Request to revive Sia-AntFarm

[ivandeex]

Hi @lukechampine

We are integrating SiaFoundation/siad with rclone, the multi-cloud sync utility (PR rclone/rclone#4514, the task was started by other people - https://github.com/rclone/rclone/pull/4514/commits).

It needs a Sia network micro-simulator like Sia-AntFarm to setup CI tests
but I noticed that currently the farm is in flux:

• siad migrated from https://gitlab.com/NebulousLabs/Sia to https://github.com/SiaFoundation/siad
• ant-farm stays orphan at https://gitlab.com/NebulousLabs/Sia-Ant-Farm pointing to obsolete siad repo
• a docker repository for ant-farm sits forgotten at https://github.com/NebulousLabs/docker-sia-ant-farm
  pointing to obsolete ant-farm, and does not even have a CI pipeline

Docker hub lists a few images, but none fit my goals:

• https://hub.docker.com/r/siacentral/sia -- what's its status?
• https://hub.docker.com/r/nebulouslabs/sia-ci -- only the latest tag, what's its release?
• https://hub.docker.com/r/nebulouslabs/sia/tags -- mentioned at https://sia.tech, not for CI, no 1.5.7 yet
• https://github.com/SiaFoundation/siad/pkgs/container/siad -- up-to-date, but not for development
• probably more...

I decided to fill the gap and created https://github.com/ivandeex/sia-antfarm as follows:

• imported https://gitlab.com/NebulousLabs/Sia-Ant-Farm
• embedded scripting from https://github.com/NebulousLabs/docker-sia-ant-farm
• updated repository references to new https://github.com/SiaFoundation/siad
  (aliased as https://go.sia.tech/siad in go modules) from obsolete https://gitlab.com/NebulousLabs/Sia
• slightly cleaned up, enabled github CI and pointed to the latest 1.5.7
• released image https://hub.docker.com/r/ivandeex/sia-antfarm

All my 6 commits sit on top of original branch - https://github.com/ivandeex/sia-antfarm/commits/master
Beta rclone releases for Sia are available from https://beta.rclone.org/branch/sia-rclone/
Documentation is available on the PR branch until we merge.
The result seems to suite our needs - can test rclone with Sia! 💪

There are a few shortcomings a.t.m:

• I tried to avoid building the development siad-dev binary and copy directly from the https://github.com/SiaFoundation/siad/pkgs/container/siad image but it seems you don't provide development binary yet.
• To build it directly, I have to update go.mod in-place. Added a manual make task make update-module SIAD_VERSION=v1.5.? as a bare minimum aid
• siad-dev version in the image does not yet print the actual version
• Documentation is not yet finished, coverage and test links needs be filled

Now I'd like to hear your opinion on:

• Do I miss a real Sia CI container?
• Would you accept transferring https://github.com/ivandeex/sia-antfarm under https://github.com/SiaFoundation ?
• What could be done better?

Thank you 🙏

cc @MSevey

[n8maninger]

As far as containers go.. Pardon our dust a bit, we're still finding and cleaning up references.

• https://github.com/SiaFoundation/siad/pkgs/container/siad - current. Intended for users wanting to run a full node, not spin up a testnet.
• https://hub.docker.com/r/siacentral/sia - 3rd party (maintained by me). active, but deprecated in favor of ghcr.io/siafoundation/siad. Also intended for users wanting to run a full node.
• https://hub.docker.com/r/nebulouslabs/sia - inactive, deprecated in favor of ghcr.io/siafoundation/siad
• https://hub.docker.com/r/nebulouslabs/sia-ci - Not running Sia, installs tools used for Sia's old Gitlab CI.

I don't believe we have any well supported testnet options for developers at the moment.