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&os; Release Engineering
&tm-attrib.freebsd;
&tm-attrib.intel;
&tm-attrib.general;
$FreeBSD$
This article describes the release engineering process of
the &os; Project.
Introduction to the &os; Release Engineering
Process
Development of &os; has a very specific workflow. In
general, all changes to the &os; base system are committed to
the &branch.head; branch, which reflects the top of the source
tree.
After a reasonable testing period, changes can then be
merged to the &branch.stable; branches. The default minimum
timeframe before merging to &branch.stable; branches is three
(3) days.
Although a general rule to wait a minimum of three days
before merging from &branch.head;, there are a few special
circumstances where an immediate merge may be necessary, such as
a critical security fix, or a bug fix that directly inhibits the
release build process.
After several months, and the number of changes in the
&branch.stable; branch have grown significantly, it is time to
release the next version of &os;. These releases have been
historically referred to as point
releases.
In between releases from the &branch.stable; branches,
approximately every two (2) years, a release will be cut
directly from &branch.head;. These releases have been
historically referred to as dot-zero
releases.
This article will highlight the workflow and
responsibilities of the &team.re; for both
dot-zero
and point
'
releases.
The following sections of this article describe:
General information and preparation before
starting the release cycle.
Terminology and general information, such as the
code slush
and code
freeze
, used throughout this document.
The Release Engineering process for a
dot-zero
release.
The Release Engineering process for a
point
release.
Information related to the specific procedures to
build installation medium.
Procedures to publish installation medium.
Wrapping up the release cycle.
General Information and Preparation
Approximately two months before the start of the release
cycle, the &team.re; decides on a schedule for the release.
The schedule includes the various milestone points of the
release cycle, such as freeze dates, branch dates, and build
dates. For example:
Milestone
Anticipated Date
&branch.head; slush:
May 27, 2016
&branch.head; freeze:
June 10, 2016
&branch.head; KBI freeze:
June 24, 2016
doc/ tree slush [1]:
June 24, 2016
Ports quarterly branch [2]:
July 1, 2016
&branch.stablex; branch:
July 8, 2016
doc/ tree tag [3]:
July 8, 2016
BETA1 build starts:
July 8, 2016
&branch.head; thaw:
July 9, 2016
BETA2 build starts:
July 15, 2016
BETA3 build starts [*]:
July 22, 2016
&branch.relengx; branch:
July 29, 2016
RC1 build starts:
July 29, 2016
&branch.stablex; thaw:
July 30, 2016
RC2 build starts:
August 5, 2016
Final Ports package builds [4]:
August 6, 2016
Ports release tag:
August 12, 2016
RC3 build starts [*]:
August 12, 2016
RELEASE build starts:
August 19, 2016
RELEASE announcement:
September 2, 2016
Items marked with "[*]" are "as
needed".
The doc/ tree slush is coordinated by
the &team.doceng;.
The Ports quarterly branch used is determined by when
the final RC build is planned. A new
quarterly branch is created on the first day of the quarter,
so this metric should be used when taking the release cycle
milestones into account. The quarterly branch is created by
the &team.portmgr;.
The doc/ tree is tagged by the
&team.doceng;.
The final Ports package build is done by the
&team.portmgr; after the final (or what is expected to be
final) RC build.
If the release is being created from an existing
&branch.stable; branch, the KBI
freeze date can be excluded, since the KBI
is already considered frozen on established
&branch.stable; branches.
When writing the release cycle schedule, a number of things
need to be taken into consideration, in particular milestones
where the target date depends on predefined milestones upon
which there is a dependency. For example, the Ports Collection
release tag originates from the active quarterly branch at the
time of the last RC. This in part defines
which quarterly branch is used, when the release tag can happen,
and what revision of the ports tree is used for the final
RELEASE build.
After general agreement on the schedule, the &team.re;
emails the schedule to the &os; Developers.
It is somewhat typical that many developers will inform
the &team.re; about various works-in-progress. In some cases,
an extension for the in-progress work will be requested, and
in other cases, a request for blanket approval
to a particular subset of the tree will be made.
When such requests are made, it is important to make sure
timelines (even if estimated) are discussed. For blanket
approvals, the length of time for the blanket approval should
be made clear. For example, a &os; developer may request
blanket approvals from the start of the code slush until the
start of the RC builds.
Depending on the underlying set of code in question, and
the overall impact the set of code has on &os; as a whole, such
requests may be approved or denied by the &team.re;.
The same applies to work-in-progress extensions. For
example, in-progress work for a new device driver that is
otherwise isolated from the rest of the tree may be granted
an extension. A new scheduler, however, may not be feasible,
especially if such dramatic changes do not exist in another
branch.
&release.terminology;
&release.major.version;
&release.minor.version;
&release.building;
&release.mirrors;
Wrapping up the Release Cycle
This section describes general post-release tasks.
+
+
+ Post-Release Errata Notices
+
+ As the release cycle approaches conclusion, it is common
+ to have several EN (Errata Notice)
+ candidates to address issues that were discovered late in the
+ cycle. Following the release, the &team.re; and the
+ &team.secteam; revisit changes that were not approved prior to
+ the final release, and depending on the scope of the change in
+ question, may issue an EN.
+
+
+
+ Handoff to the &team.secteam;
+
+ Roughly two weeks following the release, the Release
+ Engineer updates svnadmin/conf/approvers
+ changing the approver column from re to
+ (so|security-officer) for the
+ &branch.relengx; branch.
+