Rebecca,

I agree there is value in running tests against latest versions of all components and there is value in using stable releases of all dependent components.

There is overhead to do both. There is also overhead to monitor all dependent components, evaluate new releases, and update versions of dependent components. I do not know how to automate these types of evaluations.

Thanks,

Mike

From: Rebecca Cran <rebecca@nuviainc.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2020 11:36 AM
To: devel@edk2.groups.io; Kinney, Michael D <michael.d.kinney@intel.com>
Cc: Sean Brogan <sean.brogan@microsoft.com>; Bret Barkelew <Bret.Barkelew@microsoft.com>; Liming Gao <gaoliming@byosoft.com.cn>; Justen, Jordan L <jordan.l.justen@intel.com>; Laszlo Ersek <lersek@redhat.com>; Ard Biesheuvel <ard.biesheuvel@arm.com>
Subject: Re: [edk2-devel] [Patch v2][edk2-stable202011 3/4] OvmfPkg/PlatformCI/.azurepiplines: Use stable release of QEMU

Hi Mike,

That does appear to be the current general approach, but I'd suggest changing it.

Because in the last week before release we shouldn't be chasing new versions of unrelated software, in my opinion.

Fortunately the switch to Ubuntu 20.04 hasn't happened yet, and is due to be rolled out beginning November 30th (https://github.com/actions/virtual-environments/issues/1816). The CI pipeline has a set of warnings: "##[warning]Ubuntu-latest pipelines will use Ubuntu-20.04 soon. For more details, see https://github.com/actions/virtual-environments/issues/1816"

--
Rebecca Cran

On 11/25/20 9:20 AM, Michael D Kinney wrote:

Hi Rebecca,
 
I think the general approach is to verify the latest version of everything
including the CI infrastructure components.
 
If a failure is detected due to a new component, then we can temporarily 
lock in a previous stable version until the issues with the new component
are resolved.
 
Mike
 

-----Original Message-----
From: devel@edk2.groups.io <devel@edk2.groups.io> On Behalf Of Rebecca Cran
Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2020 6:58 AM
To: devel@edk2.groups.io; Kinney, Michael D <michael.d.kinney@intel.com>
Cc: Sean Brogan <sean.brogan@microsoft.com>; Bret Barkelew <Bret.Barkelew@microsoft.com>; Liming Gao
<gaoliming@byosoft.com.cn>; Justen, Jordan L <jordan.l.justen@intel.com>; Laszlo Ersek <lersek@redhat.com>; Ard Biesheuvel
<ard.biesheuvel@arm.com>
Subject: Re: [edk2-devel] [Patch v2][edk2-stable202011 3/4] OvmfPkg/PlatformCI/.azurepiplines: Use stable release of QEMU
 
Related, should we use a known version of Ubuntu in testing?
 
Currently, there are several lines with 'ubuntu-latest' - e.g.:
 
.azurepipelines/Ubuntu-GCC5.yml:17:    vm_image: 'ubuntu-latest'
.azurepipelines/Ubuntu-PatchCheck.yml:21:  vmImage: 'ubuntu-latest'
 
OvmfPkg/PlatformCI/.azurepipelines/Ubuntu-GCC5.yml:20: vm_image:
'ubuntu-latest'
 
 
I'm not familiar with how Azure works, but could this cause problems
when they update their Ubuntu latest image to 21.04 etc. and things
change under us?
 
 
--
Rebecca Cran
 
 
On 11/24/20 10:07 PM, Michael D Kinney wrote:

Install the 2020.08.14 release of QEMU for Windows.
 
The QEMU release from 2020.11.20 is installed into the incorrect
directory and is causing EDK II CI failures in the run to shell
step.
 
Cc: Sean Brogan <sean.brogan@microsoft.com>
Cc: Bret Barkelew <Bret.Barkelew@microsoft.com>
Cc: Liming Gao <gaoliming@byosoft.com.cn>
Cc: Jordan Justen <jordan.l.justen@intel.com>
Cc: Laszlo Ersek <lersek@redhat.com>
Cc: Ard Biesheuvel <ard.biesheuvel@arm.com>
Signed-off-by: Michael D Kinney <michael.d.kinney@intel.com>
---
 OvmfPkg/PlatformCI/.azurepipelines/Windows-VS2019.yml | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
 
diff --git a/OvmfPkg/PlatformCI/.azurepipelines/Windows-VS2019.yml b/OvmfPkg/PlatformCI/.azurepipelines/Windows-

VS2019.yml

index 02ed233fdb60..dd19fff50066 100644
--- a/OvmfPkg/PlatformCI/.azurepipelines/Windows-VS2019.yml
+++ b/OvmfPkg/PlatformCI/.azurepipelines/Windows-VS2019.yml
@@ -132,7 +132,7 @@ jobs:
 build_flags: $(Build.Flags)
 run_flags: $(Run.Flags)
 extra_install_step:
- - powershell: choco install qemu; Write-Host "##vso[task.prependpath]c:\Program Files\qemu"
+ - powershell: choco install qemu --version=2020.08.14; Write-Host "##vso[task.prependpath]c:\Program

Files\qemu"

 displayName: Install QEMU and Set QEMU on path # friendly name displayed in the UI
 condition: and(gt(variables.pkg_count, 0), succeeded())