Heterogeneous deployment/Train deploys

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Pairing on the Train

As of October 2019, there are two people assigned to each week's train: One as primary, and one as backup. These are rough guidelines for sharing the work, and should be improved as we learn more.

• On Monday, communicate with your partner and establish how you'll collaborate over the course of the week.
  • Updates on IRC while your partner is working and updates on the train blocker ticket if they're offline seems to be a useful pattern.
  • Liberal use of video chat for pairing on hard problems is encouraged.
  • It seems to work well to have the primary do the work of cutting the branch, syncing wikis, etc., while the backup keeps an eye on logs, works on improvements to deploy tooling, and is generally an extra pair of eyes for the whole process.
  • If you are in doubt about any part of the process and it's during your partner's working hours, consult them first and get their help in resolving your questions.
• If one member of the pair is in the European window and one is in the American window, both train deployment windows should be reserved on the Deployments calendar. This gives a backup deployer a defined window for moving the train forward outside the primary's working hours, if it becomes necessary.
• If the train is blocked or there are any other issues, communicate the transfer of responsibility on the train blocker ticket by assigning it to the responsible party and leaving a note.

Initial setup

SSH into deploy1002.eqiad.wmnet and run

USERNAME@deploy1002:~$ git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/tools/release

Breakage

There will be times when this process does not go smoothly. There are guidelines for what do to when that happens.

In general, if there is an unexplained error that occurs within 1 hour of a train deployment — always roll back the train. Rolling back the train to eliminate it as the cause of unexplained breakage can be especially important if there are many ongoing possible causes for issues as this helps to eliminate one of those causes as the source of problems.

Rollback

To rollback a wikiversion change, it should be pretty quick. Go ahead and rollback production before you send patches up to gerrit since waiting on Jenkins may take a while:

USERNAME@deploy1001:/srv/mediawiki-staging$ git revert $(git log -1 --format=%H -- wikiversions.json)
USERNAME@deploy1001:/srv/mediawiki-staging$ scap sync-wikiversions 'Revert "group[0|1] wikis to [VERSION]"'

# Now that you've synced the revert, push patches up to gerrit, you have to run git commit --amend to get the changeid
# Ideally, you should also add the train blocker task id to the Bug: field for this commit
USERNAME@deploy1001:/srv/mediawiki-staging$ git commit --amend
USERNAME@deploy1001:/srv/mediawiki-staging$ git push origin HEAD:refs/for/master%topic=[VERSION],l=Code-Review+2

Example:

USERNAME@deploy1001:/srv/mediawiki-staging$ git push origin HEAD:refs/for/master%topic=1.34.0-wmf.0,l=Code-Review+2

• Wait for the patch to merge and the fetch back down to the deployment server

• #Update roadmap.

Places to Watch for Breakage

Train deployers should check for breakage as they are rolling out the train as they are effectively the first line of defense for train deploys. Some of the places to watch for breakage:

• IRC
  • Primary channel is #wikimedia-operations ^connect
  • Useful channels are #mediawiki-core ^connect #wikimedia-dev ^connect
  • For more channels see MediaWiki on IRC and IRC/Channels
• Logs
  • mwlog1001:
    • logspam-watch
    • logfiles in /srv/mw-log
  • Logstash mediawiki-errors dashboard
  • Logstash "mediawiki-new-errors" dashboard (linked from logstash front page)
  • See the Wikimedia-production-error workboard for known issues
  • Logstash mw-client-errors dashboard
    • New errors appearing more than 1000 times in a 12 hour period should be considered blockers
    • See also Grafana dashboard with summary of average error rate over time
• Grafana
  • Varnish http-errors dashboard (HTTP 5XX % should have 3+ 0s after the decimal point, e.g. 0.0001%)
  • Frontend Responses NGINX vs Varnish
  • Production Logging
  • Minerva Client Errors - Browser JS errors count (only wikipedias on mobile)
  • Application Servers RED Dashboard

If the train is blocked

• A task will be assigned to you, for example T191059 (1.32.0-wmf.13 deployment blockers) (you can see that week's task at https://train-blockers.toolforge.org)
• Any open subtasks block the train from moving forward. This means no further deployments until the blockers are resolved.

