1282065 - taskcluster script to run locally has RUN_LOCALLY=true, and it should be TASKCLUSTER_INTERACTIVE=true

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Taskcluster :: General, defect)

Description

[Joel Maher ( :jmaher ) (UTC -8)]

I found that with RUN_LOCALLY=true defined (by default), that it was running the tests.  I couldn't find RUN_LOCALLY in the code anywhere.

for reference, here is where I see run_locally:
https://tools.taskcluster.net/task-inspector/#N6sRh9xrSlafCdTTK5SXyA/

this is from a push on june 21st:
https://treeherder.mozilla.org/#/jobs?repo=try&revision=3b3f78423b55d6306ccbb0df728b5f92229658ff

Comment 1

[Andrew Halberstadt [:ahal]]

So Armen had a patch that changed "SKIP_MOZHARNESS_RUN" to "RUN_LOCALLY" here:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=splinter.html&bug=1250904&attachment=8724259

But it never landed. Then I took over the bug and noticed that "SKIP_MOZHARNESS_RUN" was a dead variable and removed it. Maybe I was supposed to rename it to "RUN_LOCALLY" instead? Though here's the file from before I removed "SKIP_MOZHARNESS_RUN":
https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/file/614920a68d55/testing/taskcluster/scripts/tester/test-linux.sh

It looks like the only thing it did differently from "TASKCLUSTER_INTERACTIVE" was echo a couple of messages. Though Armen's patch did make it start x11vnc.. maybe that's the missing piece? Sorry, I've never tried the run locally thing so I'm not sure what's supposed to happen there.

Comment 2

[Joel Maher ( :jmaher ) (UTC -8)]

do we want to even support the running of a docker container locally?  If so, we should invest a little bit of time into making this useful.

Comment 3

[Andrew Halberstadt [:ahal]]

I think so? Maybe Armen can shed a bit of light here.

I also want to point out that I'm not sure the title of this but is strictly true. We might need a separate RUN_LOCALLY variable, or maybe we can make TASKCLUSTER_INTERACTIVE useful for both local and remote. I'm not sure yet.

Comment 4

[Joel Maher ( :jmaher ) (UTC -8)]

either way, I think we should do a better job documenting what we have- it is unclear what locally and interactive do, if TASKCLUSTER_INTERACTIVE is for a remote shell to a running instance, lets be clear about that where we reference it in the code base:
https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/taskcluster/scripts/tester/test-linux.sh#146

that existing comment doesn't outline the use case fully- hence the confusion and storm of bugs.

Comment 5

[Andrew Halberstadt [:ahal]]

Fair point, sometimes it's easy to forget that other people aren't familiar with terminologies. But also I don't know if it's only for remote or not. I think that's what we need to decide here.

Comment 6

[Armen [:armenzg]]

IMHO as much as possible we should make running remotely and locally use the same variables.
In the case of VNC we might want to detect if it is already running and not run it.
The preferred approach is to use remote running since it reduces the download of the image.

Comment 8

[Pete Moore [:pmoore][:pete]]

I think we're not using run locally any more - is this still needed?

Comment 9

[Joel Maher ( :jmaher ) (UTC -8)]

I don't think this is needed- possibly we close this bug out as worksforme?