===================
Release Processes
===================
This document describes the relative ordering and rough timeline for
all of the steps related to preparing the release.
Before PTG (after closing previous release)
===========================================
1. Set up the release schedule for the newly opened cycle by creating
the required pages in openstack/releases.
2. Update the link to the documentation on the newly opened cycle page
to point to the right place on docs.openstack.org.
3. Create the $series-relmgt-plan and $series-relmgt-tracking
etherpads.
4. Use ``init-series`` to create stub deliverable files based on the
contents of the previous release.
Between Summit and Milestone-1
==============================
1. Establish liaisons by having them update
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/CrossProjectLiaisons with their
contact information.
2. Email PTLs directly one time to explain the use of the "[release]"
email tag on the openstack-dev list.
3. Encourage liaisons to ensure that their release model is set
properly before the first milestone.
4. Start weekly countdown emails, sent on Thursday afternoon (US)
or Friday morning (EU/APAC) with information needed about the
following week (deadlines, instructions, etc.).
5. The week before Milestone-1, include a reminder about completing
the responses to community-wide goals in the countdown email.
Milestone-1
===========
1. Include the deadline for the milestone in the countdown emails but
do not send extra reminders to liaisons. Missing the first
milestone isn't important in terms of the release, so we want to
encourage everyone to pay attention on their own.
Between Milestone-1 and Milestone-2
===================================
1. Follow up with PTLs and liaisons for projects that missed the first
milestone.
2. Use the countdown emails to list which projects have not done any
stable release yet, to encourage them to do so.
3. Use the countdown emails to list which intermediary-released (or
independent) projects haven't done a release yet. Remind teams that
we need at least one library release before milestone-2.
4. The week before Milestone-2 include a reminder of the deadline in
the countdown emails. Mention the MembershipFreeze deadline as well.
List teams that still haven't done a library release yet and remind
them of the milestone-2 deadline.
Milestone-2
===========
1. Run the following to get a report of which libraries have unreleased
changes::
tools/list_library_unreleased_changes.sh
Filter out libraries that have insignificant changes (Updates to .gitreview,
etc.) and include list in the weekly countdown email.
Between Milestone-2 and Milestone-3
===================================
1. Follow up with PTLs and liaisons for projects that missed the second
milestone, or still haven't done their library releases yet.
2. In the countdown email immediately after Milestone-2, include a
reminder about the various freezes that happen around Milestone-3.
3. Two weeks before Milestone-3, include a reminder about the final
library release freeze coming the week before Milestone-3.
1. Run the command from milestone-2 again to get a list of libraries::
tools/list_library_unreleased_changes.sh
2. Include list of unreleased libraries in the email to increase visibility.
4. Two weeks before Milestone-3, set up the gerrit ACLs for the
yet-to-be-created stable/$series branches.
(The timing for this is meant to postpone it until all projects
that will be included in the current release are accepted but not
put it off for so long that we have to rush to merge the changes in
order to avoid having the release blocked.)
1. Update ACLs for refs/heads/stable/$series so that members of
$project-release-branch can approve changes. The patch can be
generated (for all release:cycle-with-milestones deliverables)
with::
tox -e aclmanager -- acls /path/to/project-config
Double-check that all references to the previous stable/$old
are all removed from project-config gerrit ACLs, as some may
have changed release models and kept stale entries::
grep stable/$old /path/to/project-config/gerrit/acls/openstack/*
2. Once the above patch merges (and only then!), set the population
of all $project-release-branch groups to the
"Release Managers" group and $project-release. This can be done
(for all release:cycle-with-milestones deliverables) by running
``aclmanager.py``::
tox -e aclmanager -- groups pre_release $user
($user being your Gerrit username). It will prompt you for your
Gerrit HTTP password, which you can see/generate at
https://review.openstack.org/#/settings/http-password.
3. Ask the release liaisons for the affected teams to update the
contents of their $project-release groups. For new projects in
some cases they will need to get the group created by Infra.
4. Notify the Infrastructure team to `generate
<https://docs.openstack.org/infra/system-config/signing.html#generation>`_
an artifact signing key (but not replace the current one yet), and
begin the attestation process.
