[Bug]: Should not use `main` in deployments

[koonpeng]

Before proceeding, is there an existing issue or discussion for this?

• I have done a search for similar issues and discussions.

OS and version

Ubuntu24.04

Open-RMF installation type

Source build

Other Open-RMF installation methods

No response

Open-RMF version or commit hash

main

ROS distribution

Rolling

ROS installation type

Source build

Other ROS installation methods

No response

Package or library, if applicable

No response

Description of the bug

main is not typically suitable to be used for deployments, the template shouldn't default to that. A commit hash should be used, or there should be a way to customize the the commit to deploy. Since this is a template, we can also have placeholders for the commit hash with docs to replace them in actual deployments.

Steps to reproduce the bug

Affected files:
dockerfiles/rmf/rmf.repos
dockerfiles/rmf/rmf-jazzy.repos
dockerfiles/rmf-web/dahsboard/Dockerfile

Expected behavior

No response

Actual behavior

No response

Additional information or screenshots

No response

[aaronchongth]

That's a good point, however since this repository is meant to be a template and reference, we haven't prioritized reproducibility.

Since we are doing nightly builds, and have plans to host a cluster for testing, we can probably switch to using binaries, and for tags demos instead

[koonpeng]

Since we are doing nightly builds, and have plans to host a cluster for testing, we can probably switch to using binaries, and for tags demos instead

I guess for the docker images, if we are building them nightly then it's ok to point to main, but we should

1. Disable cache when building, since the dockerfiles are not reproducible.
2. Label the images with this repo's commit hash and the source code repo hash https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/docker-tip-25-adding-metadata-to-your-docker-images-with-labels.

But I don't think we should ever use latest for the image tag to deploy, we should either have no preset tag and configure the them at deploy time, or have it point to a specific tag or hash.

[akash-roboticist]

1. Disable cache when building, since the dockerfiles are not reproducible.

I believe this is true for this repo by design (since the images are re-built from scratch on each build); but good point perhaps we should add this to the workflow, so that users don't accidentally use cache.

2. Label the images with this repo's commit hash and the source code repo hash https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/docker-tip-25-adding-metadata-to-your-docker-images-with-labels.

But I don't think we should ever use latest for the image tag to deploy, we should either have no preset tag and configure the them at deploy time, or have it point to a specific tag or hash.

Agreed, since this repo is acts as a reference, what would be your suggestion to name the image tags instead of latest?
Do you think adding a label metadata (perhaps the build date, since these builds are manually triggered) to the the newly built images while keeping the tag latest is sufficient? + add a note in README on good practices?

[koonpeng]

I think tagging it with the date would be good, with additional labels recording the commit hash of each repo it is built from. The latest nightly build can also be tagged with nightly. The problem of this is that the images will built up everyday, and because the build is not reproducible, many of the layers probably cannot be reused. Unless we have a automatic cleanup cron job, maybe we should just drop the date and only tag it with nightly.

[akash-roboticist]

I think tagging it with the date would be good, with additional labels recording the commit hash of each repo it is built from.

With this, we will also need to ensure the tag in the deployment chart is updated, everytime we make a manual build. IMO, this is beyond scope for a reference template and instead this could be noted in the README as best practices.

The latest nightly build can also be tagged with nightly.

This is true at the moment as nightly images are built separately from latest

[aaronchongth]

As discussed with @koonpeng and @akash-roboticist, we will prioritize this repository as a template for reference and testing locally, and not for deployment. Few things to make things clearer for users about this,

• instead of latest, use template as an image tag
• supplement readme with this intention, and remind users of next steps to be changing tags to proper hashes, and that the local dashboard implementation/deployment instructions are only for local testing and not intended for deployment