Safely cleaning 'downloads'

Safely cleaning 'downloads'

[Gary Thomas]

Over time, I tend to build in the same build tree many, many
times.  This leads to some really big trees as many things are
duplicated, especially in the 'downloads' directory.

I use local mirrors and hence my 'downloads' directory is
_mostly_ populated with symbolic links.  However, there are
also expanded SCM packages, e.g. git2/xxx

How can I safely clean up the 'downloads' directory?  I already
copy any created tarballs (I use BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS="1"
to preclude unneeded downloads) to my mirror, but I'd like to
periodically clean out the whole directory (without disturbing
my builds of course).  I've found out the hard way that just
emptying seems to be unsafe, at least for some recipes like
the [RaspberryPi] Linux kernel recipe which once built seems
to expect the expanded git2/xxx tree to remain.

Just trying to find ways to recover my lost GB...

Thanks for any ideas

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Thomas                 |  Consulting for the
MLB Associates              |    Embedded world
------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Safely cleaning 'downloads'

[Smith, Virgil]

The following is roughly the procedure I follow and that works for me.  Maybe someone could chime in with how some of this should be trimmed based on yocto/bitbake intent/design.
Even so I'd probably stick with this level of extremism because without a known good backup of your downloads(sources) you may be incapable of (tweaking and) rebuilding your products if anything happens to your build server.

The only reason I've seen that simply deleting the downloads folder causes problems is that external servers/content go away, violate their git history, or replace files with non-identical contents.


Warning: The following does not maintain PR server information, so automatic upgrading of your own packages could break.  If you rely on this work out how to extract that information (and back it up regularly).

1. rename/move your current downloads folder and create a new one.
2. for all of your product build configurations empty out the following folders
2.1 cache
2.2 state-cache
2.3 tmp
3. build (bitbake) all your product images with all appropriate configuration variances
4. run the following command to extract the unexpanded sources from downloads
find -H downloads -maxdepth 1 \
     -not -type d   -and   -not -name "*.done" \
     -exec cp -L {} sources-tmp \;

You now have everything you *currently* need for a sources mirror in the sources-tmp folder.

5. move sources-tmp to wherever/whatever backs your SOURCE_MIRROR_URL.
6. Check those contents into some form of revision control (even if that is just a manual set of backup folders/media).


Yes this is costs time and space, you just have to decide how much your images and how much being able to reproduce them (with or without 'small' changes) is worth.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: yocto-bounces@yoctoproject.org [mailto:yocto-
> bounces@yoctoproject.org] On Behalf Of Gary Thomas
> Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2015 7:14 AM
> To: Yocto Project
> Subject: [yocto] Safely cleaning 'downloads'
>
> Over time, I tend to build in the same build tree many, many times.  This leads to
> some really big trees as many things are duplicated, especially in the 'downloads'
> directory.
>
> I use local mirrors and hence my 'downloads' directory is _mostly_ populated
> with symbolic links.  However, there are also expanded SCM packages, e.g.
> git2/xxx
>
> How can I safely clean up the 'downloads' directory?  I already copy any created
> tarballs (I use BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS="1"
> to preclude unneeded downloads) to my mirror, but I'd like to periodically clean
> out the whole directory (without disturbing my builds of course).  I've found out
> the hard way that just emptying seems to be unsafe, at least for some recipes
> like the [RaspberryPi] Linux kernel recipe which once built seems to expect the
> expanded git2/xxx tree to remain.
>
> Just trying to find ways to recover my lost GB...
>
> Thanks for any ideas
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Gary Thomas                 |  Consulting for the
> MLB Associates              |    Embedded world
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> _______________________________________________
> yocto mailing list
> yocto@yoctoproject.org
> https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/yocto

________________________________

Notice to recipient: This email is meant for only the intended recipient of the transmission, and may be a communication privileged by law, subject to export control restrictions or that otherwise contains proprietary information. If you receive this email by mistake, please notify us immediately by replying to this message and then destroy it and do not review, disclose, copy or distribute it. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Re: Safely cleaning 'downloads'