Checklist

If there are blocking tasks, please do the following:

• Make sure all tasks blocking train are set to UBN! priority in phabricator
• Comment on the task asking for an ETA or if this can be solved by reverting a recent commit.
• Send e-mail to:
  • ops@lists.wikimedia.org
  • wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
  • Ping private #engineering-all Slack channel
  • Subject: [Train] {version} status update
  • Body

    The {version} version of MediaWiki is blocked[0].
    
    The new version is deployed to {group(s){0,1,2}}[1], but can proceed no
    further until these issues are resolved:
    
    * {Phab task name} - {phab task link}
    
    Once these issues are resolved train can resume. If these issues are
    resolved on a Friday the train will resume Monday.
    
    Thank you for your help resolving these issues!
    
    -- Your humble train toiler
    
    [0]. <{link to phab task for train}>
    [1]. <https://versions.toolforge.org/>
    

• Add relevant people (see Developers/Maintainers) to the blocking task
• Ping relevant people in IRC
• Once train is unblocked be sure to thank the folks who helped unblock it

Weekly steps

Monday: Sync up with your deployment partner

See the train pairing section above.

Tuesday: New branch creation and deploy

Before the deploy window

Depending on how practiced you are and where you choose to run commands (full clones of mediawiki-core from outside the cluster can take a while), the steps will typically take 45 to 90 minutes.

Short-form instructions

Step		host	command	example
P-0	Verify branch cut job worked	Your laptop	The branch cut is performed by a Jenkins job that runs on Tuesdays at 02:00 UTC on the releases-jenkins instance. The job creates and merges the wmf/* branch. It also builds and posts the changelog. Navigate to Gerrit to find the branch commit that the job created. If there is no commit for the current train branch shown in Gerrit, you can troubleshoot via the releases-jenkins job.
P-3	Enter screen (or tmux if you prefer) Note	deploy1002.eqiad.wmnet	USERNAME@deploy1002:~$ screen -D -RR train
P-4	Set local ssh-agent in session	deploy1002	USERNAME@deploy1002:~$ eval $(ssh-agent) USERNAME@deploy1002:~$ ssh-add .ssh/id_ed25519
P-5	Clone new branch in production, apply patches, deploy to test-wikis, and cleanup old versions 🐌 Note: this step takes > 1 hour.	deploy1002	USERNAME@deploy1002:~$ scap stage-train [VERSION]	USERNAME@deploy1002:~$ scap stage-train 1.34.0-wmf.0 You can also run this command with the --dry-run option to see all the commands it will try to run: USERNAME@deploy1002:~$ scap stage-train --dry-run 1.34.0-wmf.0
Wait for the deploy window

Full instructions

Setup

The script to cut a branch is run on your local machine (as of Jan 2020).

Local .netrc setup

Create a .netrc file in your home directory with the following content.

you@yourlaptop:~$ vim .netrc
machine gerrit.wikimedia.org login [USERNAME] password [PASSWORD]

Username and password can obtained from Gerrit:

• In the new UI go to HTTP Credentials, copy Username and click Generate new password to generate new password.
• In the old UI, go to HTTP Password, copy Username and click Generate Password to generate new password.

Make sure .netrc file is only readable by you.

you@yourlaptop:~$ chmod go-rwx .netrc

Clone or update mediawiki/tools/release.

USERNAME@yourlaptop:~$ git clone https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/mediawiki/tools/release

To run branch.py you need to have the pygerrit2 library installed for Python3. In Debian 10 (buster), the python3-pygerrit2 package works.

