400107 - Bonsai links don't show proper range

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Webtools Graveyard :: Graph Server, defect, P3)

Description

[Mike Schroepfer]

A common activity of the graph server is trying to understand which checkin caused a change in performance.   For example:

http://graphs.mozilla.org/#spst=range&spss=1192456043.0789766&spse=1192585671&spstart=1192233600&spend=1192585671&bpst=cursor&bpstart=1192456043.0789766&bpend=1192585671&m1tid=7&m1bl=0&m1avg=1

Produces a bonsai link of:

http://bonsai.mozilla.org/cvsquery.cgi?treeid=default&module=PhoenixTinderbox&branch=HEAD&branchtype=match&dir=&file=&filetype=match&who=&whotype=match&sortby=Date&hours=2&date=explicit&cvsroot=%2Fcvsroot&mindate=1180657203&maxdate=1192585671

My understanding of the current talos/graph server infrastructure is that it set the time as being the time the test completed.   However, if you are trying to find checkin ranges you are interested in the pull-date from cvs (e.g. the point at which the last checkin could happen for this build).  So using the test run time may produce incorrect results.     

Talked to Alice and Rhelmer a little bit today and it seems like the following general approach will get us what we need:

1) Use the buildID to generate the bonsai queries.  The buildID 
2) Expose the buildID in the popup when you hover over the graph.  Currently the buildID is truncated to the hour.  So we can do this by:

startBonsaiTime = buildID date/hour
endBonsaiTime = buildID date/hour + 1h 

E.g. if the first build was at 1:55pm and the last was 7:23pm the bonsai query would be from 1pm to 8pm.  This would be a slightly larger range than normal but at least correct.

Comment 1

[Benjamin Smedberg]

As noted on IRC, the buildid represents some arbitrary build time and doesn't represent the checkout date... how exact do we ned to be? rhelmer and I discussed whether it's possible to add extra source-info (branch+pulldate) to application.ini, though no conclusion was reached.

Comment 2

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

See also bug 393338...

Comment 3

[John O'Duinn [:joduinn] (please use "needinfo?" flag)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> As noted on IRC, the buildid represents some arbitrary build time and doesn't
> represent the checkout date... how exact do we ned to be? rhelmer and I
> discussed whether it's possible to add extra source-info (branch+pulldate) to
> application.ini, though no conclusion was reached.
We need to at least be 100% inclusive of every change in the build. If this bonsai link includes too many changes, by having overreaching dates, thats not great, but at least its better then the alternative... which is that the bonsai links only show *most* of the changes, and so breakage triage doesnt spot all the possible problem patches. 

Comment 4

[alice nodelman [:alice] [:anode]]

Talos now reports results (and has for a while) date stamped with build start time.  I think that we could safely marked with WONTFIX, especially as we move more towards hg and bonsai matters less.