[Gary Thomas]

On 2015-10-01 10:38, Smith, Virgil wrote:
> The following is roughly the procedure I follow and that works for me.  Maybe someone could chime in with how some of this should be trimmed based on yocto/bitbake intent/design.
> Even so I'd probably stick with this level of extremism because without a known good backup of your downloads(sources) you may be incapable of (tweaking and) rebuilding your products if anything happens to your build server.
>
> The only reason I've seen that simply deleting the downloads folder causes problems is that external servers/content go away, violate their git history, or replace files with non-identical contents.
>
>
> Warning: The following does not maintain PR server information, so automatic upgrading of your own packages could break.  If you rely on this work out how to extract that information (and back it up regularly).
>
> 1. rename/move your current downloads folder and create a new one.
> 2. for all of your product build configurations empty out the following folders
> 2.1 cache
> 2.2 state-cache
> 2.3 tmp
> 3. build (bitbake) all your product images with all appropriate configuration variances
> 4. run the following command to extract the unexpanded sources from downloads
> find -H downloads -maxdepth 1 \
>       -not -type d   -and   -not -name "*.done" \
>       -exec cp -L {} sources-tmp \;
>
> You now have everything you *currently* need for a sources mirror in the sources-tmp folder.
>
> 5. move sources-tmp to wherever/whatever backs your SOURCE_MIRROR_URL.
> 6. Check those contents into some form of revision control (even if that is just a manual set of backup folders/media).
>
>
> Yes this is costs time and space, you just have to decide how much your images and how much being able to reproduce them (with or without 'small' changes) is worth.

I'm already doing more or less this same sequence.  I use these commands to
stage the downloaded files to my mirror (/work/misc/Poky/sources for historical reasons)
   ( cd downloads;
     find . -maxdepth 1 -type f | grep -v '.lock$' | grep -v '.done$' >/tmp/files.$$;
     rsync -auv --files-from=/tmp/files.$$ . /work/misc/Poky/sources
   )

This works very well (I've been doing it for many years).  The issue I'm trying
to work on now is that my script leaves 'downloads' possibly full of files, especially
if there are new versions that have just been downloaded.  This is especially noticeable
for the tarballs of GIT trees - there are a number that I need/use that are measured in
gigabytes (e.g. the RaspberryPi board firmware is 4194568645 bytes as of 2015-07-20!)
Once I've saved these to my mirror(s), I'd like to be able to purge them from the local
download directory in my builds.  As mentioned, I've found that just wiping that in a
build tree tends to break things quite badly.  Of course I can always start over with
a new build tree, but that also defeats the purpose of incremental builds.

>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: yocto-bounces@yoctoproject.org [mailto:yocto-
>> bounces@yoctoproject.org] On Behalf Of Gary Thomas
>> Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2015 7:14 AM
>> To: Yocto Project
>> Subject: [yocto] Safely cleaning 'downloads'
>>
>> Over time, I tend to build in the same build tree many, many times.  This leads to
>> some really big trees as many things are duplicated, especially in the 'downloads'
>> directory.
>>
>> I use local mirrors and hence my 'downloads' directory is _mostly_ populated
>> with symbolic links.  However, there are also expanded SCM packages, e.g.
>> git2/xxx
>>
>> How can I safely clean up the 'downloads' directory?  I already copy any created
>> tarballs (I use BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS="1"
>> to preclude unneeded downloads) to my mirror, but I'd like to periodically clean
>> out the whole directory (without disturbing my builds of course).  I've found out
>> the hard way that just emptying seems to be unsafe, at least for some recipes
>> like the [RaspberryPi] Linux kernel recipe which once built seems to expect the
>> expanded git2/xxx tree to remain.
>>
>> Just trying to find ways to recover my lost GB...
>>
>> Thanks for any ideas
>>
>> --
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> Gary Thomas                 |  Consulting for the
>> MLB Associates              |    Embedded world
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> --
>> _______________________________________________
>> yocto mailing list
>> yocto@yoctoproject.org
>> https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/yocto
>
> ________________________________
>
> Notice to recipient: This email is meant for only the intended recipient of the transmission, and may be a communication privileged by law, subject to export control restrictions or that otherwise contains proprietary information. If you receive this email by mistake, please notify us immediately by replying to this message and then destroy it and do not review, disclose, copy or distribute it. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.
>