Create the new branch in Gerrit

you@yourlaptop:~/release/make-release/ $ ./branch.py --core --core-bundle wmf_core --bundle wmf_branch --branchpoint HEAD --core-version [VERSION] [WMF BRANCH]

you@yourlaptop:~/release/make-release/ $ ./branch.py --core --core-bundle wmf_core --bundle wmf_branch --branchpoint HEAD --core-version 1.34.0-wmf.0 wmf/1.34.0-wmf.0

In #wikimedia-operations ^connect, drop a quick log note that you've kicked off the branch process so that others know it's underway, e.g.:

!log 1.35.0-wmf.14 was branched at fb16374c5bdb9d14729f358fb81638fc91640b4f for T233862

The script will create a release patch, like this one, under your gerrit account. You must C+2 this, and wait for it to merge, to proceed.

tmux or screen

Now that the branch has been cut on your local machine, the remainder of the work will be done on the deployment host: deploy1002.eqiad.wmnet

Some scripts run for 10-60 minutes so consider using tmux or screen.

If you prefer tmux:

USERNAME@deploy1002:~$ tmux new -s train
...
USERNAME@deploy1002:~$ exit

If you need to leave in the middle you can do ctrl-b d to detach and tmux a -t train to attach.

If you prefer screen:

USERNAME@deploy1002:~$ screen -D -RR train
...
USERNAME@deploy1002:~$ exit

If you need to leave in the middle you can do ctrl-a d to detach and screen -r train to attach.

In either the tmux or the screen session, you'll want to start an ssh-agent and load your local key there:

USERNAME@deploy1002:~$ eval $(ssh-agent)
USERNAME@deploy1002:~$ ssh-add .ssh/id_ed25519

Clone new branch

This command will create a new /srv/mediawiki-staging/php-[VERSION] directory:

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging$ scap prep [VERSION]

Example:

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging$ scap prep 1.34.0-wmf.0

This should only take a couple of minutes.

Apply security patches

Short version

scap patch [VERSION]

• Patches should be named sequentially in the order that they will cleanly apply (e.g. 01-T[NUMBER].patch, 02-T[NUMBER].patch)
• Checks and applies each patch in both /srv/patches/[VERSION]/core and /srv/patches/[VERSION]/extensions/[NAME] to the new core checkout and extensions, respectively.

Check existing patches:

USERNAME@deploy1002:~$ tree /srv/patches/[VERSION]
/srv/patches/[VERSION]
├── core
│   ├── 01-T[NUMBER].patch
│   └── 02-T[NUMBER].patch
└── extensions
    └── [EXTENSION]
        ├── 01-T[NUMBER].patch
        └── 02-T[NUMBER].patch

Core

• You can check a core patch to see if it will apply cleanly with

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/php-[VERSION]$ git apply --check --3way /srv/patches/[VERSION]/core/[NUMBER]-T[NUMBER].patch

• If the patch checks out, apply and commit it with

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/php-[VERSION]$ git am --3way /srv/patches/[VERSION]/core/[NUMBER]-T[NUMBER].patch

Extension

• For an extension:

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/php-[VERSION]/extensions/[EXTENSION]$ git apply --check --3way /srv/patches/[VERSION]/extensions/[EXTENSION]/[NUMBER]-T[NUMBER].patch

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/php-[VERSION]/extensions/[EXTENSION]$ git am --3way /srv/patches/[VERSION]/extensions/[EXTENSION]/[NUMBER]-T[NUMBER].patch

• If the patch fails to apply, investigate whether it's due to a conflict (git status) or the patch having been merged since the new branch cut (search git log for the commit, etc.). If it turns out to be the latter, remove the patch file from the /srv/patches/[VERSION] directory.
• If you need extra help, contact Security Team (Wikimedia Foundation, MediaWiki, Office Wiki).

