Optimize disk usage by colocating Jenkins workspaces

[targos]

At the moment, each Jenkins job runs in its own workspace.
Since most of our machines are able to run only one job at a time, I suggest that we configure some of the jobs that require to build the node binary, to all run on a specific hardcoded workspace.
That way, we wouldn't have multiple copies of the build artifacts.

[targos]

Example of a host that would benefit from it: https://ci.nodejs.org/computer/test%2Dibm%2Dubuntu2204%2Dx64%2D2/

root@test-ibm-ubuntu2204-x64-2:~# df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
tmpfs           390M  1.1M  388M   1% /run
/dev/xvda2       24G   22G  829M  97% /

root@test-ibm-ubuntu2204-x64-2:~# du -sh /home/iojs/build/workspace/*
615M    /home/iojs/build/workspace/citgm-smoker
2.9G    /home/iojs/build/workspace/node-stress-single-test
2.0G    /home/iojs/build/workspace/node-test-commit-custom-suites-freestyle
20K     /home/iojs/build/workspace/node-test-commit-custom-suites-freestyle@tmp
3.4G    /home/iojs/build/workspace/node-test-commit-linux
4.0K    /home/iojs/build/workspace/node-test-commit-linux@tmp
365M    /home/iojs/build/workspace/node-test-node-addon-api-new

We could save about 5GB (and possibly some compilation time) if node-stress-single-test, node-test-commit-custom-suites-freestyle, and node-test-commit-linux used the same workspace.

[richardlau]

SGTM

[RedYetiDev]

Theoretically, we could also build the node binary in GitHub actions, which are running these jobs anyway, and download it as an artifact to save time?

[richardlau]

Theoretically, we could also build the node binary in GitHub actions, which are running these jobs anyway, and download it as an artifact to save time?

No, because GH actions does not support all of the platforms we build for.

[targos]

I started by updating https://ci.nodejs.org/view/All/job/node-test-commit-custom-suites-freestyle/ and https://ci.nodejs.org/view/All/job/node-test-commit-linux/
Their custom workspace is now /home/iojs/build/workspace/node

[richardlau]

I started by updating https://ci.nodejs.org/view/All/job/node-test-commit-custom-suites-freestyle/ and https://ci.nodejs.org/view/All/job/node-test-commit-linux/ Their custom workspace is now /home/iojs/build/workspace/node

FYI nodejs/jenkins-alerts#2871

[root@test-ibm-rhel9-x64-1 ~]# df -h /
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/xvda2       24G   21G  1.5G  94% /
[root@test-ibm-rhel9-x64-1 ~]# du -hs /home/iojs/build/workspace/*
3.1G    /home/iojs/build/workspace/node
2.9G    /home/iojs/build/workspace/node-stress-single-test
3.2G    /home/iojs/build/workspace/node-test-commit-linux
4.0K    /home/iojs/build/workspace/node-test-commit-linux@tmp
4.0K    /home/iojs/build/workspace/node@tmp
[root@test-ibm-rhel9-x64-1 ~]#

I'll delete the node-stress-single-test and node-test-commit-linux workspaces.

[targos]

The changes seem to work, but now I'm not sure how to handle node-stress-single-test. The job runs on machines that don't have /home/iojs/build/workspace (macOS, Windows).
I would like to use a relative path instead, but I'm not sure what "remote FS root" means in the inline documentation:

[richardlau]

AFAIK "remote FS root" is a combination of:

• "Remote root directory" in the agent configuration, e.g. https://ci.nodejs.org/computer/test%2Ddigitalocean%2Ddebian12%2Dx64%2D1/configure or https://ci.nodejs.org/computer/test%2Drackspace%2Dwin2022%5Fvs2022%2Dx64%2D5/configure
• hudson.model.Slave.workspaceRoot which defaults to workspace (we don't override this anywhere AFAIK).

which is how we end up with:

• /home/iojs/build/workspace on test-rackspace-win2022_vs2022-x64-5
• C:\workspace on test-rackspace-win2022_vs2022-x64-5

So I think we can set the workspace in the job to a relative "node".

[targos]

Thanks, done.
Test run: https://ci.nodejs.org/view/Stress/job/node-stress-single-test/536/

[targos]

I cancelled it and reverted the config change. It ran in /home/iojs/build/node on the workspace machine and C:\node on Windows.

[targos]

Trying again with workspace/node: https://ci.nodejs.org/job/node-stress-single-test/537/