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Thomas                 |  Consulting for the
MLB Associates              |    Embedded world
------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Safely cleaning 'downloads'

[Christopher Larson]

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On Thu, Oct 1, 2015 at 9:49 AM, Gary Thomas <gary@mlbassoc.com> wrote:

> On 2015-10-01 10:38, Smith, Virgil wrote:
>
>> The following is roughly the procedure I follow and that works for me.
>> Maybe someone could chime in with how some of this should be trimmed based
>> on yocto/bitbake intent/design.
>> Even so I'd probably stick with this level of extremism because without a
>> known good backup of your downloads(sources) you may be incapable of
>> (tweaking and) rebuilding your products if anything happens to your build
>> server.
>>
>> The only reason I've seen that simply deleting the downloads folder
>> causes problems is that external servers/content go away, violate their git
>> history, or replace files with non-identical contents.
>>
>>
>> Warning: The following does not maintain PR server information, so
>> automatic upgrading of your own packages could break.  If you rely on this
>> work out how to extract that information (and back it up regularly).
>>
>> 1. rename/move your current downloads folder and create a new one.
>> 2. for all of your product build configurations empty out the following
>> folders
>> 2.1 cache
>> 2.2 state-cache
>> 2.3 tmp
>> 3. build (bitbake) all your product images with all appropriate
>> configuration variances
>> 4. run the following command to extract the unexpanded sources from
>> downloads
>> find -H downloads -maxdepth 1 \
>>       -not -type d   -and   -not -name "*.done" \
>>       -exec cp -L {} sources-tmp \;
>>
>> You now have everything you *currently* need for a sources mirror in the
>> sources-tmp folder.
>>
>> 5. move sources-tmp to wherever/whatever backs your SOURCE_MIRROR_URL.
>> 6. Check those contents into some form of revision control (even if that
>> is just a manual set of backup folders/media).
>>
>>
>> Yes this is costs time and space, you just have to decide how much your
>> images and how much being able to reproduce them (with or without 'small'
>> changes) is worth.
>>
>
> I'm already doing more or less this same sequence.  I use these commands to
> stage the downloaded files to my mirror (/work/misc/Poky/sources for
> historical reasons)
>   ( cd downloads;
>     find . -maxdepth 1 -type f | grep -v '.lock$' | grep -v '.done$'
> >/tmp/files.$$;
>     rsync -auv --files-from=/tmp/files.$$ . /work/misc/Poky/sources
>   )
>
> This works very well (I've been doing it for many years).  The issue I'm
> trying
> to work on now is that my script leaves 'downloads' possibly full of
> files, especially
> if there are new versions that have just been downloaded.  This is
> especially noticeable
> for the tarballs of GIT trees - there are a number that I need/use that
> are measured in
> gigabytes (e.g. the RaspberryPi board firmware is 4194568645 bytes as of
> 2015-07-20!)
> Once I've saved these to my mirror(s), I'd like to be able to purge them
> from the local
> download directory in my builds.  As mentioned, I've found that just
> wiping that in a
> build tree tends to break things quite badly.  Of course I can always
> start over with
> a new build tree, but that also defeats the purpose of incremental builds.


I'd think something like this would get the job done:

1. Do a build of all your supported machines and configurations with
BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS=1 to ensure you have current, not out of date
scm tarballs.

