Intermittent CI Job Timeouts in Gemnasium Due to Slow Runners
Problem
The Gemnasium CI jobs are intermittently failing due to timeouts. These timeouts are often observed during the pulling of Docker images and running certain tests. Despite no recent changes on the Gemnasium side, the issue persists, indicating potential problems with the CI runners or external dependencies. The slow performance of these CI runners results in failed CI jobs, causing delays and inefficiencies in the development workflow.
Solution
Investigate and remediate the slow performance of the CI runners to prevent timeouts and failed jobs. This can be approached through multiple angles:
- Diagnose Runner Performance: Analyze the performance metrics and logs of the CI runners to identify any bottlenecks or anomalies.
- Optimize CI Pipeline Configuration: Review and optimize the CI pipeline configuration to reduce execution time and prevent timeouts.
- Increase Parallelism: Increase the number of parallel jobs to distribute the load more effectively.
- Engage with grouprunner: Work with grouprunner to investigate potential underlying issues with the runners or related services.
Implementation Plan
-
Diagnostic Phase:
- Collect Logs: Gather logs from the CI runners.
- Identify Patterns: Look for patterns in the failed jobs, such as specific stages or commands that consistently cause timeouts.
-
Runner Analysis: Collaborate with GitLab's infrastructure team to analyze the performance of the specific runners in use (e.g.,
3-green.saas-linux-small-amd64.runners-manager.gitlab.com/default
).
-
Optimization Phase:
-
Pipeline Review: Conduct a review of the
.gitlab-ci.yml
configurations for the Gemnasium project. - Increase Parallelism: Modify the CI configuration to increase the number of parallel jobs, ensuring efficient load distribution. For example, adjusting the parallel job count based on the reasoning provided in past configurations.
- Timeout Settings: Evaluate the current timeout settings to ensure they are appropriately configured, although the current 30 minutes should be adequate.
-
Pipeline Review: Conduct a review of the
-
Implementation of Changes:
-
Configuration Updates: Apply changes to the
.gitlab-ci.yml
file to increase parallelism and optimize stages. For instance, split long-running tests into smaller, more manageable jobs. - Monitor and Test: Deploy the updated CI configurations and closely monitor the CI pipeline’s performance. Conduct multiple test runs to ensure stability and performance improvements.
-
Configuration Updates: Apply changes to the
Edited by Philip Cunningham