5. Two weeks before milestone 3, warn cycle-with-intermediary projects
without any releases that the release team will tag HEAD of master
for their project if they have not prepared a release by the
following week so that there is a fallback release to use for the
cycle and as a place to create their stable branch.
Final Library Release (week before Milestone-3)
===============================================
1. Release libraries as quickly as possible this week to ensure they
are all done before the freeze. Consider relaxing the "not on
Friday" release rule if absolutely necessary.
2. Remind liaisons to prepare releases for client libraries at
Milestone-3.
3. Update the feature list and allowed stable branch names in
devstack-gate for the new stable branch. For
example, https://review.openstack.org/362435 and
https://review.openstack.org/363084
4. Ensure that final releases for libraries also include the
specification to create the stable/$series branch.
5. Use the ``make-dashboard`` command to prepare the data for tracking
the final release and import it into a Google Docs spreadsheet for
collaborative editing and monitoring.
6. Tag HEAD of master for any cycle-with-intermediary project without
any releases. Do not create branches for non-library projects.
Milestone-3
===========
1. Verify that all projects following release:cycle-with-intermediary
have prepared at least one release for the cycle.
2. Freeze changes to ``openstack/requirements`` by applying -2 to all
open patches. Ensure that reviewers do not approve changes created
by the proposal bot.
3. Ensure the stable/$series branch is requested with each client
library final release.
4. Remind PTLs/liaisons that master should be frozen except for bug
fixes and feature work with FFEs.
5. Remind PTL/liaisons to start preparing "prelude" release notes as
summaries of the content of the release so that those are merged
before their first release candidate.
6. Freeze all cycle-based library releases except for release-critical
bugs. Independently-released libraries may still be released, but
constraint or requirement changes will be held until after the freeze
period.
7. Include a reminder about completing the responses to community-wide
goals in the countdown email.
Between Milestone-3 and RC1
===========================
1. Encourage liaisons to wait as long as possible to create RC1 to
avoid immediately having to create an RC2 with a new bug fix.
2. Encourage release:independent projects to add the history for any
releases not yet listed in their deliverable file.
3. Remind projects using all release models to prepare their new
stable branch request around the RC1 target date.
As soon as grenade is updated for the new branch (see the RC1
instructions that follow), projects without stable branches may
start seeing issues with their grenade jobs because without the
stable branch the branch selection will cause the jobs to run
master->master instead of previous->master. At the end of Ocata
this caused trouble for the Ironic team, for example.
4. Warn cycle-with-intermediary projects that have releases more than
2 months old that we will use their existing release as a point for
branching if they have not prepared a newer release by the RC1
deadline.
RC1
===
1. Ensure all RC1 tag requests include the info to have the
stable/$series branch created, too.
Branches for cycle-trailing and cycle-with-intermediary projects
should be created when the PTL/liaison are ready, and not
necessarily for RC1 week.
2. After the minimum set of projects used by devstack have been branched, the
devstack branch can be created. Devstack doesn't push a tag at RC1 it is
just branched off of HEAD
3. After devstack is branched a grenade branch can be created. As with
devstack it will branch from HEAD instead of a tag.
4. Update the default branch for devstack in the new stable
branch. For example, https://review.openstack.org/#/c/493208/
5. Update the grenade settings in devstack-gate for the new branch. For
example, https://review.openstack.org/362438.
6. For translations, create stable-$series versions in the Zanata
translation server on https://translate.openstack.org for all
projects that the translation team wants to handle. Create new
translation-jobs-$series periodic jobs to import translations from
the Zanata translation server and propose them to projects, add
these jobs to all projects that have a stable-$series version.
Note this work is done by translation team.
7. After all cycle-with-milestone projects have their branches
created, someone from the requirements core team (preferably the
requirements PTL) needs to propose an update the deliverable file to
create the stable/$series branch for ``openstack/requirements``.
Then announce that the requirements freeze is lifted from master.
Note that we wait until after the other projects have branched to
create the branch for requirements because tests for the stable
branches of those projects will fall back to using the master
branch of requirements until the same stable branch is created,
but if the branch for the requirements repo exists early the
changes happening in master on the other projects will not use it
and we can have divergence between the requirements being tested
and being declared as correct.
8. In the tempest repo, create new branch specific jobs for our two branchless
projects, devstack-gate and tempest. Configure tempest to run them on all
changes, voting. Configure tempest to run them as periodic bitrot jobs as
well. All this can be done in one tempest patch, like for example, see
https://review.openstack.org/521888.
