January 2013 Summaries

A recent platform upgrade aims to empower all customers with the ability to independently install additional software and configure settings, moving beyond the previous approach of enabling packages upon request. This upgrade is designed to address scalability issues and customer uncertainty by introducing build commands like `sudo apt-get install -y`. Additionally, a minor UI change will initially hide setup commands unless organized into "Setup" and "Thread #X" sections, with current custom setups being integrated into editable settings. The installation of additional components on Semaphore remains efficient, taking less than 10 seconds for custom Redis servers and even less for official Ubuntu packages. Continuous monitoring of custom installation commands will help improve the build stack, enhancing the hosted CI experience.

Semaphore has upgraded its build platform to the latest Ubuntu LTS (12.04), resulting in updated versions of various software components, including Firefox, which now requires users running Selenium to update their selenium-webdriver gem to version 2.27 or higher to avoid timeout errors. Ruby patch levels have also been adjusted to align with Heroku versions, and the debugger gem should be updated to version 1.2.3. In response to user requests, new software like Elasticsearch and Chrome with chromedriver have been added to the default stack, and plans are underway to enable passwordless sudo for easier package setup. Additionally, Semaphore experienced a network-related downtime due to notification failures, but measures are being implemented to prevent future occurrences. Users are invited to engage in further discussion on Semaphore's Discord channel.