Rewrite hints as restructured text

Signed-off-by: Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net>
ubuntu/rebased
Niels Thykier 7 years ago
parent 90e4bb6ba2
commit 0f41b1b6df

@ -1,50 +1,30 @@
#! TITLE: Britney hints documentation
#! SUBTITLE: How to override the britney policies
Hints
=====
# Britney hints
This document describes the `britney hints` and the format of the hint
file. All hints are basically small instructions to britney. The
vast majority of them involve overriding a quality gating policy in
britney. However, there are a few hints that assist britney into
finding solutions that it cannot compute itself.
This document describes the "britney hints". These are basically
small instructions to britney. The vast majority of them involve
overriding a quality gating policy in britney. However, there are a
few hints that assist britney into finding solutions that it cannot
compute itself.
## Related configuration
The configuration `HINTSDIR` determines which directory contains the
so called "hints files". This is complimented with the `HINTS_<NAME>`
configurations that defines a "hint file" and the related hint
permissions for it.
For each `HINTS_<NAME>` configuration, britney will attempt to read
`<HINTSDIR>/<name>`. Note that it lowercases `<NAME>` when looking
for the file.
Configuration example:
HINTSDIR = /etc/britney2/hints
HINTS_ANNA = ALL
HINTS_JOHN = STANDARD
HINTS_FREEZE = block block-all block-udeb
HINTS_AUTO-REMOVALS = remove
There are the following type of hints:
There are no fixed rules for how to use hints files. Though usually,
each person with permissions to give hints to britney will have their
own hint file along with write permissions for that file. It can also
make sense to create hint files for "roles". Like in the above
example there are two human hints (anna and john) plus two non-human
hinters (freeze and auto-removals).
* Policy overrides
* Migration selections (with or without overrides)
* Other
Please see :doc:`setting-up-britney` for how to configure hint files
and for how to limit which hints are allowed in a given hint file.
## Format of the hint file
Format of the hint file
-----------------------
The hint file is a plain text file with line-based content. Empty and
whitespace-only lines are ignored. If the first (non-whitespace)
character is a `#`, then britney considers it a comment and ignores
it. However, other tooling may interpret these comments (as is the
case for e.g. some parts of the Debian infrastructure).
All hints are read from hint files. The hint file is a plain text file
with line-based content. Empty and whitespace-only lines are ignored.
If the first (non-whitespace) character is a `#`, then britney
considers it a comment and ignores it. However, other tooling may
interpret these comments (as is the case for e.g. some parts of the
Debian infrastructure).
The remaining lines are considered space-separated lists, where the
first element must be a known hint. The remaining elements will be
@ -65,16 +45,8 @@ generally refers to the removal of said item rather than the migration
of the hint.
# Hints
There are the following type of hints:
* Policy overrides
* Migration selections (with or without overrides)
* Other
## Policy override hints
Policy override hints
---------------------
The policy override hints are used to disable or tweak various
policies in britney. Their effects are generally very precise ways of
@ -84,7 +56,9 @@ Some of these items are built-in while others are related to specific
policies. In the latter case, they are only valid if the given policy
is enabled (as the policy registers them when it is enabled).
### block-all `<type>`
block-all `<type>`
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Usually used during freezes to prevent migrations by default.
@ -92,6 +66,7 @@ The `<type>` can be one of:
* `source`: Blocks all source migrations. This is a superset of
`new-source`.
* `new-source`: Block source migrations if the given source is not
already in the target suite. (Side-effect: Removed packages will
not re-enter the taget suite automatically).
@ -101,7 +76,9 @@ All variants of these can be overruled by a valid `unblock`-hint.
Note that this does not and cannot restrict architecture specific
migrations (e.g. binNMUs or first time builds for architectures).
### block `<action list>`, block-udeb `<action list>`
block `<action list>`, block-udeb `<action list>`
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Prevent the items in the `<action list>` from migrating until the hint
is removed or overruled by the equivalent unblock hint (or a
@ -117,7 +94,9 @@ release cycle.
Note that this does not and cannot restrict architecture specific
migrations (e.g. binNMUs or first time builds for architectures).
### unblock `<action list>`, unblock-udeb `<action list>`
unblock `<action list>`, unblock-udeb `<action list>`
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Enable the items in `<action list>` to migrate by overriding `block`-,
`block-all`- or `block-udeb`-hints. The `unblock`-hint (often under
@ -133,7 +112,9 @@ release cycle.
The two types of block hint must be paired with their corresponding
unblock hint - i.e. an `unblock-udeb` does not override a `block`.
### approve `<action list>`
approve `<action list>`
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
A synonym of `unblock`. The variant is generally used for approving
migrations from suites that require approvals.
@ -142,7 +123,9 @@ Aside from the tab-completion in the hint testing interface, which
will give different suggestions to `approve` and `unblock`, the rest
of britney will consider them identical.
### age-days `<days>` `<action list>`
age-days `<days>` `<action list>`
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Set the length of time which the listed action items must have been in
unstable before they can be considered candidates. This may be used
@ -154,7 +137,9 @@ whichever is encountered first during parsing overrides the others.
Provided by the `age` policy.
### urgent `<action list>`
urgent `<action list>`
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Approximately equivalent to `age-days 0 <action list>`, with the
distinction that an "urgent" hint overrides any "age-days" hint for
@ -162,7 +147,9 @@ the same action item.
Provided by the `age` policy.
### ignore-rc-bugs `<bugs>` `<action list>`
ignore-rc-bugs `<bugs>` `<action list>`
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The `<bugs>` argument is a comma separated list <bugs> of bugs that
affect the items in `<action list>`. Britney will ignore these bugs
@ -175,7 +162,8 @@ migration item.
Provided by the `bugs` policy
### ignore-piuparts `<action list>`
ignore-piuparts `<action list>`
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The items in `<action list>` will not be blocked by regressions in
results from piuparts tests. All items in `<action list>` must be
@ -183,7 +171,9 @@ versioned items.
Provided by the `piuparts` policy
### force `<action list>`
force `<action list>`
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Override all policies that claim the items in `<action list>` have
regressions or are otherwise not ready to migrate. All items in the
@ -194,7 +184,9 @@ This hint does not guarantee that they will migrate. To ensure that,
you will have to combine it with a `force-hint`. However, please read
the warning in the documentation for `force-hint` before you do this.
## Migration selection hints
Migration selection hints
-------------------------
All migration selection hints work on an "action list". This consists
of at least 1 or more of the following (in any combination):
@ -207,7 +199,9 @@ All elements in the action list must be valid at the time the hint is
attempted. Notably, if one action has already been completed, the
entire hint is rejected as invalid.
### easy `<action list>`
easy `<action list>`
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Perform all the migrations and removals denoted by `<action list>` as if
it were a single migration group. If the end result is equal or better
@ -221,7 +215,8 @@ Note that for `easy` the `<action list>` must have at least two
elements. There is no use-case where a single element for easy will
make sense (as britney always tries those).
### hint `<action list>`
hint `<action list>`
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Perform all the migrations and removals denoted by `<action list>` as if
it were a single migration group. After that, process all remaining
@ -246,7 +241,9 @@ undesireable changes to the target suite. In practise, this is rather
rare but the hinter is letting britney decide what "repairs" the
situation.
### force-hint `<action list>`
force-hint `<action list>`
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The provided `<action list>` is migrated as-is regardless of what is
broken by said migration. This often needs to be paired with a
@ -260,11 +257,13 @@ desirable than the resulting breakage.
change can have long lasting undesireable consequences on the end
result.
## Other hints
Other hints
-----------
This section cover hints that have no other grouping.
### remove `<action list>`
remove `<action list>`
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Britney should attempt to remove all items in the `<action list>` from
the target suite. The `<action list>` must consist entirely of

