Ubuntu Wiki

To be carried out by the Ubuntu release team

Goals:

• Produce a set of distribution media images suitable for testing by advanced users and hardware recertification
• Make the archive consistent so that upgrade testing can be performed

Before 7 days before first milestone:

1. Check with translation team, that translations have been opened in launchpad for contributions.
2. Discuss with Desktop team whether or not to re-enable apport by default for A1

Release minus 6 days:

1. Start to prepare web page summarizing the changes since the last milestone
   • Set up template

   • Ask the marketing team (ubuntu-marketing@lists.ubuntu.com) if they have input

   • Notify the technical leads and product managers/designates for their input.
2. Coordinate with web team for contacts and plans during release day

   • Please notify web team (#web-team on canonical; email: webteam@canonical.com) that there will be impending website changes

   • Review list of full iso image names and sizing with the web team (#web-team on canonical; email: webteam@canonical.com)

3. Notify developers by mailing ubuntu-devel-announce:

   • Pointer to milestone release notes page
   • Reminder of milestone freeze

   • Request to avoid and eliminate PackageInconsistencies

   • Target any relevant bugs to the milestone
4. Update metapackages for all releasing derivatives

5. Notify Michael Vogt to perform a GnomeAppInstallDesktopDatabaseUpdate

6. Run ./update-from-web.sh in command-not-found and upload to Ubuntu

Release minus 3 days:

1. Announce the milestone freeze on the #ubuntu-release topic, #ubuntu-devel topic, ubuntu-devel-announce. If it is not a hard freeze, let people know to hold off on the uploads. When it is a hard freeze, they will be held automatically by Soyuz once the next task is performed.

2. If a hard freeze is in use, set the distrorelease status to FROZEN in Launchpad

3. Coordinate with cloud image builds (Ben Howard, IRC: utlemming) to check for issues.

4. As first image becomes available, mail out to ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com and ubuntu-bugsquad@lists.ubuntu.com to announce that ISO images are ready for testing, and refer people to the ISO tracker.

5. Review problems and file targeted bugs for those which need resolution before builds can begin:

   • PackageInconsistencies

   • Live filesystem build failures

   • NBS list

6. Selectively accept package uploads to resolve targeted bugs

7. Ensure that you accept at least one package through the Launchpad UI, to ensure that Launchpad has not broken (important for non-Canonical members of the release team). If it has, please file a bug on Launchpad, and scream loudly.

8. check with QA on UpgradeTestingProcess results (auto test) and manual smoke tests, since the archive is now consistent

9. Notify commercial engineering (email: david.murphy@canonical.com AND cc: ce-infrastructure@lists.canonical.com; IRC: schwuk) that the archive is in a consistent state

10. Ensure that the ISO tracker lists the new milestone, that the milestone series is correct and that a manifest exists for the series.
11. When ready to publish new images, set the "Automatically publish builds listed in the series manifest" flag on the milestone. Any build listed on the manifest will then automatically be copied from the daily milestone to the release milestone.
12. Stop all live filesystem and cdimage cron jobs
13. Produce full set of images

14. Iterate ReleaseValidationProcess and fix showstopper bugs

Release minus 1 day:

1. Fix any blocker bugs that have come up during testing
   • Coordinate with QA and other team leads to make sure blockers visible
   • Resolve any remaining targeted blocker bugs with development teams
   • Produce final set of images (if needed)

2. Prepare the release web page content (TechnicalOverview)

   • review input from tech leads
   • add discovered bugs not going to be fixed from ISO testing

   • Review -changes mailing list since the last milestone to make sure that all relevant major changes have been documented in the milestone's web page

3. Prepare the release announcement
   • this should refer to the summary web page prepared by the teams rather than going into details of changes itself
   • update the page to include any caveats

Release:

1. Generate corresponding source images with ALL_PROJECTS="list of participating flavors" cron.source
2. Start the image publishing off
   • If there are older milestones for this series, keep the previous milestone's images, but consider moving the earlier images from /srv/cdimage.ubuntu.com/www/full to /srv/cdimage.ubuntu.com/old-images/ if space is needed. If images are moved, notify the sysadmin team that these are available for off-line archival.

   • Publish the milestone CD images: ./publish-image-set (from lp:ubuntu-archive-tools) will print the necessary commands.

   • Publish the milestone Cloud images on cloud-images.ubuntu.com. (ping IRC: utlemming or smoser)

   • Verify that all mirrors listed in the announcement or release notes have images
   • Check functionality of torrents
3. Once it's clear we won't pick up and test any last respins

   • Notify Hardware Certification team (email: hardware-certification@canonical.com, IRC: ara) to begin CertificationTestingProcess (private due to agreements with vendors)

   • Confirm that UpgradeTestingProcess is complete before unfreezing archive

   • If a hard freeze was in use, set the distrorelease back to DEVELOPMENT in Launchpad.

   • Clear out any pending entries in the UNAPPROVED queue

   • Update topic on #ubuntu-devel that archive is unfrozen.

4. Notify web site team (email: steve.edwards@canonical.com, IRC: steveedwards) to update to new images and notes.

   • /testing on the website with release notes

   • alphas are served off of cdimage, betas and others use /testing/download

   • verify that the links in the announce and release notes work, and its picking up the new images
5. Announce the milestone is available

   • Send the release announcement to ubuntu-devel-announce

   • Update the topic on #ubuntu-devel and #ubuntu-release to indicate milestone is available.

6. Switch from publishing images for the milestone back to publishing the dailies
   • Update the ISO tracker to set the milestone to "released", re-enable the "daily", and update the notice.
   • Turn live filesystems and cdimage cron jobs back on.
   • Mark the milestone on iso.qa.ubuntu.com as released.

7. If any modifications to this process were made in this run, check whether they apply to BetaProcess and ReleaseProcess as well.

Release plus 7 days:

1. In planning cycle, review Release Manifest and make any necessary updates.

Outstanding issues

CategoryProcess