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Enabling ROS Epic Fail for a Hudson Build

Overview

In this tutorial, we will add ROS Epic Fail to a build so that users can access the epic fail bag files.

Choosing the Bag File Location

First, one must chose a location for bag files that is capable of handling large files. This is because the bag files will often take up 30-40 gigs for each test. Second, bag files will be written at great speed, and so there must be enough bandwidth. Third, users will have to be able to get the bag files out and so they can analyze them. Often, the chosen location will be on the hard drive of the build machine. By default, ROS Epic Fail writes the bag files to the ROS test_results directory. This is often not a good idea in Hudson, because Hudson often deletes that directory.

Setting the Bag File Location

ROS Epic Fail reads from the environment variable ROS_EPIC_FAIL_BAGS_DIR. Thus, you must add a command to export that environment variable to each Hudson "Execute shell" block. The directory must exist, and the Hudson build must have permission to write to the directory.