tests/test-clonebundles.t

clonebundles: support for seeding clones from pre-generated bundles

Cloning can be an expensive operation for servers because the server
generates a bundle from existing repository data at request time. For
a large repository like mozilla-central, this consumes 4+ minutes
of CPU time on the server. It also results in significant network
utilization. Multiplied by hundreds or even thousands of clients and
the ensuing load can result in difficulties scaling the Mercurial server.

Despite generation of bundles being deterministic until the next
changeset is added, the generation of bundles to service a clone request
is not cached. Each clone thus performs redundant work. This is
wasteful.

This patch introduces the "clonebundles" extension and related
client-side functionality to help alleviate this deficiency. The
client-side feature is behind an experimental flag and is not enabled by
default.

It works as follows:

1) Server operator generates a bundle and makes it available on a
   server (likely HTTP).
2) Server operator defines the URL of a bundle file in a
   .hg/clonebundles.manifest file.
3) Client `hg clone`ing sees the server is advertising bundle URLs.
4) Client fetches and applies the advertised bundle.
5) Client performs equivalent of `hg pull` to fetch changes made since
   the bundle was created.

Essentially, the server performs the expensive work of generating a
bundle once and all subsequent clones fetch a static file from
somewhere. Scaling static file serving is a much more manageable
problem than scaling a Python application like Mercurial. Assuming your
repository grows less than 1% per day, the end result is 99+% of CPU
and network load from clones is eliminated, allowing Mercurial servers
to scale more easily. Serving static files also means data can be
transferred to clients as fast as they can consume it, rather than as
fast as servers can generate it. This makes clones faster.

Mozilla has implemented similar functionality of this patch on
hg.mozilla.org using a custom extension. We are hosting bundle files in
Amazon S3 and CloudFront (a CDN) and have successfully offloaded
>1 TB/day in data transfer from hg.mozilla.org, freeing up significant
bandwidth and CPU resources. The positive impact has been stellar and
I believe it has proved its value to be included in Mercurial core. I
feel it is important for the client-side support to be enabled in core
by default because it means that clients will get faster, more reliable
clones and will enable server operators to reduce load without
requiring any client-side configuration changes (assuming clients are
up to date, of course).

The scope of this feature is narrowly and specifically tailored to
cloning, despite "serve pulls from pre-generated bundles" being a valid
and useful feature. I would eventually like for Mercurial servers to
support transferring *all* repository data via statically hosted files.
You could imagine a server that siphons all pushed data to bundle files
and instructs clients to apply a stream of bundles to reconstruct all
repository data. This feature, while useful and powerful, is
significantly more work to implement because it requires the server
component have awareness of discovery and a mapping of which changesets
are in which files. Full, clone bundles, by contrast, are much simpler.

The wire protocol command is named "clonebundles" instead of something
more generic like "staticbundles" to leave the door open for a new, more
powerful and more generic server-side component with minimal backwards
compatibility implications. The name "bundleclone" is used by Mozilla's
extension and would cause problems since there are subtle differences
in Mozilla's extension.

Mozilla's experience with this idea has taught us that some form of
"content negotiation" is required. Not all clients will support all
bundle formats or even URLs (advanced TLS requirements, etc). To ensure
the highest uptake possible, a server needs to advertise multiple
versions of bundles and clients need to be able to choose the most
appropriate from that list one. The "attributes" in each
server-advertised entry facilitate this filtering and sorting. Their
use will become apparent in subsequent patches.

Initial inspiration and credit for the idea of cloning from static files
belongs to Augie Fackler and his "lookaside clone" extension proof of
concept.

Set up a server

  $ hg init server
  $ cd server
  $ cat >> .hg/hgrc << EOF
  > [extensions]
  > clonebundles =
  > EOF

  $ touch foo
  $ hg -q commit -A -m 'add foo'
  $ touch bar
  $ hg -q commit -A -m 'add bar'

  $ hg serve -d -p $HGPORT --pid-file hg.pid --accesslog access.log
  $ cat hg.pid >> $DAEMON_PIDS
  $ cd ..

Feature disabled by default
(client should not request manifest)

  $ hg clone -U http://localhost:$HGPORT feature-disabled
  requesting all changes
  adding changesets
  adding manifests
  adding file changes
  added 2 changesets with 2 changes to 2 files

  $ cat server/access.log
  * - - [*] "GET /?cmd=capabilities HTTP/1.1" 200 - (glob)
  * - - [*] "GET /?cmd=batch HTTP/1.1" 200 - x-hgarg-1:cmds=heads+%3Bknown+nodes%3D (glob)
  * - - [*] "GET /?cmd=getbundle HTTP/1.1" 200 - x-hgarg-1:bundlecaps=HG20%2Cbundle2%3DHG20%250Achangegroup%253D01%252C02%250Adigests%253Dmd5%252Csha1%252Csha512%250Aerror%253Dabort%252Cunsupportedcontent%252Cpushraced%252Cpushkey%250Ahgtagsfnodes%250Alistkeys%250Apushkey%250Aremote-changegroup%253Dhttp%252Chttps&cg=1&common=0000000000000000000000000000000000000000&heads=aaff8d2ffbbf07a46dd1f05d8ae7877e3f56e2a2&listkeys=phase%2Cbookmarks (glob)
  * - - [*] "GET /?cmd=listkeys HTTP/1.1" 200 - x-hgarg-1:namespace=phases (glob)

