nixpkgs/nixos/doc/manual/development/releases.xml

<chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
        xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
        xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
        version="5.0"
        xml:id="ch-releases">
 <title>Releases</title>
 <section xml:id="release-process">
  <title>Release process</title>

  <para>
   Going through an example of releasing NixOS 17.09:
  </para>

  <section xml:id="one-month-before-the-beta">
   <title>One month before the beta</title>

   <itemizedlist spacing="compact">
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Send an email to the nix-devel mailinglist as a warning about upcoming
      beta "feature freeze" in a month.
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Discuss with Eelco Dolstra and the community (via IRC, ML) about what
      will reach the deadline. Any issue or Pull Request targeting the release
      should be included in the release milestone.
     </para>
    </listitem>
   </itemizedlist>
  </section>

  <section xml:id="at-beta-release-time">
   <title>At beta release time</title>

   <itemizedlist spacing="compact">
    <listitem>
     <para>
      <link xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/13559">Create
      an issue for tracking Zero Hydra Failures progress. ZHF is an effort to
      get build failures down to zero.</link>
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      <literal>git tag -a -s -m &quot;Release 17.09-beta&quot; 17.09-beta
      &amp;&amp; git push --tags</literal>
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      From the master branch run <literal>git checkout -B
      release-17.09</literal>.
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      <link xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-org-configurations/pull/18">
      Make sure a channel is created at http://nixos.org/channels/. </link>
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      <link xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/compare/bdf161ed8d21...6b63c4616790">
      Bump the <literal>system.defaultChannel</literal> attribute in
      <literal>nixos/modules/misc/version.nix</literal> </link>
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      <link xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/commit/d6b08acd1ccac0d9d502c4b635e00b04d3387f06">
      Update <literal>versionSuffix</literal> in
      <literal>nixos/release.nix</literal></link>, use <literal>git log
      --format=%an|wc -l</literal> to get the commit count
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      <literal>echo -n &quot;18.03&quot; &gt; .version</literal> on master.
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      <link xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/commit/b8a4095003e27659092892a4708bb3698231a842">
      Pick a new name for the unstable branch. </link>
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Create a new release notes file for the upcoming release + 1, in this
      case <literal>rl-1803.xml</literal>.
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Create two Hydra jobsets: release-17.09 and release-17.09-small with
      <literal>stableBranch</literal> set to false.
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Remove attributes that we know we will not be able to support,
      especially if there is a stable alternative. E.g. Check that our
      Linux kernels'
      <link xlink:href="https://www.kernel.org/category/releases.html">
      projected end-of-life</link> are after our release projected
      end-of-life
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Edit changelog at
      <literal>nixos/doc/manual/release-notes/rl-1709.xml</literal> (double
      check desktop versions are noted)
     </para>
     <itemizedlist spacing="compact">
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Get all new NixOS modules <literal>git diff
        release-17.03..release-17.09 nixos/modules/module-list.nix|grep
        ^+</literal>
       </para>
      </listitem>
      <listitem>
       <para>
        Note systemd, kernel, glibc and Nix upgrades.
       </para>
      </listitem>
     </itemizedlist>
    </listitem>
   </itemizedlist>
  </section>

  <section xml:id="during-beta">
   <title>During Beta</title>

   <itemizedlist spacing="compact">
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Monitor the master branch for bugfixes and minor updates and cherry-pick
      them to the release branch.
     </para>
    </listitem>
   </itemizedlist>
  </section>

  <section xml:id="before-the-final-release">
   <title>Before the final release</title>

   <itemizedlist spacing="compact">
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Re-check that the release notes are complete.
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Release Nix (currently only Eelco Dolstra can do that).
      <link xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/commit/53710c752a85f00658882531bc90a23a3d1287e4">
      Make sure fallback is updated. </link>
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      <link xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/commit/40fd9ae3ac8048758abdcfc7d28a78b5f22fe97e">
      Update README.md with new stable NixOS version information. </link>
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Change <literal>stableBranch</literal> to true and wait for channel to
      update.
     </para>
    </listitem>
   </itemizedlist>
  </section>

  <section xml:id="at-final-release-time">
   <title>At final release time</title>

   <itemizedlist spacing="compact">
    <listitem>
     <para>
      <literal>git tag -s -a -m &quot;Release 15.09&quot; 15.09</literal>
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Update "Chapter 4. Upgrading NixOS" section of the manual to match 
      new stable release version.
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Update http://nixos.org/nixos/download.html and
      http://nixos.org/nixos/manual in
      https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-org-configurations
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Get number of commits for the release: <literal>git log
      release-14.04..release-14.12 --format=%an|wc -l</literal>
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Commits by contributor: <literal>git log release-14.04..release-14.12
      --format=%an|sort|uniq -c|sort -rn</literal>
     </para>
    </listitem>
    <listitem>
     <para>
      Send an email to nix-dev to announce the release with above information.
      Best to check how previous email was formulated to see what needs to be
      included.
     </para>
    </listitem>
   </itemizedlist>
  </section>
 </section>
 <section xml:id="release-managers">
  <title>Release Management Team</title>
  <para>
   For each release there are two release managers. After each release the
   release manager having managed two releases steps down and the release
   management team of the last release appoints a new release manager.
  </para>
  <para>
   This makes sure a release management team always consists of one release
   manager who already has managed one release and one release manager being
   introduced to their role, making it easier to pass on knowledge and
   experience.
  </para>
  <para>
   A release manager's role and responsibilities are:
  </para>
  <itemizedlist>
   <listitem><para>manage the release process</para></listitem>
   <listitem><para>start discussions about features and changes for a given release</para></listitem>
   <listitem><para>create a roadmap</para></listitem>
   <listitem><para>release in cooperation with Eelco Dolstra</para></listitem>
   <listitem><para>decide which bug fixes, features, etc... get backported after a release</para></listitem>
  </itemizedlist>
 </section>
 <section xml:id="release-schedule">
  <title>Release schedule</title>

  <informaltable>
   <tgroup cols="2">
    <colspec align="left" />
    <colspec align="left" />
    <thead>
     <row>
      <entry>
            Date
          </entry>
      <entry>
            Event
          </entry>
     </row>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
     <row>
      <entry>
            2016-07-25
          </entry>
      <entry>
            Send email to nix-dev about upcoming branch-off
          </entry>
     </row>
     <row>
      <entry>
            2016-09-01
          </entry>
      <entry><literal>release-16.09</literal> branch and corresponding jobsets are created,
            change freeze
          </entry>
     </row>
     <row>
      <entry>
            2016-09-30
          </entry>
      <entry>
            NixOS 16.09 released
          </entry>
     </row>
    </tbody>
   </tgroup>
  </informaltable>
 </section>
</chapter>