This is the second part in my series about building a build farm for Django with Buildbot. Part 1 covered some background, including the specific problems facing a CI system for Django’s core development.

Starting in this part I’ll be looking at the actual code I wrote to solve these problems. It’s running now at buildbot.djangoproject.com, and the code’s on GitHub. Please feel free to take a look (and fork/reuse if you want) but keep in mind it’s very much a work-in-progress. You’ll probably notice me updating this stuff a bunch over the next few days/weeks.

Buildbot, the venerable Python continuous integration server, has the reputation of being complex and difficult to set up.

After spending a couple of weeks deep in Buildbot land, I’ve come to the conclusion that this reputation, while true, is only partially deserved. That is, Buildbot is complex, but only if you’re trying to view it as an out-of-the-box CI solution. Buildbot suddenly starts to make much more sense if you view it as a framework for creating your own CI solution, not a CI server in its own right.