This document describes the policy for updating the gce-compute-image-packages package to new upstream versions in a stable, supported distro (including LTS releases).  This is an exception to the standard SRU process.

compute-image-packages is provided by Google for installation within guests that run on Google Compute Engine.  It is a collection of tools and daemons, packaged as gce-compute-image-packages, that ensure that the Ubuntu images published to GCE run properly on their platform.

Cloud platforms evolve at a rate that can't be handled in six-month increments, and they will often develop features that they would like to be available to customers who don't want to upgrade from earlier Ubuntu releases.  As such, updating gce-compute-image-packages to more recent upstream releases is required within all Ubuntu releases, so they continue to function properly in their environment.

New versions of gce-compute-image-packages can be SRU'd in to older releases provided the following process is followed.

== QA Process ==

When a new version of gce-compute-image-packages is uploaded to -proposed, the following will be done:

 * an image based on -proposed will be built for GCE and published to the ubuntu-os-cloud-devel project
 * the automated testing that the CPC team normally runs against GCE images before they are published will be run against the -proposed image
 * the GCE team will be asked to validate
  * that the new package addresses the issues it is expected to address, and
  * that the image passes their internal image validation.

If all the testing indicates that the image containing the new package is acceptable, verification will be considered to be done and the the package can be released from -proposed without waiting for its age reach the default SRU aging requirement.

The rationale behind [[https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-release/2018-August/004553.html|lifting]] the aging requirement is that no one is expected to test the package apart from the uploader, the GCE team and the CPC team, and they all test the package in the verification process. Verification also includes preparing custom-built images for testing first-booting instances which can't be easily done by others.

== Requesting the SRU ==

The SRU should be done with a single process bug for this stable release exception, instead of individual bug reports for individual bug fixes. However, individual bugs may be referenced in the from the changelog but each of those bugs will need to independently verified and commented on for the SRU to be considered complete.

=== Vendored dependencies ===

If any pinned and vendored dependencies in this package change as part of the SRU then the following must be present in the SRU bug:

 * Name and the version bumped (to and from) of the vendored package.

SRU members can review and ask any follow-up question(s) if they have any.