2. Set up builds of all your supported machines and configurations, using a
new DL_DIR, with PREMIRRORS pointing to the old DL_DIR.

3. Either clean up the old DL_DIR by access time before you kicked off the
builds, or resolve the symlinks in the new DL_DIR and remove the old.
-- 
Christopher Larson
clarson at kergoth dot com
Founder - BitBake, OpenEmbedded, OpenZaurus
Maintainer - Tslib
Senior Software Engineer, Mentor Graphics

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Re: Safely cleaning 'downloads'

[Martin Jansa]

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On Thu, Oct 01, 2015 at 09:54:51AM -0700, Christopher Larson wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 1, 2015 at 9:49 AM, Gary Thomas <gary@mlbassoc.com> wrote:
> 
> > On 2015-10-01 10:38, Smith, Virgil wrote:
> >
> >> The following is roughly the procedure I follow and that works for me.
> >> Maybe someone could chime in with how some of this should be trimmed based
> >> on yocto/bitbake intent/design.
> >> Even so I'd probably stick with this level of extremism because without a
> >> known good backup of your downloads(sources) you may be incapable of
> >> (tweaking and) rebuilding your products if anything happens to your build
> >> server.
> >>
> >> The only reason I've seen that simply deleting the downloads folder
> >> causes problems is that external servers/content go away, violate their git
> >> history, or replace files with non-identical contents.
> >>
> >>
> >> Warning: The following does not maintain PR server information, so
> >> automatic upgrading of your own packages could break.  If you rely on this
> >> work out how to extract that information (and back it up regularly).
> >>
> >> 1. rename/move your current downloads folder and create a new one.
> >> 2. for all of your product build configurations empty out the following
> >> folders
> >> 2.1 cache
> >> 2.2 state-cache
> >> 2.3 tmp
> >> 3. build (bitbake) all your product images with all appropriate
> >> configuration variances
> >> 4. run the following command to extract the unexpanded sources from
> >> downloads
> >> find -H downloads -maxdepth 1 \
> >>       -not -type d   -and   -not -name "*.done" \
> >>       -exec cp -L {} sources-tmp \;
> >>
> >> You now have everything you *currently* need for a sources mirror in the
> >> sources-tmp folder.
> >>
> >> 5. move sources-tmp to wherever/whatever backs your SOURCE_MIRROR_URL.
> >> 6. Check those contents into some form of revision control (even if that
> >> is just a manual set of backup folders/media).
> >>
> >>
> >> Yes this is costs time and space, you just have to decide how much your
> >> images and how much being able to reproduce them (with or without 'small'
> >> changes) is worth.
> >>
> >
> > I'm already doing more or less this same sequence.  I use these commands to
> > stage the downloaded files to my mirror (/work/misc/Poky/sources for
> > historical reasons)
> >   ( cd downloads;
> >     find . -maxdepth 1 -type f | grep -v '.lock$' | grep -v '.done$'
> > >/tmp/files.$$;
> >     rsync -auv --files-from=/tmp/files.$$ . /work/misc/Poky/sources
> >   )
> >
> > This works very well (I've been doing it for many years).  The issue I'm
> > trying
> > to work on now is that my script leaves 'downloads' possibly full of
> > files, especially
> > if there are new versions that have just been downloaded.  This is
> > especially noticeable
> > for the tarballs of GIT trees - there are a number that I need/use that
> > are measured in
> > gigabytes (e.g. the RaspberryPi board firmware is 4194568645 bytes as of
> > 2015-07-20!)
> > Once I've saved these to my mirror(s), I'd like to be able to purge them
> > from the local
> > download directory in my builds.  As mentioned, I've found that just
> > wiping that in a
> > build tree tends to break things quite badly.  Of course I can always
> > start over with
> > a new build tree, but that also defeats the purpose of incremental builds.
> 
> 
> I'd think something like this would get the job done:
> 
> 1. Do a build of all your supported machines and configurations with
> BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS=1 to ensure you have current, not out of date
> scm tarballs.
> 
> 2. Set up builds of all your supported machines and configurations, using a
> new DL_DIR, with PREMIRRORS pointing to the old DL_DIR.
> 
> 3. Either clean up the old DL_DIR by access time before you kicked off the
> builds, or resolve the symlinks in the new DL_DIR and remove the old.

