MariaDB is a large package with many parallel releases maintained, extensively used libraries and the packages carry along a data directory that needs to stay intact upgrade after upgrade. Packaging MariaDB is a complex task and ensuring smooth upgrades and avoiding regressions requires a lot of work. However, with the introduction of Salsa, the Debian Gitlab service, and the continuous integration system it includes, every commit in MariaDB packaging is nowadays extensively tested and maintaining high quality is significantly easier. In this talk I explain how Salsa-CI works in general, how it is applied for MariaDB packaging in Debian, and how the testing system has evolved in the past year and how it has proven itself truly priceless.
Speakers: Otto Kekäläinen