Re: Possible infinite loop on buildfarm animals

On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 02:42:14PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
> Another idea to consider is to set the wait_timeout parameter
> in your animals' configuration files, to put an upper bound
> on the total elapsed time for a run.  By default that's
> infinite, since it's really hard to select a one-size-fits-all
> value ... but it's a good backstop if you don't mind picking
> machine-specific limits.

Other than CLOBBER_CACHE animals, the server rejects results older than 24h:
https://github.com/PGBuildFarm/server-code/blob/8572ac7/cgi-bin/pgstatus.pl#L273

The same 24h should probably be the default wait_timeout.  One might use a
longer timeout if wanting to attach a debugger to a process of a stuck run.
If one just wants an intervention-free buildfarm animal, 24h is good.