins CI contributor –  Jenkins Developer at CloudBees –  PhD student, EDA Lab @ SPBPU

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#jenkinsconf > whoami --list jenkins •  >6 years of Hudson/Jenkins experience •  3 years of open-source contribution to Jenkins •  Maintenance of large-scale installations •  I maintain about 10 open-source plugins •  Contributions to other Jenkins stuff and INFRA

•  Ownership •  Job Restrictions •  Role Strategy (legacy)

•  Custom Tools (legacy) •  Extra Tool Installers •  Cygwin Process Killer

Tool belts Ownership-based security

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#jenkinsconf Outline

•  CI in HW/Embedded world. Why Jenkins? •  Integrating Jenkins with the common stuff

–  EDA tools, FPGA farms, Computing Grids •  Several examples and case studies • Getting added value from CloudBees Jenkins

Platform

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#jenkinsconf Jenkins users from HW world

•  The most of HW companies have Jenkins instances •  Examples from a 5min search in public materials

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#jenkinsconf Related talks / articles •  Robert Martin, “Multi-Stage-CI with Jenkins in an Embedded

World” @ JUC2014/Berlin •  Martin d’Anjou, “FPGA Continuous Integration with Jenkins”

@SNUG2013/Canada •  Alan Fitch, “Continuous Integration for FPGA Design and

Verification” @ Verification Futures, 2015 •  JL Gray, Gordon McGregor, “A 30 Minute Project Makeover

Using Continuous Integration” @ DVCon, 2012 •  …

•  Sarah Woodall, “The Famous Cows of Cambridge: A Non-Standard Use Case for Jenkins” @JUC2015/London

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#jenkinsconf

INTRODUCTION CI in HW/Embedded world

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#jenkinsconf What is a hardware product?

. . .

Not so obvious… •  IP Libraries –

reusable blocks •  Prototypes •  Development kits •  …

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#jenkinsconf HW Development Flow

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Synthesis

Place & Route

RTL Design

Specification

= Compilation

= Linking

Design

= Coding

VHDL Verilog / SystemVerilog SystemC …

Verification

Packaging

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#jenkinsconf HW CI Example

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Get sources SCMs Binary repositories Build artifacts

Setup environment

“Build” = S&P&R

“Test”

“Analyze”

Publish reports

Deploy artifacts

Static analysis Formal verification Timing analysis

Specialized tools

Unit tests Integration tests

EDA Tools Electronic Design Automation

Test results Coverages System resources utilization

Much parallel tasks in flows

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#jenkinsconf Embedded SW build process

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Other software

Embedded Software

•  Different tools, but the approaches are similar •  Verification is a real challenge

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#jenkinsconf And what about an HW IP Product?

Hardware part

External IP Firmware / Embedded

SW

External SW

Development tools / EDAs

Demo SW

Demo hardware

Developer kits

Yes, we need to automate everything

“Main product”

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#jenkinsconf Welcome to CI hell! •  Almost everything needs to be automated •  Multiple technologies and tools •  Unstable hardware & networks •  Legacy stuff is everywhere •  HW engineers are not SW experts •  … •  Limited resources •  Limited OSS usage and contribution options

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#jenkinsconf Why Jenkins?

•  It’s a framework => you can do everything •  It’s open-source:

–  You can customize Jenkins core and plugins –  Plenty of available materials and examples

•  “Stable” LTS versions •  Commercial support for self-hosted installations

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#jenkinsconf

AREA SPECIFICS

•  EDA Software •  Computing grids •  FPGAs

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#jenkinsconf EDA Software

•  Almost no OSS plugins –  Exception - Cadence vManager Plugin

•  Specifics: –  Dozens of tools in a common design flow –  Different platform requirements –  Multiple tool versions are required –  Big size of tools – up to 100 Gigabytes –  Limited licenses being shared with externals

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#jenkinsconf EDA Software. Possible solution

•  Store tools on shared folders –  On Windows services kohsuke/winsw/pull/71 may be used –  Extra Tool Installers Plugin provide a stub installer

•  Access tools: Labels + Custom Tools Plugin •  Idea of the plugin:

–  Configurable installers –  Setup of a custom environment (PATH, env. vars) –  Built-in versioning based on Extended Choice Parameter

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#jenkinsconf Custom Tools. Global Configuration

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Can be stored remotely => automatic tool deployment

Node and global env. vars are supported

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#jenkinsconf Custom Tools. Job Configuration

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Allow versioning

Automatic installation

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#jenkinsconf Custom Tools. Usage

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In build steps:

In build launch dialog:

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#jenkinsconf EDA Software. Publishers

•  Jenkins has publishers for many SW dev. tools –  Unit test results (xUnit et all.) –  Performance test results –  Coverages

•  No solutions for hardware, but you can use converters •  Example for VCS coverages:

1.  Get an HTML or raw XML report 2.  Use XSLT to convert it to Cobertura format 3.  Publish data using a standard plugin

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#jenkinsconf EDA Software. Licenses •  FLEX License Manager is everywhere in EDA •  Main problem: shared usage of licenses

–  No sporadic prioritization in FLEX => long waiting –  Dedicated licenses are not cost-effective –  Limited availability of tools => custom accounts

•  Minimal solution – Throttling, custom “wait for a license” scripts

•  Best solution - FLEX LM plugin, no OSS ones

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#jenkinsconf Hardware testing

•  Simulators – specialized EDA tools

•  Hardware – FPGAs, ASIC prototypes

•  Combined solutions (HW Accelerators, etc.)

