Directions for parallel builds is not accurate for upstart systems

[jbeker]

The directions here https://buildkite.com/docs/builds/parallel-builds where it talks about running multiple agents is not accurate for newer Ubuntu systems that use systemd based configurations.

Are there updates or other documentation available?

[lox]

The correct way to do this is with systemd template files: https://fedoramagazine.org/systemd-template-unit-files/

We'll look at getting some docs for this and also perhaps including a template file in the the agent distro. Sorry for that @jbeker!

[jbeker]

That would be amazing! Thanks.

[harrietgrace]

Looks like the syntax for this was updated June '18. @lox was there ever a template added to the ubuntu agent distro?

[toolmantim]

Because we don't have a template in the Ubuntu distro yet, we'll need to update those parallel instructions to be:

# Stop and disable the default buildkite-agent service
sudo systemctl stop buildkite-agent && sudo systemctl disable buildkite-agent

# Create a systemd template
sudo cp /lib/systemd/system/buildkite-agent.service /etc/systemd/system/buildkite-agent@.service

# Start five agents using the systemd template we created above
sudo systemctl enable --now buildkite-agent@1
sudo systemctl enable --now buildkite-agent@2
sudo systemctl enable --now buildkite-agent@3
sudo systemctl enable --now buildkite-agent@4
sudo systemctl enable --now buildkite-agent@5

If we included a template in the Ubuntu distro, then we could simplify it down to:

# Stop and disable the default buildkite-agent service
sudo systemctl stop buildkite-agent && sudo systemctl disable buildkite-agent

# Start five agents using the systemd template we created above
sudo systemctl enable --now buildkite-agent@1
sudo systemctl enable --now buildkite-agent@2
sudo systemctl enable --now buildkite-agent@3
sudo systemctl enable --now buildkite-agent@4
sudo systemctl enable --now buildkite-agent@5

@harrietgrace could you open an issue on https://github.com/buildkite/agent to add a template file to any distros that use systemd?

For now though, we can probably just go with that first one?