Launchpad and core24 platforms

snapcraft
1

I’m having trouble getting Apache NetBeans to build on Launchpad using the new core24 platforms keyword. It worked for years using core18 with the following:

architectures:
- build-on: amd64
  run-on: [amd64, arm64, armhf, i386]

I’d like to build it just once with core24 as I did with core18, but it seems that’s no longer possible. Below are each of my attempts to get it working.

Attempt 1

After discovering that there is in fact support for build-for: [all] in snapcraft and on Launchpad for core24, I tried the following:

platforms:
  all:
    build-on: [amd64]
    build-for: [all]

The build was successful, but the snap was rejected before being uploaded to the store:

Rejected. Automated review found 1 errors and 0 warnings.

found binaries for architecture ‘all’: netbeans/ide/bin/nativeexecution/Linux-aarch64/killall netbeans/ide/bin/nativeexecution/Linux-aarch64/process_start netbeans/ide/bin/nativeexecution/Linux-aarch64/pty … netbeans/profiler/lib/deployed/jdk16/solaris-sparcv9/libprofilerinterface.so

Apache NetBeans includes pre-compiled native tools and libraries for a dozen or more platforms and architectures that it uses locally and in remote debugging and profiling. Yet NetBeans and its snap are architecture independent and run on any system with a Java Development Kit.

Attempt 2

If I can’t build it just once, I would prefer to build it for all three platforms on amd64, which is the fastest of the three architectures. So I tried the following:

platforms:
  amd64:
    build-on: [amd64]
    build-for: [amd64]
  arm64:
    build-on: [amd64]
    build-for: [arm64]
  armhf:
    build-on: [amd64]
    build-for: [armhf]

This build failed with the message:

Multiple builds match the current platform: ‘amd64’, ‘arm64’, and ‘armhf’. Recommended resolution: Check the “–platform” and “–build-for” parameters.

Attempt 3

This time I tried building for each architecture on the same architecture:

platforms:
  amd64:
  arm64:
  armhf:

But when I try to build this snap for just amd64, for example, it failed immediately with a Launchpad internal error:

Launchpad encountered an internal error during the following operation: requesting builds of strictly-netbeans. It was logged with id OOPS-3493581347cf2eea5f78cbe46e4ef456. Sorry for the inconvenience.

and the snap page on Launchpad shows:

Failed build request - a moment ago (‘arm64’ is not a supported platform for ‘core24’.)

This is a known Launchpad issue reported twice:

Attempt 4

So this time I made everything explicit with the following:

platforms:
  amd64:
    build-on: [amd64]
    build-for: [amd64]
  arm64:
    build-on: [arm64]
    build-for: [arm64]
  armhf:
    build-on: [armhf]
    build-for: [armhf]

and I think it worked (at least for amd64, while the other two show “Automated review not yet completed”). The build times are:

  • amd64 - 18m 20s
  • arm64 - 34m 20s
  • armhf - 32m 39s

So now I’m building three times and on two relatively slow architectures, all to produce equivalent snap packages that can work anywhere.

Is there some alternative I’m missing?

2

Hi @jgneff,

I understand why review-tools flags architecture-independent snaps with binaries, but you have a valid use-case here. I think the most productive path would be to raise a bug in review-tools to discuss possible alternatives.

Attempts 2 and 3 are known problems in Launchpad and are expected to be resolved later this year with improvements to Launchpad’s parsing of the platforms keyword.

I agree that option 4 is currently the best option at this time, despite being the least efficient.

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3

Thank you for the quick and detailed reply, Callahan. I reported the following issue:

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