High CPU usage when using the toolchain-manager launch command

[Hadrien Kohl]

When using the nrfutils toolchain-manager launch the CPU usage spikes to 100%. 

What exactly is this command doing? I assume this is setting up environment/chrooting?

[Sigurd Hellesvik]

Hi,

the CPU usage spikes to 100%. 

For how long?

What exactly is this command doing? I assume this is setting up environment/chrooting?

nrfutil is closed source, so we are limited on how much information we can give about it.
So instead of asking our nrfutil devs about this, I think I should first ask you:

How is this an issue? What are you trying to figure out? How will the information you are looking for help you?

Regards,
Sigurd Hellesvik

[Hadrien Kohl]

Sigurd Hellesvik said:

the CPU usage spikes to 100%. 

For how long?

It just uses a full core until I kill it. It also seems to refuse to die in some cases.

Sigurd Hellesvik said:

nrfutil is closed source, so we are limited on how much information we can give about it.
So instead of asking our nrfutil devs about this, I think I should first ask you:

How is this an issue? What are you trying to figure out? How will the information you are looking for help you?

Fair enough. I'm trying to setup a CI pipeline for firmware building. The CPU is one issue, but I'm also trying to figure out what the tool does. From what I see it creates a folder with all the tools needed for compilation, that's fine although I could download that myself. But it is also used to launch a shell, this part is not very well documented. I'd rather just setup my environment myself (and incidentally avoid the CPU bug).

[Sigurd Hellesvik]

Hadrien Kohl said:

It just uses a full core until I kill it. It also seems to refuse to die in some cases.

Right, it's not supposed to make everything stop.

Hadrien Kohl said:

Fair enough. I'm trying to setup a CI pipeline for firmware building. The CPU is one issue, but I'm also trying to figure out what the tool does. From what I see it creates a folder with all the tools needed for compilation, that's fine although I could download that myself. But it is also used to launch a shell, this part is not very well documented. I'd rather just setup my environment myself (and incidentally avoid the CPU bug).

In this case, maybe the manual installation method is something you want instead? See System-wide installation.
For inspiration, you could also have a look at https://github.com/NordicPlayground/nrf-docker. But mind its purpose:

"

The aim is to provide an example for a Docker image that can compile application and samples in a nRF Connect SDK release branch, not to exactly replicate the software configuration used when the release was made.

More specificially, the purpose of this project is not to provide stable images, but replicate what users are facing when they start developing with nRF Connect SDK (which itself does not provide a reproducible build environment). This is mitigated by the Toolchain Manager, which is available for command line usage.

"

I think nrfutil should be possible to run in CI without freezing everything though. So let me know if you want to debug the nrfutil issue instead of the alternatives above, and I can help you look into it.

Regards,
Sigurd Hellesvik