Create patches to update wikiversions.json

Create group0 to [VERSION] patch:

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ scap update-wikiversions group0 [VERSION]
USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ git add wikiversions.json
USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ git commit -m "Group0 to [VERSION]"

Example:

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ scap update-wikiversions group0 1.34.0-wmf.0
USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ git add wikiversions.json
USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ git commit -m "Group0 to 1.34.0-wmf.0"

Send staged patches to Gerrit for review

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ git push origin HEAD:refs/for/master%topic=[VERSION]

Example:

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ git push origin HEAD:refs/for/master%topic=1.34.0-wmf.0

Discard changes to working directory and index

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ git reset --hard origin/master

Clean up old stuff

mw:MediaWiki 1.34/Roadmap is a good place to find when a branch was created.

List all branches:

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ find . -maxdepth 1 -type d -name 'php-*' -print

Find old branches, more than 7 days old:

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ find . -mindepth 2 -maxdepth 2 -type f -path './php-*/README.md' -ctime +7 -exec dirname {} \;

For all branches more than 7 days old, drop everything with:

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ scap clean --delete [some old version from find -ctime +7 output above]

Example:

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ scap clean --delete 1.34.0-wmf.0

Active branches are visible at Wikimedia MediaWiki versions page.

Deleting a branch is a full sync of that directory, and can take 10-15 minutes each.

Sync to cluster and verify on testwiki

• Edit /srv/mediawiki-staging/wikiversions.json and set testwiki to php-[VERSION]
• Do not commit and push to Gerrit, only make this change locally on the deployment server

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ vim wikiversions.json

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging$ git diff
...
-    "testwiki": "php-[VERSION-1]",
+    "testwiki": "php-[VERSION]",
...

• Run scap to (re)build localization caches and sync changes across the cluster.
• 🐌 Note: this step may take on the order of 70-80 minutes.
• 🐌 Note: If scap seems to hang during the scap-cdb-rebuild phase of this process, you may need to try pressing enter to speed it up.

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ scap sync "testwiki to php-[VERSION] and rebuild l10n cache"

Example:

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ scap sync "testwiki to php-1.34.0-wmf.0 and rebuild l10n cache"

• Verify version change on testwiki (Installed software, Product: MediaWiki, Version: [VERSION]) and l10n cache (Special:Version should not look like Special:Version?uselang=qqx)

This can take well over an hour. Opening or reloading the version page on testwiki after the scap sync command can take a minute or two.

• Revert local changes

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ git checkout -- wikiversions.json

Update deploy notes

There is a script in the mediawiki/tools/release repo called makedeploynotes.py. It queries gerrit's gitiles to make release notes. Usage: makedeploynotes.py <old-version> <new-version>

$ python3 make-deploy-notes/makedeploynotes.py 1.35.0-wmf.24 1.35.0-wmf.25 | tee deploy-notes-1.35.0-wmf.25

From there you can copy-and-paste to the Changelog page on mediawiki.org; e.g., https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki_[VERSION]/Changelog. Example: MediaWiki 1.35/wmf.24/Changelog

Wait for deploy window

All of the changes above can be done at any time prior to the actual deployment window.

During the deploy window

Short-form instructions

Step		host	command	example
0-0	Create and auto-merge/deploy the group0 patch	deploy1002	USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ scap deploy-promote group0 Promote group0 from [PREVIOUS-VERSION] to [VERSION] [y/N] Now wait for jenkins to merge the patch, then press enter to continue with git pull && scap sync-wikiversions
0-1	Verify production has indeed switched	MediaWiki.org	Verify that mediawikiwiki has switched to the new version (Installed software, Product: MediaWiki, Version: VERSION)
0-2	Monitor production logs	logstash etc.	Monitor irc and logstash and/or logspam-watch for problems, see #Places to Watch for Breakage
0-3	Update roadmap page	mw:MediaWiki 1.39/Roadmap	Change the Deployed to group (if you're using VisualEditor) or the 3rd parameter of the WMFReleaseTableRow template (if you're using the wikitext editor) to 0 (deployed to group0)	{{WMFReleaseTableHead}} {{WMFReleaseTableRow|12|2018-07-10|0}}
0-4	Kill ssh-agent	deployment server	USERNAME@deploy1002:~$ pgrep -u "$USER" -laf ssh-agent # list all of your ssh-agent processes USERNAME@deploy1002:~$ pkill -u "$USER" -f ssh-agent # kill all your ssh-agent processes USERNAME@deploy1002:~$ pgrep -u "$USER" -laf ssh-agent # did they all die?

