From efdff890eda8bad1463930bfe6bd1a51b226c90b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Max Gautier <mg@max.gautier.name>
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2026 11:13:57 +0100
Subject: [PATCH 1/2] Introduce a timeout for package installation

Sometimes package installations can get into weird state and stuck for a
very long time.
Timeout the tasks to fail early, with a customizable timeout duration.
---
 roles/system_packages/defaults/main.yml | 1 +
 roles/system_packages/tasks/main.yml    | 1 +
 2 files changed, 2 insertions(+)

diff --git a/roles/system_packages/defaults/main.yml b/roles/system_packages/defaults/main.yml
index 62704067a..79c9836a4 100644
--- a/roles/system_packages/defaults/main.yml
+++ b/roles/system_packages/defaults/main.yml
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 ---
 # number of times package install task should be retried
 pkg_install_retries: 4
+pkg_install_timeout: "{{ 5 * 60 }}"
 yum_repo_dir: /etc/yum.repos.d
diff --git a/roles/system_packages/tasks/main.yml b/roles/system_packages/tasks/main.yml
index f0bc875df..ebb98147a 100644
--- a/roles/system_packages/tasks/main.yml
+++ b/roles/system_packages/tasks/main.yml
@@ -63,3 +63,4 @@
     label: "{{ item.action_label }}"
   tags:
     - bootstrap_os
+  timeout: "{{ pkg_install_timeout }}"

From 8c128771d71e1a23faaebec685341f88a1388589 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Max Gautier <mg@max.gautier.name>
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2026 11:21:51 +0100
Subject: [PATCH 2/2] CI: create pr-flakey for jobs prone to failure

We have a lot of PRs where we endlessy retry the same flakey jobs, which
is useless and frustating for everyone.

Put those jobs into a separate matrix with 1 retries to migitate the
issue.
---
 .gitlab-ci/kubevirt.yml | 13 +++++++++++--
 1 file changed, 11 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/.gitlab-ci/kubevirt.yml b/.gitlab-ci/kubevirt.yml
index ce580fe07..dd3e3dec7 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci/kubevirt.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci/kubevirt.yml
@@ -43,7 +43,6 @@ pr:
           - fedora39-kube-router
           - fedora41-kube-router
           - fedora42-calico
-          - openeuler24-calico
           - rockylinux9-cilium
           - rockylinux10-cilium
           - ubuntu22-calico-all-in-one
@@ -57,9 +56,19 @@ pr:
           - ubuntu24-kube-router-sep
           - ubuntu24-kube-router-svc-proxy
           - ubuntu24-ha-separate-etcd
-          - flatcar4081-calico
           - fedora40-flannel-crio-collection-scale
 
+# This is for flakey test so they don't disrupt the PR worklflow too much.
+# Jobs here MUST have a open issue so we don't lose sight of them
+pr-flakey:
+  extends: pr
+  retry: 1
+  parallel:
+    matrix:
+      - TESTCASE:
+          - flatcar4081-calico # https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/kubespray/issues/12309
+          - openeuler24-calico # https://github.com/kubernetes-sigs/kubespray/issues/12877
+
 # The ubuntu24-calico-all-in-one jobs are meant as early stages to prevent running the full CI if something is horribly broken
 ubuntu24-calico-all-in-one:
   stage: deploy-part1