[cherry pick] Automated cherry pick of #4047 origin release 2.8

[dimitar-kostadinov]

Cherry pick PR #4047 to release/2.8 branch.

[ialidzhikov]

@milosgajdos, @Jamstah can you have a look? Thanks in advance!

[milosgajdos]

We're not planning another 2.8 release anytime soon. We'd like to get a v3 alpha out soon.

A bunch of America folks are out for thanksgiving hols (+ the runup to it) so we'll wait until the milestone PRs are cleared and then charge on

[ialidzhikov]

Hi Milos,

Thank you for providing the details.

From our side, we (Gardener project) are looking forward to consume a new release of distribution/distribution to adopt the following upstream changes:

• Configurable proxy TTL (Option to configure proxy cache TTL #3880). There is also open backport PR to the release/2.8 branch: [release/2.8 backport] Option to configure proxy cache TTL #4090
• Proxy metrics fix and metrics in prometheus format: Fix proxy statistics #4045 and Add prometheus proxy related metrics #4047

Is it possible to provide a rough estimation when a new major/minor release could happen? The last minor release (v2.8.0) was cut on Feb 7, 2022, more than year and a half ago. I am concerned about the timelines for v3.0.0 as in the release milestone there are issues that are open since 2018. Would you consider cutting a new minor release v2.9.0 instead?
Thanks in advance!

[milosgajdos]

We are aiming to cut an alpha/beta before the EOY.

We still need to investigate the following issues before we cut the release:

• Repo name validation is misused #2668
• Invalid manifest names return inconsistent errors  #2670

TBD

[thaJeztah]

It looks like this is backporting new functionality, which is out of scope for a 2.8 patch release as well.

[ialidzhikov]

@milosgajdos @thaJeztah any news with the new release? When we can expect a new release (that is not alpha/beta) to consume?

[milosgajdos]

A stable release is a bit far away, but alpha release is baking.

We've hit a snug. See this discussion: #4185 (comment)

Once we've resolved that issue, we'll cut the alpha release.

[ialidzhikov]

Once we've resolved that issue, we'll cut the alpha release.

I see that the corresponding PR (#4185) is already merged. Could you cut the new release? Thanks in advance!

[milosgajdos]

We cut a new release last night, @ialidzhikov https://github.com/distribution/distribution/releases/tag/v3.0.0-alpha.1 out I'm inclined to close this PR as it won't be merged into 2.x branch. All the further development is going into getting a stable v3 release out next year.

[milosgajdos]

With https://github.com/distribution/distribution/releases/tag/v3.0.0-alpha.1 out, I'd suggest closing this PR as we won't be adding anything into the v2.x branch which will be deprecated very soon.

[ialidzhikov]

@milosgajdos thank you for the efforts for the v3.0.0-alpha.1. We will experiment with it and provide feedback.
However, we are looking forward to v3.0.0 - we cannot rollout alpha/beta/non-GA versions in our environements.

[ialidzhikov]

Hi @milosgajdos ,

When can we expect v3.0.0? Thanks in advance!

[ialidzhikov]

We will experiment with it and provide feedback.

Just to provide the feedback that I provided in Slack:

It (3.0.0-alpha.1) is working for us. Our e2e tests are passing. We even plan to consume it in our prod envs - ref gardener/gardener-extension-registry-cache#138.
Except the minor nit in #4270. But there is a workaround for it.