[cstex] Žádost o poskytnutí výpočetního výkonu pro přípravu Docker obrazů TeX Live

[Vítek Novotný]

Vážení a milí přátelé TeXu,

skupina Island of TeX (IoT) brazilského TeXisty Paula Ceredy [1] veřejně
poskytuje posledních několik let aktuální a historické obrazy distribuce
TeX Live pro kontejnerovou virtualizaci TeXu [2, 3]. Kontejnerová
virtualizace je důležitá technologie, která usnadňuje vývoj a nasazení
TeXového software. Se zvětšujícím se obsahem distribuce TeX Live ale
roste i velikost obrazů a IoT naráží na limity infrastruktury, kterou
jim zdarma poskytuje firma GitLab.

Poslední měsíc jsem pro IoT konzultoval, jak by bylo možné výrobu obrazů
optimalizovat pro omezený hardware, ale došli jsme k závěru, že jsme
narazili na hranice možného. Pokud máte na své instituci hardware
s volným výpočetním výkonem a desítkami gigabajtů volného místa, které
byste mohli vyhradit, zvažte prosím zprovoznění GitLab runneru [4],
který by mohl IoT využít pro přípravu obrazů. Část výpočetního výkonu už
přislíbil poskytnout DANTE.

 [1]: https://latex.net/island-of-tex/
 [2]: https://hub.docker.com/r/texlive/texlive
 [3]: https://gitlab.com/islandoftex/images/texlive
 [4]: https://docs.gitlab.com/runner/install/index.html

S pozdravem,
Vítek Novotný

On Thu, May 12, 2022 at 07:37:10AM -0300, Paulo Roberto Massa Cereda wrote:
> Hi list,
>
> For a few years, we have been providing the more or less official TL docker
> images at https://hub.docker.com/r/texlive/texlive (repository at
> https://gitlab.com/islandoftex/images/texlive). This especially includes the
> latest TeX Live from net installer (in four flavors: no src/no doc tree,
> with src/no doc tree, no src/with doc tree, with src/with doc tree) and
> historic images (i.e. from previous years' final ISO images).
>
> Up to now, all these images and flavors have been built using GitLab CI
> which was very easy to set up and use for us. However, as of this year, TL
> has grown to a size where the GitLab provided capacities does not allow us
> to build the latest TL image with src/with doc tree anymore. And for
> historic images it even fails to build the barebones ones even for as small
> ones as TL 2014.
>
> There are two properties of the GitLab runners that fail here:
>
> - The CI runners have a job timeout of 3 hours. Especially with historic
> images where only few mirrors are available we regularly get timeouts.
>
> - The CI runners are limited to approx. 20 GB of space. With all the Docker
> setup this starts to fail when images reach approx. 5 GiB of space which the
> `latest-doc-src` image (and actually the images with documentation and
> sources of previous years) are reaching.
>
> So here we are looking for alternatives to continue providing these images.
> Our Dockerfiles are fully functional, so it is really only a matter of build
> capacity. We are open to all alternatives. The essential two alternatives we
> have thought of:
>
> - setting up an own GitLab CI runner on some hardware (which hardware?)
> - build somewhere else (some server or GitHub actions or something that
> copes with the large images).
>
> Essentially, what we need either way is longer job timeouts and more
> available disk space (approx. 30–40 GB of free space for building). RAM and
> network bandwidth are actually not a bottleneck because in this kind of
> setup, we are mostly limited by the mirrors and TL installation is primarily
> disk I/O-heavy.
>
> For both options outlined above we lack capacities. So we are looking for
> help on that or advise on other options.
>
> Just to have it mentioned somewhere: Until we have found some kind of
> replacement, we cannot continue providing all image flavors.
>
> If anyone has ideas how we can continue providing all Docker images or would
> be willing to help us implement a new build infrastructure, we are eagerly
> waiting for ideas.
>
> Greetings from the island!
>
> Cheerio,
>
> Paulo
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