Ubuntu Wiki

Why

When

High-impact bugs

See: https://canonical-sru-docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/reference/requirements/#what-is-acceptable-to-sru

Other safe cases

See: https://canonical-sru-docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/reference/requirements/#other-safe-cases

New upstream microreleases

See: https://canonical-sru-docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/reference/requirements/#new-upstream-microreleases

Staging low priority uploads

See: https://canonical-sru-docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/explanation/non-standard-processes/#explanation-staged-uploads

ESM Uploads

See: https://canonical-sru-docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/reference/special/

General Requirements

Development Release Fixed First

See: https://canonical-sru-docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/reference/requirements/#general-requirements-for-all-srus

Newer Releases

See: https://canonical-sru-docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/reference/requirements/#general-requirements-for-all-srus

Procedure

SRU Bug Template

See: https://canonical-sru-docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/reference/bug-template/

Bug references in changelogs

See: https://canonical-sru-docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/reference/requirements/#bug-references-in-changelogs

Staging an upload

See: https://canonical-sru-docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/howto/special/#stage-an-upload

Landing an upload blocked by staging

See: https://canonical-sru-docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/howto/special/#land-an-upload-blocked-by-staging

Responsibility for SRU verification and cancellation of incomplete verification

See: https://canonical-sru-docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/explanation/non-standard-processes/#explanation-staged-uploads

Publishing

Phasing

Investigation of Halted Phased Updates

See: https://canonical-sru-docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/howto/phasing/

SRU team documentation

See: https://canonical-sru-docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/internal/#override-phasing

Verification

Autopkgtest Regressions

See: https://canonical-sru-docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/howto/autopkgtest-failure/

Expected resolution for reported autopkgtest failures

See: https://canonical-sru-docs.readthedocs-hosted.com/en/latest/howto/autopkgtest-failure/

Removal of updates

Regressions

Testing for Regressions

(defunct section removed)

Documentation for Special Cases

The Technical Board resolution on Landscape provides a general rationale for the types of special cases that may be approved here in future. Most exception approvals are now handled directly by the SRU team.

To obtain a new ongoing exception such as those documented below:

1. Draft a wiki page, like the ones below, outlining what you believe should be the exception.

2. Submit it to the SRU team for approval. This can be done to any individual member of the SRU team directly, or you can send it to ubuntu-release@lists.ubuntu.com for review.

Note that the SRU team's delegation from the Technical Board is limited to accepting SRU uploads that meet the policy criteria above. The SRU team maintains documentation for standing exceptions here to keep individual interpretations of the policy criteria consistent. Departing from the policy criteria above still requires approval from the Technical Board.

Kernel

Because of the way updates to the kernel work, it will follow a slightly different process which is described on KernelTeam/KernelUpdates.

Landscape

The landscape-client source package may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in LandscapeUpdates. See the Technical Board resolution for details and rationale.

Snapd

The snapd source package may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in SnapdUpdates. Per Technical Board discussion regarding delegation of these decisions to the SRU team, this stable release exception has been approved by SteveLangasek for the SRU team as of 2016-05-12.

Snapcraft

Related to the preceding snapd exception, the snapcraft source package may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in SnapcraftUpdates. This stable release exception has been approved by SteveLangasek for the SRU team as of 2016-05-16.

Ubuntu-image

Also related to snapd, the ubuntu-image package may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in UbuntuImageUpdates. This stable release exception has been approved by SteveLangasek for the SRU team as of 2016-10-19.

Docker.io group

The source packages docker.io, containerd, and runc may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in DockerUpdates. Per Technical Board discussion regarding delegation of these decisions to the SRU team, this stable release exception has been approved by BrianMurray for the SRU team as of 2016-09-20.

gce-compute-image-packages

The source package gce-compute-image-packages may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in gce-compute-image-packages-Updates. Per Technical Board discussion regarding delegation of these decisions to the SRU team, this stable release exception has been approved by BrianMurray for the SRU team as of 2017-03-10. Further amendment to this exception for vendored dependencies approved by LukaszZemczak for the SRU team as of 2023-04-11.

