tensorboard 2.5.0 requires bazel 3.7+, but tensorboard-plugin-wit doesn't build with bazel 3.7+

I’m trying to update our Spack recipe for TensorBoard to add 2.5.0. However, TensorBoard 2.5.0 requires Bazel 3.7+, but tensorboard-plugin-wit (a dependency) doesn’t build with Bazel 3.7+. See the following issues for details:

• https://github.com/PAIR-code/what-if-tool/issues/167
• https://github.com/PAIR-code/what-if-tool/issues/140

If tensorboard-plugin-wit can’t be compiled with Bazel 3.7+, and if TensorBoard requires both tensorboard-plugin-wit and Bazel 3.7+, then how can I install tensorboard 2.5.0?

Environment information (required)

Diagnostics

Diagnostics output

--- check: autoidentify
INFO: diagnose_tensorboard.py version e43767ef2b648d0d5d57c00f38ccbd38390e38da

--- check: general
INFO: sys.version_info: sys.version_info(major=3, minor=8, micro=10, releaselevel='final', serial=0)
INFO: os.name: posix
INFO: os.uname(): posix.uname_result(sysname='Linux', nodename='LAPTOP-VG0BM82I', release='5.10.16.3-microsoft-standard-WSL2', version='#1 SMP Fri Apr 2 22:23:49 UTC 2021', machine='x86_64')
INFO: sys.getwindowsversion(): N/A

--- check: package_management
INFO: has conda-meta: False
INFO: $VIRTUAL_ENV: None

--- check: installed_packages
/usr/bin/python: No module named pip
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "diagnose_tensorboard.py", line 522, in main
    suggestions.extend(check())
  File "diagnose_tensorboard.py", line 179, in installed_packages
    freeze = pip(["freeze", "--all"]).decode("utf-8").splitlines()
  File "diagnose_tensorboard.py", line 103, in pip
    return subprocess.check_output(command)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/subprocess.py", line 415, in check_output
    return run(*popenargs, stdout=PIPE, timeout=timeout, check=True,
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/subprocess.py", line 516, in run
    raise CalledProcessError(retcode, process.args,
subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['/usr/bin/python', '-m', 'pip', '--disable-pip-version-check', 'freeze', '--all']' returned non-zero exit status 1.

--- check: tensorboard_python_version
INFO: tensorboard.version.VERSION: '2.4.1'

--- check: tensorflow_python_version
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "diagnose_tensorboard.py", line 522, in main
    suggestions.extend(check())
  File "diagnose_tensorboard.py", line 75, in wrapper
    result = fn()
  File "diagnose_tensorboard.py", line 278, in tensorflow_python_version
    import tensorflow as tf
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'tensorflow'

--- check: tensorboard_data_server_version
INFO: no data server installed

--- check: tensorboard_binary_path
INFO: which tensorboard: None

--- check: addrinfos
socket.has_ipv6 = True
socket.AF_UNSPEC = <AddressFamily.AF_UNSPEC: 0>
socket.SOCK_STREAM = <SocketKind.SOCK_STREAM: 1>
socket.AI_ADDRCONFIG = <AddressInfo.AI_ADDRCONFIG: 32>
socket.AI_PASSIVE = <AddressInfo.AI_PASSIVE: 1>
Loopback flags: <AddressInfo.AI_ADDRCONFIG: 32>
Loopback infos: [(<AddressFamily.AF_INET6: 10>, <SocketKind.SOCK_STREAM: 1>, 6, '', ('::1', 0, 0, 0)), (<AddressFamily.AF_INET: 2>, <SocketKind.SOCK_STREAM: 1>, 6, '', ('127.0.0.1', 0))]
Wildcard flags: <AddressInfo.AI_PASSIVE: 1>
Wildcard infos: [(<AddressFamily.AF_INET: 2>, <SocketKind.SOCK_STREAM: 1>, 6, '', ('0.0.0.0', 0)), (<AddressFamily.AF_INET6: 10>, <SocketKind.SOCK_STREAM: 1>, 6, '', ('::', 0, 0, 0))]

--- check: readable_fqdn
INFO: socket.getfqdn(): 'LAPTOP-VG0BM82I.localdomain'

--- check: stat_tensorboardinfo
INFO: directory: /tmp/.tensorboard-info
INFO: .tensorboard-info directory does not exist

--- check: source_trees_without_genfiles
INFO: tensorboard_roots (1): ['/home/t-astewart/spack/opt/spack/linux-ubuntu20.04-skylake/gcc-9.3.0/py-tensorboard-2.4.1-5rt67paz4lxdffj74ynsiux43bpe2ner/lib/python3.8/site-packages']; bad_roots (0): []

--- check: full_pip_freeze
/usr/bin/python: No module named pip
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "diagnose_tensorboard.py", line 522, in main
    suggestions.extend(check())
  File "diagnose_tensorboard.py", line 75, in wrapper
    result = fn()
  File "diagnose_tensorboard.py", line 489, in full_pip_freeze
    "pip freeze --all:\n%s", pip(["freeze", "--all"]).decode("utf-8")
  File "diagnose_tensorboard.py", line 103, in pip
    return subprocess.check_output(command)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/subprocess.py", line 415, in check_output
    return run(*popenargs, stdout=PIPE, timeout=timeout, check=True,
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/subprocess.py", line 516, in run
    raise CalledProcessError(retcode, process.args,
subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['/usr/bin/python', '-m', 'pip', '--disable-pip-version-check', 'freeze', '--all']' returned non-zero exit status 1.

Next steps

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Steps to reproduce (required)

$ git clone https://github.com/spack/spack.git
$ . spack/share/spack/setup-env.sh
$ spack install py-tensorboard@2.5.0 ^bazel@3.7:

[japie1235813]

Normally users use prebuilt version of deps even building TensorBoard from source. We cannot guarantee the bazel version our deps get built. As it is discussed in https://github.com/PAIR-code/what-if-tool/issues/167, you can A) convince tb-plugin-wit to support 3.7+ B) use a prebuilt version of tb-plugin-wit that used old Bazel C) omit it entirely; tensorboard just won’t have the What-If Tool plugin available then

Close this issue. Feel free to reopen if you have more questions.

[nfelt]

It’s included as a required dependency since the dashboard is meant to be present by default whenever TensorBoard is installed, and putting it in extra_requires would require most users to take an extra step to get the dashboard. Or to put it another way, our position is that it’s required for the complete feature set that TensorBoard is documented to provide, even if TensorBoard functions without it.

Also, this generally hasn’t been a problematic dependency for users since they just use the wheel, so there hasn’t been much of a reason to unbundle it. I’m not very familiar with Spack, but I’d be surprised if there was anything about that particular pip package that benefited materially from being rebuilt from source in order to optimize for supercomputers.