[arch-releng] who wants to write me a relatively simple webapp?

[Dieter Plaetinck]

Hi,
for Arch releng, we have recently started automatically building test builds
(http://releng.archlinux.org/isos/). These images are built from the archiso and aif git repositories, and the current state of the repos.

The idea is that people can test these images, and once in a while, I will promote a set of testbuilds and make them the officially supported media.
Because everything evolves all the time, a lot of different things can cause regressions or new bugs,
but at the same time it would be too much work to try to test all possible scenarios for each specific testbuild version.

So I would like a web application that gives me "a pretty good idea" of the quality of current/recent images.
I request someone other then me to make this app for me, I do not have the time. (I do have time for feedback or making adjustments to the codebase you provide)
I'm not sure which is best, php or python, or whatever. I think both will be fine (Dan? Pierre?)

Basically it would have 2 modes:

1) the "input" mode (after logging in with your wiki or forum account, not sure what's best here. Dan?):
the user would select a version (maintain a cached list of the directories at
http://releng.archlinux.org/isos/
the format will always be YYYY.MM.DD[suffix])
and select a list of options which are verified to be working fine.
that is:
(between braces are additional instructions for the user)

= image arch =
* dual, option i686
* dual, option x86_64
* i686
* x86_64

= image type =
* core
* net

= image boot =
* optical
* usb
* pxe

= hardware type =
* virtualbox
* qemu
* physical intel i686
* physical intel x86_64
* physical amd i686
* physical amd x86_64

= install type =
* automatic install generic example
* automatic install fancy example
* automatic install custom config (specify in comments)
* interactive install

= source selection =
* net install manual networking config (check that it works + rc.conf, resolv.conf, mirrorlist)
* net install dhcp (check that it works + rc.conf)
* core

= clock =
* left as is
* reconfigured manually
* reconfigured ntp

= partitioning/filesystems =
* autoprepare (check the installed system, incl fstab)
* manual
* from config file

= fancy stuff (checklist, not selection) =
* lvm2
* dm_crypt
* softraid
* nilfs2
* btrfs
(check also fstab, menu.lst, initcpio.conf and crypttab
  if appropriate)

= rollback tested =
* yes
* no

= if rollback done, another partitioning/filesystems list and another "fancy stuff" list (same options as before) for after the rollback =

= bootloader =
* grub
* syslinux
* other/manual

= result =
* everything works fine
* something failed (elaborate in comments)

= comments =
<textarea>



Then, a second interface would need to represent the "current state of things.. (sort of)"
that is, for every important thing (like, all image arches, image types, image boots, install types, source selections, clock, partitioning/filesystems, fancy stuff, rollback tested, grub/syslinux bootloader) it needs to show the last recent tests (or the last images for which it worked), along with which user tested it. (note: not all combinations of all variables, just any test with the given variable). if there was any failed test for a specific feature for an as recent (or more recent) image then the last successful one, there should be a warning about that.
I'm not sure yet how exactly this page would look like, but basically I need to know all important features are tested with recent images, and that they all performed well.

other factors (like hardware type, bootloader other/manual bootloader option) are not very important, they are more for reference.

Thanks,
Dieter