google-compute-engine

The source package gce-compute-image-packages may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in google-compute-engine-Updates. Per Technical Board discussion regarding delegation of these decisions to the SRU team, this stable release exception has been approved by SteveLangasek for the SRU team as of 2022-09-01. Further amendment to this exception for vendored dependencies approved by LukaszZemczak for the SRU team as of 2023-04-11.

google-compute-engine-oslogin

The source package google-compute-engine-oslogin may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in google-compute-engine-oslogin-Updates. Per Technical Board discussion regarding delegation of these decisions to the SRU team, this stable release exception has been approved by SteveLangasek for the SRU team as of 2022-09-01. Further amendment to this exception for vendored dependencies approved by LukaszZemczak for the SRU team as of 2023-04-11.

google-guest-agent

The source package gce-compute-image-packages may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in google-guest-agent-Updates. Per Technical Board discussion regarding delegation of these decisions to the SRU team, this stable release exception has been approved by SteveLangasek for the SRU team as of 2022-09-01. Further amendment to this exception for vendored dependencies approved by LukaszZemczak for the SRU team as of 2023-04-11.

google-osconfig-agent

The source package google-osconfig-agent may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in google-osconfig-agent-Updates. Per Technical Board discussion regarding delegation of these decisions to the SRU team, this stable release exception has been approved by SteveLangasek for the SRU team as of 2022-09-01. Further amendment to this exception for vendored dependencies approved by LukaszZemczak for the SRU team as of 2023-04-11.

curtin

The source package curtin may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in CurtinUpdates. This stable release exception has been approved by SteveLangasek for the SRU team as of 2017-04-05.

walinuxagent

The source package walinuxagent may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in walinuxagentUpdates. This stable release exception has been approved by SteveLangasek for the SRU team as of 2017-04-05.

GNOME

GNOME has a microrelease exception excepting it from the normal QA requirements of the microrelease policy, documented here. This was granted by the technical board on 2012-06-22.

OpenStack

OpenStack packages can be updated according to the procedures documented in OpenStack/StableReleaseUpdates, which includes a list of source packages covered by the MRE. This stable release exception has been approved by LukaszZemczak for the SRU team as of 2017-08-07.

Certbot

The Certbot family of packages can be updated according to the procedures documented in /Certbot. This stable release exception was discussed and subsequently revision 10 of that document was approved by RobieBasak for the SRU team on 2017-08-08.

cloud-init

The source package cloud-init may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in CloudinitUpdates. Per Technical Board discussion regarding delegation of these decisions to the SRU team, this stable release exception has been approved by BrianMurray for the SRU team as of 2017-10-06 with subsequent updates approved by RobieBasak on 2020-07-15.

DPDK

The dpdk source package can be uploaded according to the procedures documented in DPDK for supported LTS releases of Ubuntu. This stable release exception has been approved by LukaszZemczak for the SRU team as of 2017-08-07.

ubuntu-release-upgrader and python-apt

The packages ubuntu-release-upgrader and python-apt both contain files with listings of Ubuntu mirrors. To facilitate upgrades to new releases ubuntu-release-upgrader should be updated (particularly for LTS releases) so that the list of mirrors is accurate. With that in mind and given that it is just a text file with urls for mirrors it is okay to SRU only mirror changes for these packages without an SRU bug.

apt and python-apt

Not a policy exception, but see AptUpdates for details of unusual SRU versioning.

rax-nova-agent

The source package rax-nova-agent may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in rax-nova-agent-Updates. This stable release exception has been approved by SteveLangasek for the SRU team as of 2018-08-15.

livecd-rootfs

The livecd-rootfs package is a frequent target of SRUs as part of development of changes to image builds for the target series, and is not intended for general installation on end-user systems. The risk of user-affecting regression is lower as a result, because the impact of changes to this package to end users is mediated by way of image builds. Therefore, the requirement for per-change bug reports and test cases is relaxed, as long as there is at least one linked bug with a test case.

fwupd and fwupdate

The source packages fwupd and fwupdate may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in firmware-updates. This stable release exception has been approved by BrianMurray for the SRU team as of 2019-01-15.

snapd-glib

The source package snapd-glib may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in snapd-glib updates. This stable release exception has been approved by BrianMurray for the SRU team as of 2019-02-19.

netplan.io

The source package netplan.io may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in netplan updates. This stable release exception has been approved by BrianMurray for the SRU team as of 2019-04-01 (no really!).

ec2-hibinit-agent

The source package ec2-hibinit-agent may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in ec2-hibinit-agent updates. This stable release exception has been approved by SteveLangasek for the SRU team as of 2019-09-06.

