CloudBees Accelerator 2020.05.00 preview release notes

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CloudBees is pleased to announce the availability of the CloudBees Accelerator 2020.05.00 preview release.

Release notes for previous preview releases:

New features and functionality

Android build improvements

  • CloudBees Accelerator is updated to work with Android 11, Ninja version 1.9.0. (EC-13149)

UI improvements

Build Details page

Several improvements to the Build Details page. (EC-13791)

  • Information grouping is more convenient.

  • Primary build information formatting improved.

  • Report selector is replaced by tabs.

Agent Details page

Several improvements to the Agent Details page. (EC-13802)

Platform support

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux, version 8.2 support is added.

  • CentOS 7.6, 7.6, 7.8, 8.0 and 8.1 support is added.

  • Linux 32-bit platforms are no longer supported.

Documentation: CloudBees Accelerator supported platforms

Behavior changes

  • The --emake-crossmake option to emake is deprecated. (EC-13786)

Database support changes

No changes.

Browser support changes

No changes.

Resolved issues

EC-13751

After sourcing ecloud.bash.profile, the RPM package manager doesn’t work because of the LD_LIBRARY_PATH settings.

EC-13732

After installing the CloudBees Accelerator agent, the Gnome Terminal doesn’t work because of the LD_LIBRARY_PATH setting in /etc/profile/accelerator.sh. (kernel 4.18).

Security-related issues

None.

Other issues

None.

Installation and upgrade notes

New CloudBees Accelerator release strategy

Starting in August 2019, the release strategy for CloudBees Accelerator is updated to add a “preview” release in addition to the standard long-term support (LTS), maintenance (patch), and hotfix releases.

The release numbering for the preview releases uses a new <year>.<month>.00 numbering scheme. For example, 2020.05.00.

CloudBees recommends that you upgrade to the preview release and test these features in a controlled environment before rolling them out to production.

For details about the new release strategy, see the CloudBees maintenance lifecycle policies web page.

Version enforcement in Cluster Manager licensing

As of version 11.1, perpetual license files include a Version field and are therefore no longer transferable to succeeding product versions. At run time, to be considered valid by the Cluster Manager, the license file must have a Version that equals or exceeds the version of the Cluster Manager itself. Version checks consider only the major.minor version (for example, a license for 11.1 is valid for 11.1.0, 11.1.1, 11.1.2, and so on).

eMake authenticates with the Cluster Manager via the eMake/Cluster Manager protocol version to ensure that the eMake and Cluster Manager licenses match. If the license has no Version field, it will be considered invalid by the 11.1 Cluster Manager.

You can upgrade just the Cluster Manager, but starting with version 11.1, if you upgrade eMake or agents, you must also upgrade the Cluster Manager. When you upgrade the Cluster Manager, you must also acquire a new license if you are currently using a perpetual license.

You can upgrade to new patch releases (but not new feature releases) without acquiring a new license. For example, if your current license specifies 11.1, then you can use a Cluster Manager with version 11.1, 11.1.1, 11.1.2, and so on. Also, for example, if your license specifies 12.0, then you can use a Cluster Manager with version 12.0, 12.0.1, 12.0.2, and so on, as well as 11.x.

The Administration > Licenses page in the Cluster Manager web UI has a Version column, which provides the product version of each license in the list. This information is blank for a license with no explicit version (such as an evaluation license).

Make sure that you import a compliant license into the Cluster Manager before upgrading. For assistance, see CloudBees Support. For details about importing a license, see Logging In and Enabling Licensing - Importing Your License. (EC-13170 and EC-13154)

Hardware requirements

  • CloudBees Accelerator 7.2 and newer versions require a Pentium 4 or newer processor when running in a 32-bit Solaris x 86 environment.

  • The recommended total amount of RAM for an agent host is 2 GB per agent plus the amount of RAM normally needed to execute your build. For example, if you are running four agents, and your build normally needs 16 GB, you will need ((2 * 4) + 16) = 24 GB.

Backing up before you upgrade

  • The upgrade process does not preserve the existing files. Back up the /opt/ecloud/<arch>/cloud directory for Linux and Solaris or the C:\ECloud\<arch> folder for Windows to a safe location.

  • For additional security, back up the database by following the recommended procedure from your database vendor.