I'm doing the same, but make sure not to re-use sstate in 2nd build,
otherwise many components can be re-used from sstate without the need to
download their sources.

It's easier to use fetchall task instead of actual build in 2nd step.

Similarly when doing the same to clean sstate-cache (if you don't trust
sstate-cache-management.sh) you can end with 2nd build completely built
from sstate, but sstate for many intermediate dependencies wasn't
accessed - you can almost build whole image just by reusing packagedata
sstate archives for all included packages, but once you modify one of
them then you'll need do_populate_sysroot archives for all it's
dependencies.

Regards,

-- 
Martin 'JaMa' Jansa     jabber: Martin.Jansa@gmail.com

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Re: Safely cleaning 'downloads'

[Gary Thomas]

On 2015-10-01 10:54, Christopher Larson wrote:
>
> On Thu, Oct 1, 2015 at 9:49 AM, Gary Thomas <gary@mlbassoc.com <mailto:gary@mlbassoc.com>> wrote:
>
>     On 2015-10-01 10:38, Smith, Virgil wrote:
>
>         The following is roughly the procedure I follow and that works for me.  Maybe someone could chime in with how some of this should be trimmed based on yocto/bitbake
>         intent/design.
>         Even so I'd probably stick with this level of extremism because without a known good backup of your downloads(sources) you may be incapable of (tweaking and) rebuilding
>         your products if anything happens to your build server.
>
>         The only reason I've seen that simply deleting the downloads folder causes problems is that external servers/content go away, violate their git history, or replace files
>         with non-identical contents.
>
>
>         Warning: The following does not maintain PR server information, so automatic upgrading of your own packages could break.  If you rely on this work out how to extract that
>         information (and back it up regularly).
>
>         1. rename/move your current downloads folder and create a new one.
>         2. for all of your product build configurations empty out the following folders
>         2.1 cache
>         2.2 state-cache
>         2.3 tmp
>         3. build (bitbake) all your product images with all appropriate configuration variances
>         4. run the following command to extract the unexpanded sources from downloads
>         find -H downloads -maxdepth 1 \
>                -not -type d   -and   -not -name "*.done" \
>                -exec cp -L {} sources-tmp \;
>
>         You now have everything you *currently* need for a sources mirror in the sources-tmp folder.
>
>         5. move sources-tmp to wherever/whatever backs your SOURCE_MIRROR_URL.
>         6. Check those contents into some form of revision control (even if that is just a manual set of backup folders/media).
>
>
>         Yes this is costs time and space, you just have to decide how much your images and how much being able to reproduce them (with or without 'small' changes) is worth.
>
>
>     I'm already doing more or less this same sequence.  I use these commands to
>     stage the downloaded files to my mirror (/work/misc/Poky/sources for historical reasons)
>        ( cd downloads;
>          find . -maxdepth 1 -type f | grep -v '.lock$' | grep -v '.done$' >/tmp/files.$$;
>          rsync -auv --files-from=/tmp/files.$$ . /work/misc/Poky/sources
>        )
>
>     This works very well (I've been doing it for many years).  The issue I'm trying
>     to work on now is that my script leaves 'downloads' possibly full of files, especially
>     if there are new versions that have just been downloaded.  This is especially noticeable
>     for the tarballs of GIT trees - there are a number that I need/use that are measured in
>     gigabytes (e.g. the RaspberryPi board firmware is 4194568645 <tel:4194568645> bytes as of 2015-07-20!)
>     Once I've saved these to my mirror(s), I'd like to be able to purge them from the local
>     download directory in my builds.  As mentioned, I've found that just wiping that in a
>     build tree tends to break things quite badly.  Of course I can always start over with
>     a new build tree, but that also defeats the purpose of incremental builds.
>
>
> I'd think something like this would get the job done:
>
> 1. Do a build of all your supported machines and configurations with BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS=1 to ensure you have current, not out of date scm tarballs.
>
> 2. Set up builds of all your supported machines and configurations, using a new DL_DIR, with PREMIRRORS pointing to the old DL_DIR.
>
> 3. Either clean up the old DL_DIR by access time before you kicked off the builds, or resolve the symlinks in the new DL_DIR and remove the old.