NVIDIA driver

NVIDIA driver (source packages nvidia-graphics-drivers-*, nvidia-settings, fabric-manager-*, libnvidia-nscq-*) may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in NVIDIA updates. This stable release exception has been approved by ChrisHalseRogers for the SRU team as of 2019-09-17.

wslu

The wslu package may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in wslu Updates. This stable release exception has been approved by LukaszZemczak for the SRU team as of 2019-10-24.

openjdk-N

We allow providing OpenJDK short term support releases in the updates pocket, instead of the release pocket to be able to remove those after their support ends as documented in OpenJDK Updates. This very specific stable release exception has been approved by LukaszZemczak for the SRU team as of 2020-04-30.

Postfix

The postfix source package may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in PostfixUpdates. See the Technical Board meeting minutes and its approval for details and rationale.

sosreport

The source package sosreport may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in sosreport updates. This stable release exception has been approved by LukaszZemczak for the SRU team as of 2020-06-25.

oem-*-meta

Source packages of the form oem-*-meta may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in OEMMeta. This stable release exception has been approved by AndyWhitcroft for the SRU team as of 2021-07-15. New packages are acceptable under the same exception.

ubuntu-dev-tools

The source package ubuntu-dev-tools may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in UbuntuDevToolsUpdates. This stable release exception has been approved by Robie Basak.

OpenLDAP

The OpenLDAP source package may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in OpenLDAPUpdates. This stable release exception has been approved by SteveLangasek for the SRU team as of 2022-06-02.

HAProxy

The haproxy source package may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in HAProxyUpdates. This stable release exception has been approved by LukaszZemczak for the SRU team as of 2022-06-27.

autopkgtest

The autopkgtest source package may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in autopkgtest-Updates. This stable release exception has been approved by SteveLangasek for the SRU team as of 2023-01-30.

squid

The squid source package may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in SquidUpdates. This stable release exception has been approved by SteveLangasek for the SRU team on 2023-04-03.

bind9

The bind9 source package may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in Bind9Updates. This stable release exception has been approved by SteveLangasek for the SRU team as of 2023-06-06.

virtualbox

*** THIS IS OUTDATED !!! *** The virtualbox source packages may be uploaded according to the procedure documented in VirtualboxUpdates. This stable release exception has been approved by Martin Pitt for the SRU team as of 2015-11-04.

ubuntu-advantage-tools

The ubuntu-advantage-tools source package may be uploaded according to the SRU procedures documented in UbuntuAdvantageToolsUpdates. This stable release exception has been approved by RobieBasak for the SRU team part as of 2023-10-04.

open-vm-tools

The open-vm-tools source package may be uploaded according to the proceedure documented in OpenVMToolsUpdates. This stable release exception has been approved by ChrisHalseRogers for the SRU team as of 2024-01-25.

postgresql

The currently supported postgresql source package (as determined by the dependency of the postgresql metapackage) for each stable release may be uploaded according to the proceedure documented in PostgreSQLUpdates. This stable release exception has been approved by ChrisHalseRogers for the SRU team as of 2024-01-31

GRUB

GRUB related packages require a special SRU process due our EFI signing pipeline, documented at StableReleaseUpdates/Grub.

OpenVPN

Updates including upstream OpenVPN microreleases should follow the special case documentation at OpenVPNUpdates. This is not a standing approval or policy exception, but a general pattern to update OpenVPN upstream microreleases consistently under existing SRU policy.

