BlueBuild•2mo ago

Build Cache for GitLab.com

I am currently using BlueBuild with a GitHub Action that utilizes the GitHub Actions (GHA) build cache. This feature significantly improves my build times, and I’m very pleased with the results. However, I am considering migrating my project to GitLab.com and have noticed that there doesn't seem to be a similar caching feature available on that platform. I believe it might be possible to implement a caching solution akin to the GHA cache using "Inline cache" or "Registry cache" for GitLab.com. Could anyone provide insights on whether such features are available or if there are plans to implement them in the future? Thank you for your assistance!

8 Replies

Luke Skywunker•2mo ago

That would be something that I would have to code up. I believe we've already got an issue for it.

Robert•2w ago

With our project https://gitlab.com/eu-os/workspace-images/eu-os-base-demo we would also benefit from this caching. Buildah got recently the options --layers --cache-from … --cache-to. Man here: https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/plucky/man1/buildah-build.1.html With Gitlab CI, this could look like:

podman build -t container-name:$VERSION --layers --cache-to $CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE/cache-image --cache-from $CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE/cache-image -f Containerfile .

The cache-image could possibly made configurable. @Luke Skywunker I did not find the issue in the cli repo. If you tell me where it is, I can also add this info to the issue (and track the issue myself). 🙂

GitLab

EU OS / EU OS Workspace Images / EU OS Base Image Demo · GitLab

GitLab.com

Luke Skywunker•2w ago

It looks like we don't have one. I can try to remember to make one later, or you can write it up

Luci•2w ago

Could you share this cache stuff? I'd love to use it myself.

Robert•2w ago

I have created this issue here: https://github.com/blue-build/cli/issues/410

GitHub

feat: support podman/buildah image cache to reach feature parity on...

Hi, following the discussion on Discord, I propose to add to blue-build options to use image caching also on other platforms than Github. One way to do this would be to expose existing caching feat...

Luke Skywunker•2w ago

Cool, thanks for that!

ironOP•4d ago

I've been using a caching strategy similar to this example from the GitLab documentation in other projects, and it works great:

docker buildx build --push -t $CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE:$CI_COMMIT_SHA \
  --cache-to type=registry,ref=$CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE/cache-image,mode=max \
  --cache-from type=registry,ref=$CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE/cache-image .

docker buildx build --push -t $CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE:$CI_COMMIT_SHA \
  --cache-to type=registry,ref=$CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE/cache-image,mode=max \
  --cache-from type=registry,ref=$CI_REGISTRY_IMAGE/cache-image .

I think we should follow a similar approach to BB_BUILDKIT_CACHE_GHA to support this caching mechanism by adding another if statement in the build_tag_push function in docker_drivers.rs. What do you all think?

Make Docker-in-Docker builds faster with Docker layer caching | Git...

GitLab product documentation.

Luke Skywunker•4d ago

Yeah that's the plan. Just haven't gotten to it

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Build Cache for GitLab.com

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