Still not terribly different than what I'm doing - I already use
BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS which is what leads to the giant
tarballs in my downloads (and later mirror(s)).  All of that works
great.  I just want to be able to clean up my downloads directory
after a successful build and still be able to do an incremental
build in that tree.

Here's an example with more details:
   1. Set up a [virgin] build tree for some target.  This establishes
      use of premirrors, etc.  Also sets BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS so
      any new SCM packages will get saved.
   2. Build the desired images
   3. At this point, my 'downloads' directory has the new SCM (and other)
      files that were needed that were not already in the mirrors.
   4. Save any downloaded file updates (using my script/commands as above)
      to my mirror(s)
   5. Purge anything that is in 'downloads' that is now in the mirror(s)
   6. Sometime later, presumably after some package updates, metadata changes,
      etc, rebuild the same target images in this same tree - incremental rebuild.

I've been doing this sequence (except for step 5) for a long time and everything
works great, my only question is how to safely execute step 5.  This is useful
as on my build machine I may have many such build trees and if each one has
a downloads directory with many duplicated (many GB) tar files, it can really
add up.

I just ran a test of the above sequence and for step 5 I simply removed the
files which were saved during my 'save_download' script.  I left everything
else (still a lot, in this case >6GB).  This seemed to be totally safe and
looks like it will answer my original question.

Thanks for all the help & ideas

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Thomas                 |  Consulting for the
MLB Associates              |    Embedded world
------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Safely cleaning 'downloads'

[Laurentiu Palcu]

Hi Garry,

It's probably a little late (I'm not reading the Yocto mailing lists
very often now) but sometime ago I ran out of space myself and I wrote
this script that I sent out on oe-core mailing list. It did the job for
me. For some reason it didn't make it in master but maybe you find it
useful.

I didn't test it since then though. Maybe things changed, I don't know.
Give it a try if you wish. If you want to play safe, I recommend making
a copy of your downloads directory (if you have space left). :)

http://lists.openembedded.org/pipermail/openembedded-core/2015-June/106026.html

laurentiu

On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 06:13:39AM -0600, Gary Thomas wrote:
> Over time, I tend to build in the same build tree many, many
> times.  This leads to some really big trees as many things are
> duplicated, especially in the 'downloads' directory.
> 
> I use local mirrors and hence my 'downloads' directory is
> _mostly_ populated with symbolic links.  However, there are
> also expanded SCM packages, e.g. git2/xxx
> 
> How can I safely clean up the 'downloads' directory?  I already
> copy any created tarballs (I use BB_GENERATE_MIRROR_TARBALLS="1"
> to preclude unneeded downloads) to my mirror, but I'd like to
> periodically clean out the whole directory (without disturbing
> my builds of course).  I've found out the hard way that just
> emptying seems to be unsafe, at least for some recipes like
> the [RaspberryPi] Linux kernel recipe which once built seems
> to expect the expanded git2/xxx tree to remain.
> 
> Just trying to find ways to recover my lost GB...
> 
> Thanks for any ideas
> 
> -- 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Gary Thomas                 |  Consulting for the
> MLB Associates              |    Embedded world
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> -- 
> _______________________________________________
> yocto mailing list
> yocto@yoctoproject.org
> https://lists.yoctoproject.org/listinfo/yocto