7.6.2: bootstrap failure around bazel_features_globals/globals.bzl

[boltzmannrain]

Description of the bug:

Disclaimer: this may potentially be specific to how NixOS packaged bazel_7 build is set up, but reporting in case it rings any bells

When trying to update 7.6.0->7.6.2 in NixOS nixpkgs hitting an issue with bootstrap:

Running phase: buildPhase
Stage 1 - Running bazel bootstrap script
🍃  Building Bazel from scratch......
🍃  Building Bazel with Bazel.
.OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM warning: Options -Xverify:none and -noverify were deprecated in JDK 13 and will likely be removed in a future release.
Computing main repo mapping: 
Loading: 
Loading: 0 packages loaded
Analyzing: target //src:bazel_nojdk (1 packages loaded, 0 targets configured)
Analyzing: target //src:bazel_nojdk (1 packages loaded, 0 targets configured)

ERROR: /build/bazel_57H7f7xx/out/external/bazel_features~~version_extension~bazel_features_globals/globals.bzl:4:13: name 'macro' is not defined
ERROR: error loading package 'src/main/protobuf': at /build/bazel_57H7f7xx/out/external/rules_proto~/proto/defs.bzl:18:6: at /build/bazel_57H7f7xx/out/external/rules_proto~/proto/proto_toolchain.bzl:17:6: at /build/bazel_57H7f7xx/out/external/rules_proto~/proto/private/rules/proto_toolchain.bzl:20:6: at /build/bazel_57H7f7xx/out/external/rules_proto~/proto/private/rules/proto_toolchain_rule.bzl:17:6: at /build/bazel_57H7f7xx/out/external/bazel_features~/features.bzl:3:6: compilation of module 'globals.bzl' failed
ERROR: /build/bazel_src/src/BUILD:91:11: error loading package 'src/main/protobuf': at /build/bazel_57H7f7xx/out/external/rules_proto~/proto/defs.bzl:18:6: at /build/bazel_57H7f7xx/out/external/rules_proto~/proto/proto_toolchain.bzl:17:6: at /build/bazel_57H7f7xx/out/external/rules_proto~/proto/private/rules/proto_toolchain.bzl:20:6: at /build/bazel_57H7f7xx/out/external/rules_proto~/proto/private/rules/proto_toolchain_rule.bzl:17:6: at /build/bazel_57H7f7xx/out/external/bazel_features~/features.bzl:3:6: compilation of module 'globals.bzl' failed and referenced by '//src:embedded_tools_nojdk_srcs'
ERROR: Analysis of target '//src:bazel_nojdk' failed; build aborted: Analysis failed

and the globals.bzl looks like so

globals = struct(
    CcSharedLibraryInfo = CcSharedLibraryInfo,
    CcSharedLibraryHintInfo = CcSharedLibraryHintInfo,
    macro = macro,
    PackageSpecificationInfo = PackageSpecificationInfo,
    RunEnvironmentInfo = RunEnvironmentInfo,
...

For 7.6.0 max version for bazel_features in MODULE.bazel.lock is 1.11.0, but in 7.6.2 it is 1.27.0, not sure if that could be a bug in bazel_features or rather in bootstrap

Which category does this issue belong to?

No response

What's the simplest, easiest way to reproduce this bug? Please provide a minimal example if possible.

No response

Which operating system are you running Bazel on?

No response

What is the output of bazel info release?

No response

If bazel info release returns development version or (@non-git), tell us how you built Bazel.

No response

What's the output of git remote get-url origin; git rev-parse HEAD ?

If this is a regression, please try to identify the Bazel commit where the bug was introduced with bazelisk --bisect.

No response

Have you found anything relevant by searching the web?

No response

Any other information, logs, or outputs that you want to share?

