TensorFlow Serving Error - tensorflow

Question

I have installed Tensorflow Serving as outlined on the install page at https://tensorflow.github.io/serving/setup. However, when I follow the build instruction on the page I get the following error:
$ bazel build tensorflow_serving/...
ERROR: /home/**PATH**/external/org_tensorflow/third_party/py/python_configure.bzl:183:20: unexpected keyword 'environ' in call to repository_rule(implementation: function, *, attrs: dict or NoneType = None, local: bool = False).
ERROR: com.google.devtools.build.lib.packages.BuildFileContainsErrorsException: error loading package '': Extension file 'third_party/py/python_configure.bzl' has errors.
INFO: Elapsed time: 0.623s
I am running on Ubuntu and TensorFlow 1.0.1 build. I am using Python 2.7 and have set up a virtualenv.
I can successfully build the bazel hello example and also am able to complete the gRPC quick start found at http://www.grpc.io/docs/quickstart/python.html.
Any suggestions?
-Dave

Answer 1

The trouble was an old copy of bazel. To determine your version
$ bazel version
Build label: 0.4.5
Build target: bazel-out/local-fastbuild/bin/src/main/java/com/google/devtools/build/lib/bazel/BazelServer_deploy.jar
Build time: Thu Mar 16 12:19:38 2017 (1489666778)
Build timestamp: 1489666778
Build timestamp as int: 1489666778
In my case it required a manual removal of the old version
rm -fr ~/.bazel ~/.bazelrc
Next, I chose the install using the installer for ubuntu.
$ ./bazel-0.4.5-installer-linux-x86_64.sh
Bazel installer
---------------
Bazel is bundled with software licensed under the GPLv2 with Classpath exception.
You can find the sources next to the installer on our release page:
https://github.com/bazelbuild/bazel/releases
# Release 0.4.5 (2017-03-16)
There was still another trick to getting it to work.
$cd ..
$ bazel test tensorflow_serving/...
Python Configuration Error: 'PYTHON_BIN_PATH' environment variable is not set
This error is also related to versioning, but in this case it was an issue with serving. The solution was to revert to an earlier version and update the submodule from git (I had previously cloned the repository). From the serving directory:
$ git checkout 0.5.1
M tensorflow
M tf_models
Note: checking out '0.5.1'.
You are in 'detached HEAD' state. You can look around, make experimental
changes and commit them, and you can discard any commits you make in this
state without impacting any branches by performing another checkout.
If you want to create a new branch to retain commits you create, you may
do so (now or later) by using -b with the checkout command again. Example:
git checkout -b <new-branch-name>
HEAD is now at 51bb356... Merge pull request #325 from kirilg/0.5.1
(tensorflow) $ git submodule update
Submodule path 'tensorflow': checked out '07bb8ea2379bd459832b23951fb20ec47f3fdbd4'
Submodule path 'tf_models': checked out '2fd3dcf3f31707820126a4d9ce595e6a1547385d'
(tensorflow) $ bazel test tensorflow_serving/...
Serving now reports success:
INFO: Found 199 targets and 57 test targets...
[1,299 / 4,037] Still waiting for 200 jobs to complete:
Running (standalone):