[LRUG] Continuous * (Happy New Year!)

Wed Jan 9 02:17:24 PST 2019

Sam,

Ok, it sounds like you don't have the problem I was worried you had. If
your environment branches don't diverge from each other then the rebase
should be identical to the corresponding merge - git shouldn't be creating
a merge commit in that case.

Personally I don't agree with the obsession with single path for histories
- it's a tool built to embrace branching, and by trying to avoid that
you're removing valuable data from your history. But that's a divisive
opinion so should probably be a whole separate thread if people have
opinions. Don't even consider changing that approach just based on this
conversation.

In your case, if the aim is to deploy identical code everywhere, then I
think you should try and reframe in your head, so instead of thinking about
"deploy staging" and "deploy production" you instead think "deploy master
to staging" and "deploy master to production". I don't think the
environment branches are needed in your setup, and they're a legacy of a
different workflow.

On Wed, 9 Jan 2019, 09:53 Samuel Joseph <tansaku at gmail.com wrote:

> Hi Gareth,
>
> Thanks - interesting point.
>
> As far as I'm able to detect the code on the staging branch is the same
> code that we end up deploying to production, since what we deploy to
> production in the master branch, and when we rebase the code from the
> staging branch into master, the staging branch and the master branch end up
> being identical, assuming there are no conflicts, and the way we operate
> that is only once in a blue moon, and any extra changes there would be
> pulled back to staging and develop.
>
> Maybe I am mis-understanding how rebasing works (entirely possible), but
> when I rebase staging into master what I am doing is avoiding creating a
> merge commit, so that we have a nice smooth single threaded git history.
> Again my understanding (possibly faulty) is that when I rebase staging into
> master I am making the code on master be identical to that on staging,
> assuming that they have a shared history, but that staging has a few new
> commits, e.g. currently our staging branch history looks like this:
>
> ```
> * 2dadadbf 2018-12-13 | Fix future events query (#2922) (HEAD -> staging,
> origin/staging, origin/master, master) [Nick Schimek]
> * bd86c461 2018-12-13 | Bump newrelic_rpm from 5.5.0.348 to 5.6.0.349
> (#2939) [dependabot[bot]]
> * 2d65985b 2018-12-13 | Bump grape from 1.2.1 to 1.2.2 (#2940)
> [dependabot[bot]]
> * d1865dae 2018-12-12 | 2893 add grape api move legacy api (#2919) [Sam
> Joseph]
> * 7f42d570 2018-12-11 | reduce events caching to one hour (#2936) [Sam
> Joseph]
> * aa77c6ee 2018-12-11 | Bump letter_opener from 1.6.0 to 1.7.0 (#2934)
> [dependabot[bot]]
> * aa4d6bee 2018-12-11 | Bump stripe from 4.2.0 to 4.3.0 (#2933)
> [dependabot[bot]]
> * 298a8118 2018-12-11 | 2883 improve 500 error page (#2931) [ElisaRmz]
> ```
>
> and our master history looks like this:
>
> ```
> * 2dadadbf 2018-12-13 | Fix future events query (#2922) (HEAD -> master,
> origin/staging, origin/master, staging) [Nick Schimek]
> * bd86c461 2018-12-13 | Bump newrelic_rpm from 5.5.0.348 to 5.6.0.349
> (#2939) [dependabot[bot]]
> * 2d65985b 2018-12-13 | Bump grape from 1.2.1 to 1.2.2 (#2940)
> [dependabot[bot]]
> * d1865dae 2018-12-12 | 2893 add grape api move legacy api (#2919) [Sam
> Joseph]
> * 7f42d570 2018-12-11 | reduce events caching to one hour (#2936) [Sam
> Joseph]
> * aa77c6ee 2018-12-11 | Bump letter_opener from 1.6.0 to 1.7.0 (#2934)
> [dependabot[bot]]
> * aa4d6bee 2018-12-11 | Bump stripe from 4.2.0 to 4.3.0 (#2933)
> [dependabot[bot]]
> * 298a8118 2018-12-11 | 2883 improve 500 error page (#2931) [ElisaRmz]
> ```
>
> and they are identical because when I did our last deploy (kicking off by
> manually rebasing staging into master), the few new commits on staging were
> added onto master.
>
> The environment specific branches don't have any evironment specific
> config, and they don't contain different combinations of feature branches,
> except in as much that at any given moment we may have a few new
> features/bug-fixes/upgrades in develop that are not in staging that are not
> in master, but as they move along (what I call) the pipeline (perhaps I'm
> using the term incorrectly), all of those features/bug-fixes/upgrades will
> end up in master/production, and if we have a quiet spell with nothing new
> coming in, all three branches will be identical.
>
> Nevertheless, yes, we certainly want to deploy the same code everywhere,
> as you suggest, and I think we are doing so - I could be wrong.  Perhaps
> our three branches, each tied to a different server, is more complex than
> we need, or just rather different from what everyone else is doing ...
>
> Thanks so much for taking the time to comment.
>
> Best, Sam
> On 08/01/2019 10:33, Gareth Adams wrote:
>
> Sam, I don't have a grand answer to your whole question, but a phrase
> leapt out at me and I wanted to flag it:
>
> > rebasing along the pipeline
>
