Checkmk Definition of Truth

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This file is meant as the 'one spot' to put information about requirements, agreements and ideas about branch specific information used in development, CI and DevOps contexts like

• versions of packages/components and tools
• supported editions and Linux distributions
• Meta-Information about Checkmk (like version)

Requirements

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.. to keep in mind when changing values/formats of files or making agreements

• All agreements, requirements and upcoming changes in this context should be documented in here
• Changes to this file should pass the usual review process with members of affected teams added as reviewers (in order to avoid WIP on related topics without coordination)
• Clear responsibility among teams / certain individuals should be made sure for all items listed in this document.
• This file should list all scenarios to keep in mind and consider when changing values/formats (see next subsection)
• All definitions in this context should (as far as possible) be maintained in files located in this folder and be kept as non-redundant as possible
• File formats easy to access/use even in bash, Groovy, Python, Bazel, etc.
• As many information needed to build/develop should be available in current checkout

Scenarios

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"Checkmk developer" usual workflow

A typical Checkmk developer works on a checkmk clone and needs all information and credentials needed to build/debug/test all components they work on.

• Speed/efficiency is important, i.E.

  • most 'typical' modifications to the code base must be able to evaluate / apply in only a couple of seconds
  • also a 'CI roundtrip' should only be a couple of minutes

• TBD: What are the different "types" of Checkmk developers with different needs, i.e. some workflows might priorize aspects like quick roundtrips, while others struggle with reliabliliy/reproducability.. e.g.

  • "Check-developer" might want to quickly apply changes to Python files by just copying them
  • "Core developer" needs toolchain to run natively and quickly
  • "UI developer"..
  • What else? (TBD)

CI Tests / Gerrit

stub

CI Package build process

• Safety regarding deliverables (e.g. versions of components contained in customer facing artifacts)

Release process

stub

Tool context

• Docker-contexts
• Bazel (WORKSPACE)

External developer

stub

"Public developer" clones the checkmk-repository on GitHub and works with it

stub

"Some other internal workflow"

e.g. documentation / website related needs to access information like BOM, werks, etc

stub

Content / specific information / location

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This is a TBD-list of current sources of truth which might/should be consolidated, unified and brought together (or reasons for why not):

• Stuff from defines.make
• Credentials (pypi-mirror, Jenkins, Bazel, ..) (or recipies for how to get them)
• Checkmk version (and artifact version strings)
• Component versions
  • Python version (together with other possible versions of tools)
  • Perl
• stages.yml (information about test steps)
• Docker Image Aliases (Pinned Docker images)
• Pipfile (as far as possible)
• package dependency-paths (i.e. the paths formerly specified in Jenkins-jobs triggered only on changes in those directories, (e.g. for agents)) (currently stored in JJB/Jenkins-Jobs/Groovy files)
• OMD-package sources (i.e. urls/sha used by Bazel but in different contexts and also at different places, like Python version)
• Stuff from editions.yaml / supported / used distros per edition / context
• Tooling (e.g. run-ci, checkmk-dev-tools)
• Werks

After the above items have been handled, this chapter might be removed.

Files

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The following sections list stuff already implemented and should be seen as examples for newly added elements. In general

test-steps.yaml

• Path: defines/test-steps.yaml

• Format: YAML

• Description: Lists single tests-steps executed by the generic change-validation job triggered by Gerrit, e.g. checkmk/master/change_validation/test-gerrit/

• Interfaces: Proprietary - list of named test steps being executed together with environment variables being evaluated

• Consumers:

  • CI / Gerrit triggered Change Validation Pipeline
  • Local execution of same steps by invoking the make-what-gerrit-makes make target or by running

    scripts/run-pipenv run buildscripts/scripts/validate_changes.py \
        -e BASE_COMMIT_ID=origin/master \
        -e WORKSPACE="$(pwd)" \
        -e RESULTS="$(pwd)/results"

    manually

• Future plans

  • File should also contain all other (non test-gerrit) tests and used in all other test pipelines
  • Test-Steps should be "container-agnostic" i.e. run all test steps natively enabling the CI using it's own way to run container

editions.yaml

Contains edition-specific information like supported distros per edition, targeted distros for specific tests, etc.

Read by: TBD

Example

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To be vanished

This is not a proposal, but tries to make things clear

/defines/
 ├── Readme.md                  # This file
 ├── pyproject.toml             # Python Package dependencies - might have to be top-level
 ├── testing.yaml               # stages.yml but better
 ├── editions.yaml              # Information about edition specific stuff like distros, etc
 ├── external-packages.json     # contains urls/shas
 .
 .
 └── docker-image-aliases       # contains image pins
   ├── IMAGE_UBUNTU_22_04
   ├── IMAGE_DEBIAN_9
   └── IMAGE_CMK_BASE