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Setting SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_MEMORY doesn't take effect

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Metadata

Project
snapcraft (launchpad)
Number
#1814729
Type
issue
State
open
Author
~popey
Labels
18.10-build-vm
Created
Updated
Closed
—

Current evaluation

Feature request: SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_MEMORY/CPU are ignored when an existing Multipass VM is reused; maintainer confirmed the vars only apply at VM creation and advised purging the instance. Not implemented

Suggested action: close not a bug

Reason: djung's comment states 'it only takes effect when the multipass VM machine is created. Hence, if you have an existing VM, you not only need to use multipass to stop it, you also need to delete it (and purge the deleted image)', i.e. the observed behaviour is intended and has a documented workaround. The near-identical follow-up bug 1822265 was explicitly closed by sergiusens as intended behaviour, and the only residual defect (docs at docs/how-to/set-up-snapcraft.rst:147-148 still promise the vars work while craft-providers hardcodes Multipass CPU/memory) is tracked in canonical/snapcraft#6025 and upstream craft-providers#531.

Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot

Impact: 28 Quick Win: 4 Complexity: 50 Confidence: 74 Actionability: 32

Issue body

I have a snap which is very large and failed to build due to running out of memory in multipass. I set SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_MEMORY=8G and re-ran snapcraft. It re-used the previous VM rather than noting the change in RAM, to take the opportunity to launch a new one. Perhaps snapcraft could detect the change in resources and act accordingly, cleaning or at least suggesting a clean is worthwhile if the environment around multipass changes?

Evaluation history

Date Model Scores Action Summary
stealth/space-bunny-alpha
Impact: 28
Quick Win: 4
Complexity: 50
Confidence: 74
Actionability: 32
close not a bug Feature request: SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_MEMORY/CPU are ignored when an existing Multipass VM is reused; maintainer confirmed the vars only apply at VM creation and advised purging the instance. Not implemented
stealth/space-bunny-alpha
Impact: 30
Quick Win: 7
Complexity: 50
Confidence: 72
Actionability: 45
keep open Feature request (2019, label 18.10-build-vm): SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_MEMORY/CPU are ignored when an existing Multipass VM is reused; maintainer confirmed env vars only apply at VM creation. Still unimplemented in craft-providers-based code
qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b
Impact: 70
Quick Win: 28
Complexity: 50
Confidence: 80
Actionability: 80
keep open Snapcraft ignores SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_MEMORY and CPU env vars when reusing existing Multipass VMs; feature is documented but currently unimplemented.
qwen/qwen3.8-27b
Impact: 35
Quick Win: 16
Staleness: 95
Complexity: 55
Confidence: 65
Support Request: 25
close stale SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_MEMORY change ignored when reusing existing Multipass VM; filed in 18.10 era, 0 comments, no maintainer interaction in 7.5 years, related LP bug closed without resolution
qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b
Staleness: 98
Complexity: 20
Confidence: 90
Support Request: 10
close stale User reports SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_MEMORY is ignored when reusing an existing Multipass VM. No maintainer response. Issue is over 7 years old and inactive.
qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b
Staleness: 98
Complexity: 25
Confidence: 90
Support Request: 10
close stale Feature request to detect SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_MEMORY changes and recreate the multipass VM or warn the user. Inactive for over 7 years with no maintainer response.
qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6
Staleness: 95
Complexity: 20
Confidence: 85
Support Request: 10
close stale Report that SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_MEMORY fails to update existing Multipass VM memory. Issue remains open with no maintainer response or comments after over seven years.

Update history

Date Change
created

Related work

  • Duplicate Of: snapcraft (launchpad)#1822265 (confidence 88%)

    Same problem ('SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_* change doesn't apply to existing VMs'), closed by sergiusens as intended behaviour

  • Related To: snapcraft#6025 (confidence 80%)

    Current state of the same vars: still ignored on macOS because craft-providers hardcodes Multipass CPU/memory; docs still advertise them

Related issues

Issue Project State Summary Similarity
#6025 Snapcraft ignores SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_* environment variables on MacOS snapcraft open Documented SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_CPU/MEMORY are ignored on macOS; maintainer confirms Multipass CPU/memory hardcoded and points to upstream craft-providers#531. Docs still promise the vars work.
81%
#1822265 SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_* change doesn't apply to existing VMs snapcraft (launchpad) closed Closed by maintainer sergiusens (2019-04-17) as intended behaviour: SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_* are development/debugging-only variables, so no change was made to apply them to an existing Multipass VM.
80%
#2008003 Multipass build provider does not support resource settings core core22 snaps snapcraft (launchpad) open Multipass builds of core22+ snaps ignore SNAPCRAFT_BUILD_ENVIRONMENT_CPU/MEMORY; provider hardcodes 2 CPUs/2GB RAM. Maintainer confirmed unsupported; fix tracked upstream in craft-providers#531.
71%