No response

[boltzmannrain]

Same for 7.7.0rc1

[strophy]

I'm running into exactly this issue trying to update the Alpine package from 7.6.1 to 7.6.2. The source of the problem is indeed that bazel_features was updated from 1.11.0 to 1.27.0, which seems to require the macro feature. However, as far as I can tell this feature was only introduced (or removed from experimental status? maybe we can enable it in the stage 1 build somehow?) in Bazel 8. I can see docs indicating that macros exist in 7.6.x here https://bazel.build/extending/macros but maybe these are "legacy" macros given the changes in docs between 7.6 and 8.0. There's nothing about macros in the 7.6.0 release notes.

I was able to get it to build by adding the following override to bazel/MODULE.bazel:

single_version_override(
    module_name = "bazel_features",
    version = "1.11.0",
)

But this is probably undesirable because it will produce a Bazel 7.6.2 build with older bazel_features than intended. I'm not sure how they managed to build it themselves, maybe by depending on an existing Bazel binary rather than using the stage 1 bootstrap build?

[fmeum]

bazel_features doesn't require the macro global symbol, it detects its presence based on the version label in the Bazel binary. It assumes that macro is available if the Bazel version is 8.0.0 or later and, crucially, this range also includes the "empty" version that a dev binary is built with.

Could you try to build the Bazel binary with a proper version set? I think that scripts/kokoro/release/build_linux.sh does this via --embed_label and --workspace_status_command.

[boltzmannrain]

In my runs EMBED_LABEL is set to 7.x, for example EMBED_LABEL="7.7.0rc1- (@non-git)" (simply 7.7.0 doesn't work either)

version.bzl isn't detecting a version and sets it to empty string

Running phase: buildPhase
Stage 1 - Running bazel bootstrap script
🍃  Building Bazel from scratch......
🍃  Building Bazel with Bazel.
..
..path../out/external/bazel_features~~version_extension~bazel_features_globals/globals.bzl:4:13: name 'macro' is not defined
..
$ cat ..path..//out/external/bazel_features~~version_extension~bazel_features_version/version.bzl
version = ''

Compiled bootstrap libblaze.jar refuses to tell what it thinks its version is, after running sh -x compile.sh with disabled cleanup and fishing out the invocation

/nix/store/b5kv9hr6m5v93y81r3ra296hapr7kry2-openjdk-headless-21.0.8+9/lib/openjdk/bin/java -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError -Xverify:none -Dfile.encoding=ISO-8859-1 -XX:HeapDumpPath=/build/bazel_NA0xKthH -Djava.util.logging.config.file=/build/bazel_NA0xKthH/javalog.properties --add-opens java.base/java.lang=ALL-UNNAMED -jar /build/bazel_NA0xKthH/archive/libblaze.jar --batch --install_base=/build/bazel_NA0xKthH/archive --output_base=/build/bazel_NA0xKthH/out --failure_detail_out=/build/bazel_NA0xKthH/failure_detail.rawproto --output_user_root=/build/bazel_NA0xKthH/user_root --install_md5= --default_system_javabase=/nix/store/b5kv9hr6m5v93y81r3ra296hapr7kry2-openjdk-headless-21.0.8+9/lib/openjdk --workspace_directory=/build/bazel_src --nofatal_event_bus_exceptions version
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM warning: Options -Xverify:none and -noverify were deprecated in JDK 13 and will likely be removed in a future release.
ERROR: Version information not available

Does 1st stage bootstrap bazel even support bazel_version info and bazel_features?

[fmeum]

I don't know. You could try to use this override: https://cs.opensource.google/bazel/bazel/+/master:src/main/java/com/google/devtools/build/lib/analysis/BlazeVersionInfo.java;drc=88678c00c46c16e026aaa966cbc923b3d9e4757c;bpv=1;bpt=1;l=41

[boltzmannrain]

For 7.6.0 bootstrap libblaze.jar also says no version info and version.bzl: version = ''
But out/external/bazel_features~~version_extension~bazel_features_globals/globals.bzl doesn't refer to macro

globals = struct(
    RunEnvironmentInfo = RunEnvironmentInfo,
    DefaultInfo = DefaultInfo,
    __TestingOnly_NeverAvailable = None,
)

so maybe it still works without proper version info