On the Buildbot GUI in the /#/workers page, it shows
WorkerName Status
fnord 1 connection
I've setup two workers named fnord on the same machine with the same password, but when they try to connect to the master, the master continues thrashing the connections with these log messages:
worker 'fnord' attaching from IPv4Address(TCP, '127.0.0.1', 48910)
Got duplication connection from 'fnord' starting arbitration procedure
Got error while trying to ping connected worker home:rejecting duplicate worker
Old connection for 'fnord' was lost, accepting new
Worker.detached(fnord)
releaseLocks(<Worker b'fnord'>): []
Worker home detached from runtests
Worker home detached from awesomesauce
Got workerinfo from 'fnord'
Worker fnord attached to runtests
Worker fnord attached to awesomesauce
Given the N connection in the status of the GUI I expected that I could attach multiple worker instances, but it appears that this isn't exactly the case.
Is there a fundamental misunderstanding I have here, or do I just have some simple setting wrong?
Yes, worker names must be unique and should point to the machine you wish to handle the work. Multiple builders can point to the same worker so if you have multiple jobs you're looking to execute on that one worker, you should create multiple builders and point those builders to that one worker.
On defining workers: http://docs.buildbot.net/latest/manual/cfg-workers.html#defining-workers