Configure devstack-gate to run the new jobs in check pipeline only,
non-voting, for example see https://review.openstack.org/545144.
9. Add the new branch to the list of branches in the periodic-stable job
templates in openstack-zuul-jobs. For example, see
https://review.openstack.org/545268/.
Between RC1 and Final
=====================
Try to avoid creating more than 3 release candidates so we are not
creating candidates that consumers are then trained to ignore. Each
release candidate should be kept for at least 1 day, so if there is a
proposal to create RCX but clearly a reason to create another one,
delay RCX to include the additional patches. Teams that know they will
need additional release candidates can submit the requests and mark
them WIP until actually ready, so the release team knows that more
candidates are coming.
1. Ensure that all projects that are publishing release notes have the
notes link included in their deliverable file. See
``tools/add_release_note_links.sh``.
2. Encourage liaisons to merge all translation patches.
3. When all translations and bug fixes are merged for a project,
prepare a new release candidate.
4. Ensure that the final release candidate for each project is
prepared at least one week before the final release date.
5. After final releases for release:cycle-with-intermediary projects
are tagged, create their stable branches.
6. On the morning of the deadline for final release candidates, check
the list of unreleased changes for milestone projects and verify
with the PTLs and liaisons that they are planning a release or that
they do not need one.
In the release-tools repository working directory, run::
$ ./list_unreleased_changes.sh stable/newton $(list-repos --tag release:cycle-with-milestones) 2>&1 | tee unreleased.log
7. As soon as the last release candidate is tagged and the freeze
period is entered, use ``propose-final-releases`` to tag the
existing most recent release candidates as the final release for
projects using the cycle-with-milestone model.
8. Ask liaisons and PTLs of milestone-based projects to review and +1
the final release proposal from the previous step so their approval
is included in the metadata that goes onto the signed tag.
9. The week before final release test the release process using the
openstack/release-test repository.
10. Notify the documentation team that it should be safe to apply
their process to create the new release series landing pages for
docs.openstack.org. Their process works better if they wait until
most of the projects have their stable branches created, but they
can do the work before the final release date to avoid having to
synchronize with the release team on that day.
Final Release
=============
1. Approve the final release patch created earlier.
2. Reset gerrit ACLs
1. Update all of the $project-release-branch groups to have
$project-stable-maint as members instead of "Release Managers"
and $project-release. This can be done (for all
release:cycle-with-milestones deliverables) by running::
tox -e aclmanager -- groups post_release $user
($user being your Gerrit username)
2. Remove the refs/heads/stable/$series from the project gerrit
ACLs. This can be done by reverting the original ACL patch.
3. Mark series as released on releases.o.o, by updating doc/source/index.rst
and doc/source/$series/index.rst.
See https://review.openstack.org/#/c/381006 for an example.
4. Update the default series name in
``openstack/releases/openstack_releases/defaults.py`` to use the
new series name.
5. Send release announcement email to
``openstack-announce@lists.openstack.org``, based on
``templates/final.txt``. Coordinate the timing of the email with
the press release from the Foundation staff.
6. Declare ``openstack/releases`` unfrozen.
Post-Final Release
==================
1. The week after the final release, process any late or blocked
release requests for deliverables for any branch (treating the new
series branch as stable).
2. The week after the final releases for milestone-based projects are
tagged, use ``propose-final-releases --all`` to tag the existing
most recent release candidates as the final release for projects
using the cycle-trailing model.
3. Ask liaisons and PTLs of cycle-trailing projects to review and +1
the final release proposal from the previous step so their approval
is included in the metadata that goes onto the signed tag.
cycle-trailing Final Release
============================
1. Two weeks after the final release for milestone-based projects,
approve the final release patch created earlier.
2. Reset gerrit ACLs
1. Update all of the $project-release-branch for cycle-trailing
groups to have $project-stable-maint as members instead of
"Release Managers" and $project-release. This can be done (for
all release:cycle-with-milestones deliverables) by running
``aclmanager.py groups post_release $user`` ($user being your
Gerrit username)
2. Remove the refs/heads/stable/$series from the project gerrit
ACLs. This can be done by reverting the original ACL patch.