Data Packages Kept in Sync with Security

Some data packages must always be kept in sync between -updates and -security to avoid behaviour or functionality regressions when using only the security pocket. Because they are pure data, and contain no compiled code, these packages are safe to build in -proposed and then copy to both -updates and -security.

tzdata

The tzdata package is updated to reflect changes in timezones or daylight saving policies. The verification is done with the "zdump" utility. The first timezone that gets changed in the updated package is dumped with "zdump -v $region/$timezone_that_changed" (you can find the region and timezone name by grep'ing for it in /usr/share/zoneinfo/). This is compared to the same output after the updated package was installed. If those are different the verification is considered done.

The version of tzdata in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and later includes icu-data (see the update-icu rule in debian/rules) and the verification of it can be done after installing the python3-icu package. There can be a slight lag between the tzdata release and the matching icu-data release, we usually wait for the latter to be released before uploading the update.

python3 -c "from datetime import datetime; from icu import ICUtzinfo, TimeZone; tz = ICUtzinfo(TimeZone.createTimeZone('Pacific/Fiji')); print(str(tz.utcoffset(datetime(2020, 11, 10))))"

In the above we are checking a timezone with a change, "Pacific/Fiji", and a date that falls with in the changing period. We expect the output to be different before (13:00:00) and after (12:00:00) the SRU is installed.

The version of tzdata in Ubuntu 20.10 removed supported for SystemV timezones, however SRUs of tzdata to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and earlier releases should still include the SystemV timezones. To test that they are still available confirm the following command returns nothing.

diff <(zdump -v America/Phoenix | cut -d' ' -f2-) <(zdump -v SystemV/MST7 | cut -d' ' -f2-)

Because tzdata's packaging has changed subtly from release to release, rather than just backporting the most recent release's source package, we just update the upstream tarball instead. You then need to edit debian/changelog to add bug closures, and make sure to use a version number consistent to the previous numbering scheme (e. g. 2012e-0ubuntu0.12.04). Uploads should also be made to any releases supported via ESM.

Due to the potentially disastrous consequences of having localtime differ between systems running -updates and systems running only -security, this package is always kept in sync between the two pockets. However, the package can be built with -updates and then copied from -proposed to -updates and -security after the security team has signed off on the SRU bug e.g. 1878108.

distro-info-data

Many tools behave drastically differently based on the contents of ubuntu.csv in distro-info-data. As such, information for new releases is always backported to -updates, and should always be copied to -security to avoid behaviour skew between the two pockets.

This package should be updated as soon as possible after the new release's name is known. If only the adjective is known, it should be updated even with this partial information (use XANIMAL for the animal where X is the first letter of the adjective). The aging requirement is not applied for releasing to -updates / -security. A tracking bug is still required for SRUs. Verification is still required. The testing section should contain:

[ Test Plan ]
  
Verify that the following subcommands of `distro-info` print information about the new devel and current stable releases:
  
 * `--devel`
 * `--supported`
 * `--stable`

and try the same commands with these modifiers:

 * `--date=<1 day after release>` along with the above
 * `--fullname`
 * `--release`

linux-firmware

linux-firmware in stable releases is kept in sync with new driver features and lts-hwe kernel updates. linux-firmware follows the normal SRU process (with bugs filed and regression tests performed), however it must also be copied to the -security pocket once verified, due to the vast majority of kernel SRUs also being in the -security pocket, and the necessity of linux and linux-firmware not being mismatched.

wireless-regdb

Much like linux-firmware, wireless-regdb follows the usual SRU process, including a bug and regression testing, however it is another package that needs to be kept in sync between -updates and -security pockets to avoid potential local legal issues for -security users who would otherwise not get the local regdb updates.

Toolchain Updates

Due to the nature of the various Ubuntu toolchain packages (gcc-*, binutils, glibc), any stable release updates of these packages should be released to both the -updates and -security pockets. For that to be possible, any updates of those should be first built in a reliable security-enabled PPA (without -updates or -proposed enabled) and only then binary-copied into -proposed for testing (that is a hard-requirement for anything copied into -security). After the usual successful SRU verification and aging, the updated packages should be released into both pockets.

Examples

As a reference, see bug #173082 for an idea of how the SRU process works for a main package, or bug #208666 for an SRU in universe.

Package Removals

Links

Reviewing procedure and tools

Contacting the SRU team

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CategoryProcess