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Release Management

This guide is intended to complement the OpenStack releases site, and the project team guide's section on release management.

Team members make themselves familiar with the release schedule for the current release, for example https://releases.openstack.org/train/schedule.html.

Concepts & Aims

Release Model

As a deployment project, Kolla's release model differs from many other OpenStack projects. Kolla follows the cycle-trailing release model, to allow time after the OpenStack coordinated release to wait for distribution packages and support new features. This gives us three months after the final release to prepare our final releases. Users are typically keen to try out the new release, so we should aim to release as early as possible while ensuring we have confidence in the release.

Overlapping Cycles

While the community may have the intention of releasing Kolla projects shortly after the OpenStack coordinated release, there are typically issues that prevent us from doing so, some of which may be outside of our control. Because of this, it is normal for there to be a period where the community is working on two releases - stabilising one for general availability, while developing features for another.

Date Notation

The OpenStack release schedule uses an R-$N notation to describe the timing of milestones and deadlines, where $N is the number of weeks until the coordinated OpenStack release (not the Kolla general release). For a typical 26 week release schedule, R-26 is the first week, and R-0 is the week of the coordinated release. We use that notation here, extended to include the period following a release as R+$N.

Early Cycle Stability

Early in the OpenStack release cycle, as projects make larger changes, it is common for the master branch to become less stable than normal. This can have a negative impact Kolla community, who may be trying to complete the previous release, or develop features for the current release. For this reason, from the Xena cycle, we will continue to build and deploy the previous OpenStack release for several weeks into the development cycle.

Feature Freeze

As with projects following the common release model, Kolla uses a feature freeze period to allow the code to stabilise prior to release. There is no official feature freeze date for the cycle-trailing model, but we aim to freeze three weeks after the common feature freeze. During this time, no features should be merged to the master branch, until the feature freeze is lifted 3 weeks later.

Release Schedule

While we don't wish to repeat the OpenStack release documentation, we will point out the high level schedule, and draw attention to areas where our process is different.

Launchpad Admin

We track series (e.g. Stein) and milestones (e.g. 10.0.1) on Launchpad, and target bugs and blueprints to these. Populating these in advance is necessary. This needs to be done for each of the following projects:

At the beginning of a cycle, ensure a named series exists for the cycle in each project. If not, create one via the project landing page (e.g. https://launchpad.net/kolla) - in the "Series and milestones" section click in "Register a series". Once the series has been created, create the necessary milestones, including the final release. Series can be marked as "Active Development" or "Current Stable Release" as necessary.

Milestones

At each of the various release milestones, pay attention to what other projects are doing.

R-23: Development begins

Feature freeze ends on the master branch of Kolla projects. We continue to build and deploy the previous release of OpenStack projects, as described in early-cycle-stability.

  • [all] Communicate end of feature freeze via IRC meeting and openstack-discuss mailing list.

  • [kayobe] Switch openstack_release and override_checkout in Kayobe master branch to use the master branch of dependencies.

    Note

    The IPA image still needs to use the previous release in order to be compatible with Ironic.

  • [all] Search for TODOs/FIXMEs/NOTEs in the codebases describing tasks to be performed during the new release cycle

    • may include deprecations, code removal, etc.
    • these usually reference either the new cycle or the previous cycle; new cycle may be referenced using only the first letter (for example: V for Victoria).

R-17: Switch source images to current release

R-8: Switch images to current release

Note

Debian does not provide repositories for the in-development release until much later in the cycle.

R-5: Cycle highlights deadline

  • [all] Add cycle highlights when requested by the release team. They should be added to the deliverable file for the Kolla project, but also cover Kolla Ansible and Kayobe.
  • [all] Check for new versions of infrastructure components
    • ansible (incl. kolla-toolbox)
    • ceph client libraries
    • fluentd (td-agent)
    • grafana
    • mariadb
    • opensearch
    • openvswitch/OVN
    • prometheus (incl. exporters)
    • rabbitmq/erlang

R-2: Feature freeze

Feature freeze for Kolla deliverables begins. Feature freeze exceptions may be granted within reason where two cores agree to review the code.

R-1: Prepare Kolla & Kolla Ansible for RC1 & stable branch creation

As defined by the cycle-trailing release model, a stable branch is created at the point of an RC1 release candidate.

Prior to creating an RC1 release candidate:

  • [all] Test the code and fix (at a minimum) all critical bugs
  • [all] The release notes for each project should be tidied up
  • [kolla][kolla-ansible][ansible-collection-kolla] Mark bugs on Launchpad with the correct milestone
    • this command is useful to check for commits that fixed bugs:
      • git log origin/stable/<previous release>..origin/master | grep -i Closes-Bug
  • [kolla] Update OPENSTACK_RELEASE variable in kolla/common/config.py to the name of the current in-development release
  • [kolla] Update versions of independently released projects on master:
    • ./tools/version-check.py --openstack-release $SERIES --include-independent
    • example: TODO
  • [kolla] Switch CentOS images to use the current in-development release stable RDO Delorean repository

R-0: Kolla & Kolla Ansible RC1 & stable branch creation

RC1 is the first release candidate, and also marks the point at which the stable branch is cut.

Note

Use the new-release tool for these activities.

R-0: Prepare Kayobe for RC1 & stable branch creation

As defined by the cycle-trailing release model, a stable branch is created at the point of an RC1 release candidate.

Some of these tasks depend on the existence of Kolla and Kolla Ansible stable branches.

