release: fix bincheck failures

Previously,  the bincheck test started failing after upgrading the linux
build system to a newer GLIBC and after we changed the way we stop the
server.

The linux bincheck test was relying on running the cockroach binary in a
qemu-based VM, using a custom kernel.

Now that, we don't use rocksdb and don't have SSE issues (see cockroachdb#15589),
we can simplify the test and run the binary without the VM layer.

This PR also fixes the issue, where the busybox `kill` command can only
handle positional arguments.

We try our best to kill the server, but in some cases the PID changes
and the whole test fail. Ignore the kill exit code and let the build
agent to kill the process.

Epic: none
Fixes: RE-271
Release note: None

.github/workflows/bincheck.yml

@@ -13,7 +13,6 @@ jobs:
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
     steps:
     - uses: actions/checkout@v3
-    - run: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -y qemu-system-x86
     - run: cd build/release/bincheck && ./test-linux ${{ github.ref_name }} ${{ github.sha }}
 
   darwin:

build/release/bincheck/README.md

@@ -10,58 +10,3 @@ sanity checks are:
 
 bincheck action is triggered when a new tag with `v` prefix is created. Check
 https://github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/actions after a release is published.
-
-
-## The nitty-gritty
-
-### Overview
-
-For the MacOS and Windows binaries, the mechanics involved are simple. We ask
-GitHub Actions to spin us up a MacOS or Windows runner, download the
-appropriate pre-built `cockroach` binary, and run our sanity checks.
-
-Linux is more complicated, not out of necessity, but out of ambition. We co-opt
-the Linux verification step to additionally test support for pre-SSE4.2
-CPUs<sup>†</sup>. This requires emulating such a CPU, and Linux is the only
-operating system that is feasible to run under emulation. Windows and MacOS have
-prohibitively slow boot times, and, perhaps more importantly, Windows and MacOS
-install media are not freely available.
-
-So, with the help of [Buildroot], an embedded Linux build manager, this
-repository ships an [8.7MB Linux distribution][linux-image] that's capable of
-running under [QEMU] and launching our pre-built CockroachDB binaries. To verify
-the Linux binaries, we first boot this Linux distribution on an emulated
-pre-SSE4.2 CPU (`qemu-system-x86_64 -cpu qemu64,-sse4.2`), then run our sanity
-checks from inside this VM.
-
-<sup>†</sup><small>SSE4.2 support is particularly important in CockroachDB,
-since RocksDB internally uses a [CRC32C checksum][crc32c] to protect against
-data corruption. SSE4.2 includes hardware support for computing CRC32C
-checksums, but is only available on CPUs released after November 2008. Producing
-a binary that can dynamically switch between the SSE4.2 and non-SSE4.2
-implementations at runtime [has proven difficult][issue-15589].
-</small>
-
-### Updating the Linux image
-
-After [installing Buildroot][buildroot-install]:
-
-```shell
-$ make qemu_x86_64_glibc_defconfig BR2_EXTERNAL=buildroot
-$ make menuconfig  # Only if configuration changes are necessary.
-$ make
-$ cp output/images/bzImage images/qemu_x86_64_glibc_bzImage
-```
-
-At the time of writing, `qemu_x86_64_glibc_defconfig` instructed Buildroot to
-build a Linux 4.9 kernel, install Bash and OpenSSH into userland, and configure
-sshd to boot at startup and allow passwordless `root` authentication.
-`/etc/fstab` is modified to mount the first hard drive at `/bincheck`, assuming
-it's a FAT volume.
-
-[buildroot-install]: https://buildroot.org/download.html
-[issue-15589]: https://github.com/cockroachdb/cockroach/issues/15589
-[linux-image]: ./images/qemu_x86_64_glibc_bzImage
-[Buildroot]: https://buildroot.org
-[CRC32C]: http://www.evanjones.ca/crc32c.html
-[QEMU]: http://qemu.org

build/release/bincheck/bincheck

@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ echo ""
 # Start node with encryption enabled.
 "$cockroach" start-single-node --insecure --listening-url-file="$urlfile" --enterprise-encryption=path=cockroach-data,key=aes-128.key,old-key=plain --pid-file="$pidfile" &
 
-trap "kill -9 $! &> /dev/null" EXIT
+trap "kill -9 $! || true" EXIT
 for i in {0..3}
 do
   [[ -f "$urlfile" ]] && break
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ diff -u expected actual
 
 # Attempt a clean shutdown for good measure. We'll force-kill in the atexit
 # handler if this fails.
-cat "$pidfile" | xargs kill -TERM
+kill -TERM $(cat "$pidfile") || true
 trap - EXIT
 
 # Verify reported version matches expected version.

build/release/bincheck/test-linux

@@ -13,28 +13,4 @@ COCKROACH_VERSION=$1
 COCKROACH_SHA=$2
 
 download_and_extract "$COCKROACH_VERSION" "linux-amd64.tgz"
-
-ssh() {
-  command ssh -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null \
-    root@localhost -p 2222 "$@"
-}
-
-qemu-system-x86_64 \
-  -cpu qemu64,-sse4.2 \
-  -m 1G \
-  -kernel images/qemu_x86_64_glibc_bzImage \
-  -net nic,model=virtio -net user,hostfwd=tcp::2222-:22 \
-  -drive file=fat:rw:mnt,format=raw \
-  -nographic &
-
-trap "kill -9 $! &> /dev/null" EXIT
-
-for i in {0..4}
-do
-  ssh true && break
-  backoff=$((2 ** i))
-  echo "VM not yet available; sleeping for $backoff seconds"
-  sleep $backoff
-done
-
-ssh /bin/bash -s /bincheck/cockroach "$COCKROACH_VERSION" "$COCKROACH_SHA" < bincheck
+./bincheck ./mnt/cockroach "$COCKROACH_VERSION" "$COCKROACH_SHA"