PointReleaseProcess

Revision 26 as of 2010-07-08 16:40:35

Clear message

To be carried out by: nominated stable release manager, with support from the stable release updates and release teams

Goals:

  • Refresh hardware support in LTS releases for carefully-selected hardware
  • Roll up accumulated stable updates into updated images to reduce download requirements for new deployments
  • Maintain stability of existing installations

Between Release minus 6 months and Release minus 2 months:

  1. Discuss candidates for new or improved hardware support with affected parties. Some sources for this work should be:
    • the Canonical support team (via Steve George)
    • customers
    • the Ubuntu kernel team
    • the Ubuntu QA team
  2. Establish a hit-list of bugs to fix in the point release using a milestone. Milestoning bugs is not a commitment to including the changes in the point release; they may be deferred after further information becomes available.
  3. In concert with affected developers, triage the hit-list for feasibility.

Release minus 2 months:

  1. Process stable release updates as normal. For hardware-enabling fixes, the package should be tested on the affected hardware prior to submitting to sign-off for -proposed.

  2. Discuss the possibility of a Canonical press release for the point release with Gerry Carr.
  3. Liaise with IS, QA, and certification to arrange for testing resources.

Release minus 1 month:

  1. In coordination with QA, verify that all candidate bugs are fixed.
  2. Upload a new base-files package to -proposed to bump the lsb_release description (example for 8.04.4). Do not change the DISTRIB_RELEASE value, which is used programmatically by third-party software.

  3. If the kernel or associated modules have been changed, upload debian-installer after all the binaries are in place. If the ABI changed, make sure to take account of this throughout debian-installer/build/config/ and in the installer seed for all flavours being built.

  4. Notify Evan Dandrea to update umenu and wubi for the point release.
  5. Change cdimage/bin/make-web-indices, cdimage/bin/publish-release, and debian-cd/CONF.sh to use the new release version number.

  6. Change cdimage/bin/run-germinate and debian-cd/CONF.sh to build from -proposed temporarily.

  7. Build CD images (which will be published on cdimage.ubuntu.com) and smoke-test in some convenient environment to check for obvious failures.

Release minus 3 weeks:

  1. Contact IS, QA, and/or certification as appropriate to request testing for hardware recertification.
  2. Iterate CD images as needed based on testing feedback, in coordination with the kernel team.

Release minus 6 days:

  1. Once testing is verified to be complete, move packages to -updates.
  2. Prepare change summary and release announcement
  3. Notify Matthew Nuzum of the upcoming point release.

Release:

  • release images as final, and move the previous images to old-releases.ubuntu.com:

    • Check with James Troup whether the previous point release needs to be moved off before prepublishing due to mirror space constraints.
    • Prepublish images:

      DIST=lucid for-project ubuntu publish-release ubuntu-server/daily 20100708 server poolonly (similar for alternates, desktops, etc.)

    • TODO much more detail here
    • Notify Matthew Nuzum to update the iso URLs on the ubuntu.com website
  • Create a snapshot of the archive:

    lp_archive@cocoplum:~$ point-release-snapshot lucid lucid.1-security-updates-snapshot

    which will create a hardlink farm in ~lp_archive/point-releases/.

  • File a bug on ubuntu-website to have https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuHashes updated.

  • send the announcement mail

Release +1 day:

  1. restore the .manifest.full file on releases.ubuntu.com