Release process

In order to have a well-documented release process, please add any necessary steps to the list:

Pre-Requisites

• Make sure to use GnuPG key signing with GitHub- https://help.github.com/articles/signing-commits-with-gpg/

Testing

• Create new test matrix in wiki at: https://github.com/rear/rear/wiki

• Update milestone planning at: https://github.com/rear/rear/issues/milestones

• Announce freeze period and ask for community testing on rear-users@lists.relax-and-recover.org

Preparation

This all becomes part of a make release target ! (Wishful thinking ?)

• Finalize commits/versions

  • Update the ChangeLog file (when we have one), or the release notes on the rear web pages

  • To compile the information for the release notes use the following commands:

git log --format="* %s : %b %n" --topo-order
git log --format="%ae %ad%n%s :%n%b%n" --graph | fmt -78 -t | less

to find all modifications since last release.

• Convert the release notes from the ReaR web pages into a simple text file:

export LC_ALL=POSIX
export LANG=POSIX
w3m -dump -cols 78 http://relax-and-recover.org/documentation/release-notes-2-xx | iconv -f UTF-8 -t ASCII//TRANSLIT | sed -e 's/^      ? /      - /' > doc/rear-release-notes.txt

• Add the list of contributors which did something for this new release via (in this example the previous release was 2.6):

git log --format="%aN" $(git merge-base master 2.6)..master | sort -u | sed -e 's/,/, /g'

• review doc/rear-release-notes.txt for broken lines (visual check)

• edit/update rear.8.adoc man page with new version nr and go over it to modify what is needed

• usr/sbin/rear '(modify VERSION = )'

• packaging/rpm/rear.spec '(modify Version:)'

• packaging/debian/changelog '(add changelog entries)'

  • Tag version in master branch:

git tag -s -a rear-2.xx -m "Rear release 2.xx"
git tag -s -a 2.xx -m "Rear release 2.xx"

• Test packaging configuration (RPM, DEB, …​)

make rpm OFFICIAL=1
make deb OFFICIAL=1

rpmlint -vi dist/rear-2.x-1.*.rpm
rpmlint -vi dist/rear-2.x-1.*.src.rpm

make dist OFFICIAL=1  (for the tar-ball to be used to upload to SourceForge and Fedora)

• bodhi builds (fedora-update); or use the fedora release procedures with git

  • Commit above changes to version branch (if any)

  • Create OBS build

• make obs OFFICIAL=1

  • If everything looks OK

• git push --tags

  • If you need afterwards some fixes to be applied you can remove the tags as follow:

git tag -d 2.xx
git tag -d rear-2.xx
git push origin :refs/tags/2.xx
git push origin :refs/tags/rear-2.xx

• Mark in master branch where the release happened:

git commit -S --allow-empty -m 'ReaR 2.x release'

• Create a new 'stable' branch in Git - use the 'Code' → 'Switch branch' field

Distribution

• Update Rear project at the OpenSUSE Build Service (Archiving:Backup:Rear)

  • Review the supported Linux distributions

Announcement channels

• Website at: http://relax-and-recover.org/

• Add link on the documentation page of the Release Notes for the new release

• Mailing lists: rear-announce@lists.relax-and-recover.org and rear-users@lists.relax-and-recover.org