Full instructions

Switch group0 wikis to [VERSION]

• CR+2 group0 to [VERSION] patch in Gerrit that you submitted earlier
• Wait for Gerrit/Zuul/Jenkins to merge the patch(es)
• Pull patch(es) to deployment server

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging$ git fetch

• Check diff to ensure it is what you expect (this should show a bunch of version changes in wikiversions.json for group0 wikis)

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging$ git diff HEAD..origin/master

• Apply changes

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging$ git rebase origin/master

• Sync the change across the cluster

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging$ scap sync-wikiversions "group0 to [VERSION]"

Example:

USERNAME@deploy1002:/srv/mediawiki-staging$ scap sync-wikiversions "group0 to 1.34.0-wmf.0"

• Verify that mediawikiwiki switched to the new version (Installed software, Product: MediaWiki, Version: VERSION)
• Monitor irc and logstash and/or logspam-watch for problems, see #Places to Watch for Breakage

Update roadmap

• Change the Deployed to group (if you're using VisualEditor) or the 3rd parameter of the WMFReleaseTableRow template (if you're using the wikitext editor) to 0 (deployed to group0) at mw:MediaWiki 1.35/Roadmap.

For wikitext editor, change

{{WMFReleaseTableHead}}
{{WMFReleaseTableRow|[VERSION]|[DATE]|}}
...
{{WMFReleaseTableFooter}}

to

{{WMFReleaseTableHead}}
{{WMFReleaseTableRow|[VERSION]|[DATE]|0}}
...
{{WMFReleaseTableFooter}}

Example:

{{WMFReleaseTableHead}}
{{WMFReleaseTableRow|12|2018-07-10|0}}
...
{{WMFReleaseTableFooter}}

Terminate ssh-agents

Terminate the ssh-agent you started earlier so it doesn't linger on after you log out:

pgrep -u "$USER" -laf ssh-agent # list all of your ssh-agent processes
pkill -u "$USER" -f ssh-agent   # kill all your ssh-agent processes
pgrep -u "$USER" -laf ssh-agent # did they all die?

Every other day of the train you need to start a new ssh-agent and kill it later.

Wednesday: group0 to group1 deploy

Meta / coordination

Attend the Train Log Triage meeting with members of the Core Platform Team and others.

Short-form instructions

Step		host	command	example
1-0	Create and auto-merge/deploy the group1 patch	deploy1001	USERNAME@deploy1001:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ scap deploy-promote group1 Promote group1 from [PREVIOUS-VERSION] to [VERSION] [y/N] Now wait for jenkins to merge the patch, then press enter to continue with git pull && scap sync-wikiversions
1-1	Verify production has indeed switched	English Wiktionary	Verify that the English Wiktionary (and other group1 wikis) have switched to the new version (Installed software, Product: MediaWiki, Version: VERSION)
1-2	Monitor production logs	logstash etc.	Monitor irc and logstash and/or logspam-watch for problems, see #Places to Watch for Breakage
1-3	Update roadmap page	mw:MediaWiki 1.39/Roadmap	Change the Deployed to group (if you're using VisualEditor) or the 3rd parameter of the WMFReleaseTableRow template (if you're using the wikitext editor) to 1 (deployed to group1)	{{WMFReleaseTableHead}} {{WMFReleaseTableRow|12|2018-07-10|1}} ... {{WMFReleaseTableFooter}}

Full instructions

Switch group1 wikis to [VERSION]

Use scap deploy-promote group1 to update wikiversions.json

USERNAME@deploy1001:~$ scap deploy-promote group1
Promote group1 from [PREVIOUS-VERSION] to [VERSION] [y/N]

The script automatically Code-Review +2 the patch in Gerrit. Once CI has merged the patch, hit enter at the 2nd prompt.