Prior to creating an RC1 release candidate:

  • [kayobe] Synchronise with Kolla Ansible feature flags

    • Clone the Kolla Ansible repository, and run the Kayobe tools/kolla-feature-flags.sh script:

      tools/kolla-feature-flags.sh <path to kolla-ansible source>

    • Copy the output of the script, and replace the kolla_feature_flags list in ansible/roles/kolla-ansible/vars/main.yml.

      The kolla.yml configuration file should be updated to match:

      tools/feature-flags.py

    • Copy the output of the script, and replace the list of kolla_enable_* flags in etc/kayobe/kolla.yml.

    • example: https://review.opendev.org/c/openstack/kayobe/+/787775

  • [kayobe] Synchronise with Kolla Ansible inventory

    Clone the Kolla Ansible repository, and copy across any relevant changes. The Kayobe inventory is based on the ansible/inventory/multinode inventory, but split into 3 parts - top-level, components and services.

    • The top level inventory template is ansible/roles/kolla-ansible/templates/overcloud-top-level.j2. It is heavily templated, and does not typically need to be changed. Look out for changes in the multinode inventory before the [baremetal] group.

    • The components inventory template is ansible/roles/kolla-ansible/templates/overcloud-components.j2.

      This includes groups in the multinode inventory from the [baremetal] group down to the following text:

      # Additional control implemented here. These groups allow you to control which
# services run on which hosts at a per-service level.

    • The services inventory template is ansible/roles/kolla-ansible/templates/overcloud-services.j2.

      This includes groups in the multinode inventory from the following text to the end of the file:

      # Additional control implemented here. These groups allow you to control which
# services run on which hosts at a per-service level.

      There are some small changes in this section which should be maintained.

    • example: https://review.opendev.org/c/openstack/kayobe/+/787775

  • [kayobe] Update dependencies to upcoming release

    Prior to the release, we update the dependencies and upper constraints on the master branch to use the upcoming release. This is now quite easy to do, following the introduction of the openstack_release variable.

  • [kayobe] Synchronise kayobe-config

    Ensure that configuration defaults in kayobe-config are in sync with those under etc/kayobe in kayobe. This can be done via:

    rsync -a --delete kayobe/etc/kayobe/ kayobe-config/etc/kayobe

    Commit the changes and submit for review.

  • [kayobe] Synchronise kayobe-config-dev

    Ensure that configuration defaults in kayobe-config-dev are in sync with those in kayobe-config. This requires a little more care, since some configuration options have been changed from the defaults. Choose a method to suit you and be careful not to lose any configuration.

    Commit the changes and submit for review.

R+1: Kayobe RC1 & stable branch creation

RC1 is the first release candidate, and also marks the point at which the stable branch is cut.

Note

Use the new-release tool for these activities.

R+0 to R+13: Finalise stable branch

Several tasks are required to finalise the stable branch for release.

  • [kolla-ansible][kayobe] Switch to use the new branch of ansible-collection-kolla in requirements.yml.

    Note

    This needs to be done on the stable branch.

  • [kolla-ansible] Switch to use the newly tagged container images (the branch for development mode on the new stable branch follows automatically since Victoria)

    Note

    This needs to be done on the stable branch.

    Note

    This requires the images to have been published to quay.io with the new tag.

  • [kolla] Switch CentOS images to use the CentOS Cloud SIG repository for the new release

    Note

    This needs to be done on the stable branch.

  • [kolla] Switch Debian images to use the Debian OpenStack repository for the new release

    Note

    This needs to be done on the master branch and stable branch.

R+0 to R+13: Further release candidates and final release

Once the stable branches are finalised, further release candidates may be created as necessary in a similar manner to RC1.

A release candidate may be promoted to a final release if it has no critical bugs against it.

After final release, projects enter the stable-branch-lifecycle with a status of Maintained.

R+13 marks the 3 month deadline for the release of cycle-trailing projects.

Stable Branch Lifecycle

The lifecycle of stable branches in OpenStack is described in the project team guide. The current status of each branch is published on the releases site.

Maintained

Releases should be made periodically for each maintained stable branch, no less than once every 45 days. We try to make one release per month by having a recurring topic for that in the first Kolla meeting each month.

  • Create stable releases by submitting patches to the releases repository

    • follow SemVer guidelines, for simplicity consider always making minor version bumps

    • you can use the tooling from the requirements team to prepare the patches:

      git checkout -b kolla-stable-monthly
for project in ansible-collection-kolla kayobe kolla kolla-ansible; do
    for rel in zed antelope bobcat; do
        tox -e venv -- new-release $rel $project feature
    done
done
git commit -am "Tag monthly kolla stable releases"
git review -f

    • example release patch: https://review.opendev.org/c/openstack/releases/+/860521

Extended Maintenance (EM)

When a branch is entering EM, projects will make final releases. The release team will propose tagging the Kolla deliverables as EM, but this should only be done once all other dependent projects have made their final release, and final Kolla releases have been made including those dependencies.

After a branch enters EM, we typically do the following:

  • stop backporting fixes to the branch by default. Important fixes or those requested by community members may be merged if deemed appropriate
  • stop publishing images to Dockerhub
  • stop actively maintaining CI

End of Life (EOL)

Once a branch has been unmaintained (failing CI, no patches merged) for 6 months, it may be moved to EOL. Since this is done at different times for different projects, send an email to openstack-discuss to keep the community informed.