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#jenkinsconf Cloudless skies

•  Simulation tests require…

•  Public/private clouds are not cost-effective •  HW Companies mostly use computing grids

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Thousands CPU hours

Terabytes of TMP files

and reports All RAM you have

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#jenkinsconf Computing grids

Examples: •  Sun Grid Engine (SGE, UGE) •  Platform Load Sharing Facility (LSF) •  NetBatch @ Intel •  …

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•  Datacenter-wide grids •  Sharing across

departments “We run hello-world in 2 hours”

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#jenkinsconf Computing Grids Usage

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Manage tasks from CLI (script steps)

“Transparent” – launch Jenkins nodes

on the grid

•  Use-case: Legacy scripts •  Difficult management (job

abort, status polling, etc.)

•  Manual launch •  “Start by script on Master” •  LSF Cloud Plugin •  No FOSS plugins for

other grids L

“Launch task” build & workflow steps •  No FOSS plugins !

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#jenkinsconf Simulations are slow, so…

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•  S - EZ1CUSB @ http://www.easyfpga.com •  M - http://www.xilinx.com/univ/xupv5-lx110t.htm •  L - HAPS-64, www.synopsys.com

S - x00$ M – x000$

L –x0000$

FPGA accelerators & prototyping boards

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#jenkinsconf

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And XXL…

•  http://blogs.synopsys.com/breakingthethreelaws/2014/04/the-secret-ninja-fu-for-higher-performance-prototype-operation/

HAPS S96

Guess the price… Could CI have its own stuff?

Your CPU prototype is here

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#jenkinsconf Mapping CI to existing HW

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Nodes @ Site A Nodes @ Site C Nodes @ Site B “We borrowed FPGAs here, somebody takes them randomly”

“This stuff has Windows drivers only”

“No infra team members here”

“We run nodes on dev. laptops”

Frankenboards “We built it from the garbage we had”

Infrastructure after the “budget optimization”

L

L

L

L

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#jenkinsconf How it works

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Power

When it hangs

“Deploy bit-files” Blasting cables

Debugging cables, firmware upload

We don’t change

them, huh?

Jenkins node

drivers

tools

peripherals

Attached hardware

runtime

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#jenkinsconf How do I implement jobs?

•  Throttling of builds •  Shared functionality is decoupled to external project

(Parameterized Trigger or Template Project) –  FPGA blasting –  Firmware Upload –  Run of a test case (binary upload) using a debugger provided

by the toolchain (gdb, etc.) –  etc.

•  Failover and restart on infra issues => Naginator

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#jenkinsconf Throttling of FPGA jobs •  Throttle Concurrent Builds Plugin

–  Jobs can be throttled by a category –  Performance issues (esp. till 1.609.1), can be partially solved

by Label Throttle plugin (CloudBees Jenkins Enterprise) –  Job developers must follow rules, no enforcement

Global configuration:

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#jenkinsconf Throttling of FPGA jobs

Job configuration:

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#jenkinsconf FPGAs monitoring

•  Impossible to use an external system – shared resources •  Solution in Jenkins:

1.  Use periodic Multi-configuration Matrix Job for a monitoring 2.  Use Elastic Axis to generate label axes by an expression 3.  Run a spot-check on FPGA with blasting and a firmware test 4.  If it fails, disable the node using System Groovy Script 5.  Send notifications to INFRA admins

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#jenkinsconf

ENTERPRISE FEATURES Getting added value from CloudBees Jenkins Platform

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CJE – CloudBees Jenkins Enterprise CJOC – CloudBees Jenkins Operations Center

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#jenkinsconf Common features All common features are

applicable, out of the scope See CloudBees Docs

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#jenkinsconf Templates!

•  OSS Plugins have a limited functionality: –  Template Project, Inheritance Plugin, Job Generator, etc.

•  Parameterized trigger causes UI overheads –  Multi-page configuration in UI: “Trigger with several

parameters => wait => copy artifacts => analyze” •  Templates allow to save much time on the

implementations •  Workflow + Scriptler Plugin are tasty as well

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#jenkinsconf Easy failover implementation •  Workflow allows to transparently re-run

unreliable stages on other nodes. for (def board : boards) { try { // blasting …

// run test …

// test finished break; } catch (FPGAError error) { // try another board continue; } }

System failure

Node #1 Node #2 . . .

. . .

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#jenkinsconf Shared slaves for rare hardware •  Use-case: multiple Jenkins instances in a single org •  Instances may require a specific resource •  No cross-Jenkins throttling features •  Out-of-the-box throttling in CJOC shared slaves

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#jenkinsconf Durable tasks

•  Endurance tests may take weeks •  Jenkins slaves may be disconnected, masters can

be restarted for maintenance purposes •  No stable solutions in Jenkins OSS if you don’t use

computing grids •  Durable tasks allow to overcome the issue in many

cases –  Shell scripts are running independently –  Jenkins polls for a completion asynchronously –  Serious limitation: cross-site installations

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#jenkinsconf Summary

•  Jenkins is not only about software

•  Jenkins can be used to run CI in hardware projects

•  You can use Jenkins even without domain-specific plugins

•  CJE/CJOC features greatly help to decrease the maintenance cost

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#jenkinsconf My HW-related wish-list

•  Sun Grid Engine Cloud plugin •  FLEX LM plugin •  Flexible Windows Services

•  Plugins for common EDA tools and report formats –  Build steps are OK => just use CLI utilities –  Publishing requires much efforts –  Logs parsing would be a killer feature

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#jenkinsconf

Q&A