Now wait for jenkins to merge the patch, then press enter to continue with git pull && scap sync-wikiversions

After the script run is complete, group1 wikis should be running [VERSION].

The above should take about five minutes, including the waiting time for Gerrit/CI.

Update roadmap

• Change the Deployed to group (if you're using VisualEditor) or the 3rd parameter of the WMFReleaseTableRow template (if you're using the wikitext editor) to 1 (deployed to group1) at mw:MediaWiki 1.38/Roadmap.

For wikitext editor, change

{{WMFReleaseTableRow|[VERSION]|[DATE]|0}}

to

{{WMFReleaseTableRow|[VERSION]|[DATE]|1}}

Example:

{{WMFReleaseTableRow|12|2018-07-10|1}}

Thursday: group{0,1} to all deploy

Short-form instructions

	Step	host	command	example
2-0	Create and auto-merge/deploy the group2 patch	deploy1001	USERNAME@deploy1001:/srv/mediawiki-staging/$ scap deploy-promote all Promote all from [PREVIOUS-VERSION] to [VERSION] [y/N] Now wait for jenkins to merge the patch, then press enter to continue with git pull && scap sync-wikiversions
2-1	Verify production has indeed switched	English Wikipedia	Verify that the English Wikipedia (and other group2 wikis) have switched to the new version (Installed software, Product: MediaWiki, Version: VERSION)
2-2	Monitor production logs	logstash etc.	Monitor irc and logstash and/or logspam-watch for problems, see #Places to Watch for Breakage
2-3	Update roadmap page	mw:MediaWiki 1.39/Roadmap	Change the Deployed to group (if you're using VisualEditor) or the 3rd parameter of the WMFReleaseTableRow template (if you're using the wikitext editor) to 2 (deployed to all)	{{WMFReleaseTableHead}} {{WMFReleaseTableRow|12|2018-07-10|2}} ... {{WMFReleaseTableFooter}}

Full instructions

Switch all wikis to [VERSION]

Thursday deploy is very similar to the Wednesday deploy, the only difference in terms of procedure is the target group

Use scap deploy-promote all to update wikiversions.json

USERNAME@deploy1001:~$ scap deploy-promote all
Promote all from [PREVIOUS-VERSION] to [VERSION] [y/N]

The script automatically Code-Review +2 the patch in Gerrit. Once CI has merged the patch, hit enter at the 2nd prompt.

Now wait for jenkins to merge the patch, then press enter to continue with git pull && scap sync-wikiversions

After the script run is complete, all wikis should be running [VERSION].

Update roadmap

• Change the Deployed to group (if you're using VisualEditor) or the 3rd parameter of the WMFReleaseTableRow template (if you're using the wikitext editor) to 2 (deployed to all wikis) at mw:MediaWiki 1.38/Roadmap.

For wikitext editor, change

{{WMFReleaseTableRow|[VERSION]|[DATE]|1}}

to

{{WMFReleaseTableRow|[VERSION]|[DATE]|2}}

Example:

{{WMFReleaseTableRow|12|2018-07-10|2}}

Incident documentation

• If there were problems during the train, follow instructions at Incident documentation on incident reports and post-mortem review.
• Use Create report form to create a new page, train-[VERSION]. Example: Incident documentation/20181212-Train-1.33.0-wmf.8.
• For Timeline section, events from SAL and Phabricator task are a good start.

See also

• For information about the current status of the versions deployed to the various wikis, see https://versions.toolforge.org/