  $ cat >> $HGRCPATH << EOF
  > [experimental]
  > clonebundles = true
  > EOF

Missing manifest should not result in server lookup

  $ hg --verbose clone -U http://localhost:$HGPORT no-manifest
  requesting all changes
  adding changesets
  adding manifests
  adding file changes
  added 2 changesets with 2 changes to 2 files

  $ tail -4 server/access.log
  * - - [*] "GET /?cmd=capabilities HTTP/1.1" 200 - (glob)
  * - - [*] "GET /?cmd=batch HTTP/1.1" 200 - x-hgarg-1:cmds=heads+%3Bknown+nodes%3D (glob)
  * - - [*] "GET /?cmd=getbundle HTTP/1.1" 200 - x-hgarg-1:bundlecaps=HG20%2Cbundle2%3DHG20%250Achangegroup%253D01%252C02%250Adigests%253Dmd5%252Csha1%252Csha512%250Aerror%253Dabort%252Cunsupportedcontent%252Cpushraced%252Cpushkey%250Ahgtagsfnodes%250Alistkeys%250Apushkey%250Aremote-changegroup%253Dhttp%252Chttps&cg=1&common=0000000000000000000000000000000000000000&heads=aaff8d2ffbbf07a46dd1f05d8ae7877e3f56e2a2&listkeys=phase%2Cbookmarks (glob)
  * - - [*] "GET /?cmd=listkeys HTTP/1.1" 200 - x-hgarg-1:namespace=phases (glob)

Empty manifest file results in retrieval
(the extension only checks if the manifest file exists)

  $ touch server/.hg/clonebundles.manifest
  $ hg --verbose clone -U http://localhost:$HGPORT empty-manifest
  no clone bundles available on remote; falling back to regular clone
  requesting all changes
  adding changesets
  adding manifests
  adding file changes
  added 2 changesets with 2 changes to 2 files

Manifest file with invalid URL aborts

  $ echo 'http://does.not.exist/bundle.hg' > server/.hg/clonebundles.manifest
  $ hg clone http://localhost:$HGPORT 404-url
  applying clone bundle from http://does.not.exist/bundle.hg
  error fetching bundle: [Errno -2] Name or service not known
  abort: error applying bundle
  (consider contacting the server operator if this error persists)
  [255]

Server is not running aborts

  $ echo "http://localhost:$HGPORT1/bundle.hg" > server/.hg/clonebundles.manifest
  $ hg clone http://localhost:$HGPORT server-not-runner
  applying clone bundle from http://localhost:$HGPORT1/bundle.hg
  error fetching bundle: [Errno 111] Connection refused
  abort: error applying bundle
  (consider contacting the server operator if this error persists)
  [255]

Server returns 404

  $ python $TESTDIR/dumbhttp.py -p $HGPORT1 --pid http.pid
  $ cat http.pid >> $DAEMON_PIDS
  $ hg clone http://localhost:$HGPORT running-404
  applying clone bundle from http://localhost:$HGPORT1/bundle.hg
  HTTP error fetching bundle: HTTP Error 404: File not found
  abort: error applying bundle
  (consider contacting the server operator if this error persists)
  [255]

We can override failure to fall back to regular clone

  $ hg --config ui.clonebundlefallback=true clone -U http://localhost:$HGPORT 404-fallback
  applying clone bundle from http://localhost:$HGPORT1/bundle.hg
  HTTP error fetching bundle: HTTP Error 404: File not found
  falling back to normal clone
  requesting all changes
  adding changesets
  adding manifests
  adding file changes
  added 2 changesets with 2 changes to 2 files

Bundle with partial content works

  $ hg -R server bundle --type gzip --base null -r 53245c60e682 partial.hg
  1 changesets found

  $ echo "http://localhost:$HGPORT1/partial.hg" > server/.hg/clonebundles.manifest
  $ hg clone -U http://localhost:$HGPORT partial-bundle
  applying clone bundle from http://localhost:$HGPORT1/partial.hg
  adding changesets
  adding manifests
  adding file changes
  added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files
  finished applying clone bundle
  searching for changes
  adding changesets
  adding manifests
  adding file changes
  added 1 changesets with 1 changes to 1 files

Bundle with full content works

  $ hg -R server bundle --type gzip --base null -r tip full.hg
  2 changesets found

  $ echo "http://localhost:$HGPORT1/full.hg" > server/.hg/clonebundles.manifest
  $ hg clone -U http://localhost:$HGPORT full-bundle
  applying clone bundle from http://localhost:$HGPORT1/full.hg
  adding changesets
  adding manifests
  adding file changes
  added 2 changesets with 2 changes to 2 files
  finished applying clone bundle
  searching for changes
  no changes found