Project: Incremental Improvements to Debian s CI platform
Project Link: https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/projects/#6433686825730048
Code Repository: https://salsa.debian.org/ci-team/debci
Mentors: Antonio Terceiro and Paul Gevers

About the Project Debian Continuous Integration is Debian s CI platform. It runs tests on the packages published in the Debian archive, and today is used to control migration of packages from unstable, Debian s development area, to testing, the area of the archive where the next Debian release is being prepared. This makes it a crucial part of Debian s infrastructure. The web platform shows the results of all the tests executed. Debian CI provides developers both API and a GUI Self-Service section to request tests for the packages and get information on test history. This project involves implementing incremental improvements to the platform, making it easier to use and maintain.

Deliverables of the project:

• Migrating Logins to Salsa
• Adding support for testing security uploads and Debian LTS

Work done

Migrating Logins to Salsa

• Originally, Debian CI used Debian SSO client certificates for logging in, but since that was deprecated logins are migrated to Salsa, Debian s Gitlab instance and this is implemented with the help of OmniAuth, the ruby authentication framework.
• Another thing fixed as part of this task was that there exists a limitation in the existing database structure, where usernames were directly stored as the test requestor field, so that relationship was normalized with a proper foreign key to the users table.

Merge Requests:

• Migrate to logins using Salsa
• Update the jobs table to add real reference to users table

Adding support for testing security uploads and Debian LTS In this task, work was done to enable private tests in Debian CI for adding support for testing security uploads and Debian LTS. It includes tasks from adding the private field in the API and Self-Service section in requesting tests to adding an option to publish them when ready through both interfaces. Merge Requests:

• Add private jobs flag to jobs
• Submit private jobs via API
• Fix in migration file
• Submit private jobs via Self Service
• Add extra-apt-sources in API
• Add extra-apt-sources via Self Service
• Validate extra apt sources
• Publish private tests via API
• Update Self-Service Job History Page
• Add Publish and Retry in Self-Service

Others I worked on some issues to add usability improvements for the web interface:

• Change Retry link to point to the self-service interface
• Add a user menu in the self-service interface

Learning Takeaways I learned a lot throughout the entire journey. Some of the things to mention are:

• Writing tests: I learned about using Rspec for writing tests in ruby and understood how writing tests is an integral part of coding any project.
• Using good coding practices: By my merge requests reviews done by my mentor Antonio, I came to know about good coding practices which help in keeping the code both clean and concise.

Acknowledgement I owe huge thanks to my mentors Antonio Terceiro and Paul Gevers for their constant support and guidance throughout the entire duration. It is for them that I was able to get started with the code-base of the project in the first place. And while working on the project, they were extremely responsive to all my queries. My merge requests were all thoroughly reviewed which enables me to learn more and work more efficiently. It was a complete pleasure interacting with them on weekly meet calls. To sum up, my GSoC journey was awesome and I had a fun and productive summer with Debian

What s next? As part of a continuation of my project task Adding support for testing security uploads and Debian LTS, I would be working on Debian CI to facilitate the process of connecting the embargoed archive. It s the end of my GSoC journey but certainly not the end of my journey with Debian or Open-Source. I plan to stay an active contributor to Debian and get involve with more Open Source projects as well

Extras The link to my Salsa Profile for all my work activities can be found here.
To know more about my journey, my other GSoC blog posts can be found below:

• Journey to GSoC
• GSoC: About my Project and Community Bonding Period
• GSoC: First Phase of Coding Period
• GSoC: Second Phase of Coding Period

If you have been involved in Debian packaging at all in the last few years, you are probably aware that autopkgtest is now an important piece of the Debian release process. Back in 2018, the automated testing migration process started considering autopkgtest test results as part of its decision making. Since them, this process has received several improvements. For example, during the bullseye freeze, non-key packages with a non-trivial autopkgtest test suite could migrate automatically to testing without their maintainers needing to open unblock requests, provided there was no regression in theirs autopkgtest (or those from their reverse dependencies). Since 2014 when ci.debian.net was first introduced, we have seen an amazing increase in the number of packages in Debian that can be automatically tested. We went from around 100 to 15,000 today. This means not only happier maintainers because their packages get to testing faster, but also improved quality assurance for Debian as a whole. However, the growth rate seems to be decreasing. Maybe the low hanging fruit have all been picked, or maybe we just need to help more people jump in the automated testing bandwagon. With that said, we would like to encourage and help more maintainers to add autopkgtest to their packages. To that effect, I just created the autopkgtest-help repository on salsa, where we will take help requests from maintainers working on autopkgtest for their packages. If you want help, please go ahead and create an issue in there. To quote the repository README:

Valid requests:

• "I want to add autopkgtest to package X. X is a tool that [...] and it works by [...]. How should I approach testing it?" It's OK if you have no idea where to start. But at least try to describe your package, what it does and how it works so we can try to help you.
• "I started writing autopkgtest for X, here is my current work in progress [link]. But I encountered problem Y. How to I move forward?" If you already have an autopkgtest but is having trouble making it work as you think it should, you can also ask here.

Invalid requests:

• "Please write autopkgtest for my package X for me". As with anything else in free software, please show appreciation for other people's time, and do your own research first. If you pose your question with enough details (see above) and make it interesting, it may be that whoever answers will write at least a basic structure for you, but as the maintainer you are still the expert in the package and what tests are relevant.

If you ask your question soon, you might get your answer recorded in video: we are going to have a DebConf21 talk next month, where we I and Paul Gevers (elbrus) will answer a few autopkgtest questions in video for posterity. Now, if you have experience enabling autopkgtest for you own packages, please consider watching that repository there to help us help our fellow maintainers.