[LLVMdev] Windows development and "virus" in LLVM test suite

[Benjamin Kramer]

On 15.06.2012, at 22:53, Mikael Lyngvig wrote:

> 1. I can't tell Microsoft Security Essentials to ignore anything.  Even if I click Allow, it breaks the pull.
> 2. The issue is not me.  I don't download virus infested stuff and I don't visit dangerous sites so I rarely have a need for antivirus solutions.
> 
> The issue is the newcomer Windows user whom I have to instruct to disable and/or remove his antivirus program if he or she wants to set up a Windows buildbot slave.  A bit drastic, but that's life as it is now.

The intersection of "people using the LLVM test-suite" and "people who don't know how to disable their antivirus" may not be empty, but it's really too small to care about. The test-suite isn't meant to be used by end-users, we can expect anyone who wants to try the testsuite to be smart enough to put "eicar" in the search engine of their choice and then then disable their antivirus after finding out what it is.

I'm also strongly suggesting to disable any kind of antivirus guard on a machine that builds and tests llvm because it slows down builds significantly and has the tendency to make testing more unstable. Racing file handle locks on windows are a big pain, and antivirus solutions tend to create these conditions all the time. We have seen bogus, hard to reproduce test failures because of this in the past.

- Ben