@ -14,6 +14,8 @@ Welcome to britney2's documentation!
short-intro-to-migrations
solutions-to-common-policy-issues
contributing-to-britney
hints
setting-up-britney
* :ref:`search`

@ -0,0 +1,77 @@
How to setup britney
====================
This document describes how to install, configure and run britney in
your infrastructure.
Installing britney
------------------
TODO
Configuring britney
-------------------
TODO
hints - Configuring who can provide which hints
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Britney reads all hints from a set of `hints` files. These files must
be placed in the directory denoted by the `HINTSDIR` configuration.
This is complimented with the `HINTS_<NAME>` configurations that
defines a "hint file" and the related hint permissions for it.
For each `HINTS_<NAME>` configuration, britney will attempt to read
`<HINTSDIR>/<name>`. Note that it lowercases `<NAME>` when looking
for the file.
Configuration example::
HINTSDIR = /etc/britney2/hints
HINTS_ANNA = ALL
HINTS_JOHN = STANDARD
HINTS_FREEZE = block block-all block-udeb
HINTS_AUTO-REMOVALS = remove
In the above example, we have defined 4 hints files named `anna`,
`john`, `freeze` and `auto-removals`. These must be placed in
`/etc/britney2/hints` and be readable by britney. Furthermore, they
must be writable by (only) the people that are allowed to use the
particular hints file (apply `chown`, `chmod` and `setfacl` as
neccesary).
The values on the right hand side of the `=` decides which hints are
permitted in the files. With the above definitions:
* The file `anna` may use any known hint (including potentially
dangerous ones like `force` and `force-hint`)
* The file `john` may use most of the known hints. The STANDARD
includes a lot of hints for overriding most policies when it
can be done without (additional) side-effects. However, it
excludes `force` and `force-hint` as they can cause unintional
results.
* The file `freeze` can use any of the hints `block`, `block-all`
and `block-udeb`.
* The file `auto-removals` can only use the hint called `remove`.
There are no fixed rules for how to use hints files. Though usually,
each person with permissions to give hints to britney will have their
own hint file along with write permissions for that file. It can also
make sense to create hint files for "roles". Like in the above
example there are two human hinters (`anna` and `john`) plus two
non-human hinters (`freeze` and `auto-removals`).
Please see :doc:`hints` for which hints are available and what they
can do.
Using the results from britney
------------------------------
TODO
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