Installing JDBC drivers for MySQL or Oracle databases

CloudBees no longer distributes the JDBC drivers for MySQL or Oracle databases. To use one of these databases, you must download its driver directly from the Oracle website, then copy it to the appropriate directory on the Cluster Manager server, and then restart the Cluster Manager service. For details, see Installing JDBC Drivers for MySQL or Oracle Databases.

If you relocate eMake

If you copy the emake executable to a new location, you must also copy the execserver executable to that location. By default, the path to the execserver executable is /opt/ecloud/i686_Linux/32/bin/execserver (for 32-bit eMake) or /opt/ecloud/i686_Linux/64/bin/execserver (for 64-bit eMake).

Regenerating history files after an upgrade

The identifier that is used to find certain types of jobs in the eMake history file changed in version 8.0. After an upgrade from version 7.2.2 or older versions to version 8.0or newer versions, users should regenerate their history files by running their first build with the --emake-history=create option to avoid unnecessary serializations. This build might have more conflicts than normal (but subsequent builds should return to normal).

Concurrent build licensing

As of version 9.1, for new CloudBees Accelerator subscription licenses, the number of builds that you can run concurrently is license-limited. The noLicenseWaitTime performance metric indicates the amount of time that a build spent waiting for a concurrent build license because the number of concurrent builds reached the license limit. Also, as of version 9.1, JobCache is not separately licensed and is now included with the concurrent build license.

Customers using pre-9.1 CloudBees Accelerator licenses may continue to use those licenses, including the licenses for the JobCache add-on.

For details about licensing for concurrent builds, see the Logging In and Enabling Licensing. (EC-12095)

Known issues

Linux kernel issue that affects CloudBees Accelerator performance

Affected kernel versions

  • RHEL kernel versions later than 2.6.18-194.32 and earlier than 2.6.32-131

  • Ubuntu Linux kernel versions 2.6.31, 2.6.32, 2.6.33, and 2.6.34

Symptoms

Affected systems might encounter reduced performance on both ext3 and ext4 file systems. Symptoms might include

  • hung_task_timeout_secs messages in system dmesg logs

  • Widely variable agent availability (entering and exiting agent “penalty” status frequently)

  • Contention over the ecagent.state file

  • Slower builds (with unexplained variances)

To help determine if this issue exists, run the dmesg | grep hung_task_timeout command. hung_task_timeout errors show that this issue is present. Contact your kernel provider for another version of the precompiled kernel.

Fixes for systems running RHEL 5.6, 5.7, 5.8, and 6.0

You should consider upgrading to 2.6.32-131 (RHEL 6.1) or downgrading to 2.6.18-194.32 (RHEL 5.5).

Other known issues

  • Android M is not compatible with CloudBees Accelerator 11.1. You must use Android M with CloudBees Accelerator 10.0.

  • If you kill a build manually, and the agents running on an Amazon EC2 instance fail to connect, the instance will continue to run. You must kill the instance manually.

  • If the Cluster Manager goes down while agents are running on an Amazon EC2 instance, they will still connect but will not be associated with a resource. You must kill the corresponding instance manually.

  • The cmtool importData command does not import license properties (such as maxAgents ). To work around this issue, re-import the license after using importData. (EC-12371)

  • You cannot control breakpoints from the Cluster Manager. (EC-12322)

  • If Apache fails to start properly after a new Cluster Manager installation, reboot the system.

Documentation

Product documentation

CloudBees Accelerator documentation for this preview release is available at the CloudBees Accelerator documentation page.

Documentation on the website is updated periodically.

Cluster Manager Online Help and Tooltips

Built into the Cluster Manager are:

  • A complete, robust, context-sensitive online help system (click the Help button in any page of the Cluster Manager web UI). See Web Interface Help for the latest updates to this information.

  • Tooltips with information to help fill in form fields.

Troubleshooting and Getting Help

Contacting CloudBees Support

To contact CloudBees Support, go to https://support.cloudbees.com/, and then click Submit a request to submit or see your support tickets.

Be prepared to provide your:

  • Name, title, company name, phone number, and email address

  • Operating system and version number

  • Product name and release version

  • Problem description

CloudBees Accelerator Knowledge Base

Go to https://support.cloudbees.com/hc/en-us/sections/360006494811 to find in-depth explanations of specific topics and solutions for specific problems.