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Launchpad entry: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/devfarm
Packages affected: n/a
Summary
This is a placeholder Summary for the Ubuntu Development Farm which would give Ubuntu Developers access to architectures and build enviroments they would otherwise not have access to. This is equivalent to the Debian Porter Machines. Other advantages while away from your home systems and having ready made and up to date build environements.
Rationale
Ubuntu Developers might have the skill to fix bugs that only are on one architecture but not access to the machines. Developers might not have the bandwidth speed or un-caped access to the internet to create lots of pbuilder chroots, a build farm would only require ssh traffic to the build machines.
Use cases
Bob in New Zealand is a very active contributor to Ubuntu and a member of the MOTU team but has a bandwith cap placed on his ISP account. This does not bother Bob because he can use low bandwidth ssh to download source to the build machine and package or fix it and then upload right from there.
Joe does not always have access to a fast enough machine to do bug fix builds in a sane ammount of time. He can do his builds on the much faster Build Farm.
Scope
All MOTU and core-developers for Ubuntu.
Design
Not yet specified. Needs discussion with Canonical for what facilities they can provide.
tfheen: This needs to be written before the spec can be reviewed
Implementation
Not yet specified.
tfheen: This needs to be written before the spec can be reviewed
Unresolved issues
Security concerns with root access to the buildd machines in the Data Center given to such a wide audiance.
BoF agenda and discussion
Taking the security concerns into consideration it was decided to work with the PPA spec for Launchpad.net to create a new PPA-Restricted subset of that to allow "test" builds to be built for all architectures against packages only from official Ubuntu archive.