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/settings/branches">
            Let a GitHub nixpkgs admin lock the branch on github for you.
            (so developers can’t force push)
          </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>
          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 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-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>