> To me, this suggests the code on your staging branch is not the same as
> the code you end up deploying to production (and it might not be the same
> as the code in your master branch)
>
> I guess there are a few reasons that could be: you're storing some
> environment-specific configuration on your environment branches, and can't
> merge them all together, or maybe your environment branches contain a
> different combination of feature branches that you're trying to keep
> control of?
>
> Either way, I'd consider how (or if) you could change your workflow to
> make sure you deploy the same code everywhere (or at least deploy the same
> code to production that you deploy to staging). That's the basis behind
> e.g. Heroku pipelines' "Promote" button and it's the pattern I commonly see
> now
>
> On Tue, 8 Jan 2019, 10:13 Samuel Joseph <tansaku at gmail.com wrote:
>
>> Hi Gerhard,
>> On 07/01/2019 12:00, Gerhard Lazu wrote:
>>
>> Hi Sam,
>>
>> What determines that a build can go from your development environment
>> into staging?
>>
>> Good question, the answer is:
>>
>> 1) that all the unit, integration and acceptance tests pass
>> 2) that there are no merge conflicts
>> 3) that the manual sanity checks on develop are coming back okay
>>
>> And from staging into production? If you can capture this in code, you
>> can put it into a pipeline.
>>
>> I don't think there's any way we can remove the manual sanity checks as
>> the acceptance tests are just not that reliable, and although we've poured
>> 1000's of hours into them and ultimately I can't see any way of making them
>> perfect.
>>
>> I didn't think the presence of a manual step would prevent us using a
>> pipeline, in as much as I thought of a pipeline as just being a series of
>> servers with matching branches and code is them moved along them whether
>> manually or automatically.  Heroku calls such things pipelines and seems to
>> have no support for automatically moving code along them, it's purely
>> manual from what I can see.
>>
>>
>> Why do you have 3 pipelines?
>>
>> I don't think we do.  As I understand it, we have one pipeline:
>>
>> develop branch + develop server ---> staging branch + staging server --->
>> master branch + production server
>>
>> That's three paired branches/servers in one pipeline.  Here's a
>> screenshot of how Heroku presents our pipeline in their pipeline
>> interface.  Note the button "Promote to staging" which allows you to
>> manually move the code on the develop server to the staging server, but
>> doesn't actually do a rebase of the code from develop branch to staging:
>>
>> Based on the questions that you're asking, I believe that it would help
>> if you had a single pipeline.
>>
>> I agree - I think we do, but perhaps I'm wrong ...
>>
>> The question that I would focus on is *What would it take to have a
>> single pipeline that has an end-goal of creating production builds*?
>> Here is a pipeline example which stops after it publishes a Docker image: changelog.com,
>> CircleCI
>> <https://circleci.com/workflow-run/065467ef-87c0-4f5e-a2ab-5e11be12403f>.
>>
>> Ooh, thanks for sharing! I had to log in to CircleCI to see that:
>>
>> but that looks really interesting.
>>
>> If you are using something like Docker Swarm or Kubernetes, the
>> platform/ecosystem has all the necessary tools to keep deployment concerns
>> self-contained. In the changelog.com case, the Docker stack that
>> captures the entire deployment has an update component that is
>> responsible for app updates
>> <https://github.com/thechangelog/changelog.com/blob/cf2ebe0de0f35c96bf664b8bc9183bd1f3468565/docker/changelog.stack.yml#L15-L31>.
>> In this specific case, if the new app version starts and is healthy for 30
>> seconds, it gets automatically promoted to live. We have been using a
>> similar approach since October 2016 <http://changelog.com/podcast/254>,
>> a Docker stack just makes it easier.
>>
>> I want to spur your imagination by sharing the pipeline that is
>> responsible for RabbitMQ v3.7.x
>> <https://ci.rabbitmq.com/teams/main/pipelines/server-release:v3.7.x>.
>> This pipeline captures what is possible if imagination is set free:
>>
>> Wow, that RabbitMQ pipeline looks amazing - and I've only captured part
>> of it in the screenshot:
>>
>>
>> * tests & builds 30+ apps...
>> * on all supported major runtime version...
>> * and all supported OSes
>> * tests upgrades
>> * tests client support
>> * releases alphas, betas, RCs & GAs
>> * and publishes to all supported distribution channels
>>
>> I hope this helps, Gerhard.
>>
>> That's extremely helpful - thankyou!
>>
>> But so just to be clear, there is something in these pipelines that
>> you're sharing that regularly moves code from one branch to another?  And
>> that's something that CircleCI and RabbitMQ provide?  Or these are
>> pipelines where the same code in the same branch is being moved through a
>> series of servers, based on tests and checks passing at each server?
>>
>> Many thanks in advance
>> Best, Sam
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