Note

This document is meant primarily for Gerrit maintainers who have been given approval and submit status to the Gerrit projects. Additionally, maintainers should be given owner status to the Gerrit web site.

To make a Gerrit release involves a great deal of complex tasks and it is easy to miss a step so this document should hopefuly serve as both a how to for those new to the process and as a checklist for those already familiar with these tasks.

Gerrit Release Type

Here are some guidelines on release approaches depending on the type of release you want to make (stable-fix, stable, RC0, RC1…).

Stable

A stable release is generally built from the master branch and may need to undergo some stabilization before releasing the final release.

  • Propose the release with any plans/objectives to the mailing list

  • Create a Gerrit RC0

  • If needed create a Gerrit RC1

Note

You may let in a few features to this release

  • If needed create a Gerrit RC2

Note

There should be no new features in this release, only bug fixes

  • Finally create the stable release (no RC)

Stable-Fix

Stable-fix releases should likely only contain bug fixes and doc updates.

  • Propose the release with any plans/objectives to the mailing list

  • This type of release does not need any RCs, release when the objectives are met

Create the Actual Release

In the example commands below we assume that the last release was 2.4 and that we are preparing 2.5 release.

Prepare the Subprojects

  • Publish the latest snapshot for all subprojects

  • Freeze all subprojects and publish them!

Prepare Gerrit

  • Create a stable-2.5 branch for making the new release

  • In the master branch: Update the poms for the Gerrit version, push for review, get merged 

tools/version.sh --snapshot=2.5

  • Checkout the stable-2.5 branch

  • Update the top level pom.xml in Gerrit to ensure that none of the Subprojects point to snapshot releases

  • Tag 

git tag -a -m "gerrit 2.5-rc0" v2.5-rc0
git tag -a -m "gerrit 2.5" v2.5

  • Build (without plugins) 

./tools/release.sh

Publish the Plugin API JAR File

  • Push JAR to commondatastorage.googleapis.com

    • Run tools/deploy_api.sh

Prepare the Core Plugins

Package Gerrit with Plugins

  • Ensure that the core plugins listed in gerrit-package-plugins/pom.xml point to the latest release version (no dependency to snapshot versions)

  • Include core plugins into WAR 

$ ./tools/version.sh --release && mvn clean package -f gerrit-package-plugins/pom.xml
$ ./tools/version.sh --reset

  • Find WAR that includes the core plugins at gerrit-package-plugins\target\gerrit-full-v2.5.war

  • Sanity check WAR

Publish to the Project Locations

WAR File

Tag

  • Push the New Tag 

git push gerrit-review refs/tags/v2.5-rc0:refs/tags/v2.5-rc0
git push gerrit-review refs/tags/v2.5:refs/tags/v2.5

Docs

make -C Documentation PRIOR=2.4 update
make -C ReleaseNotes update

(no PRIOR=… if updating the same release again during RCs)

  • Update Google Code project links

    • Go to http://code.google.com/p/gerrit/admin

    • Point the main page to the new docs. The link to the documentation has to be updated at two places: in the project description and also in the Links section.

    • Point the main page to the new release notes

Note

The docs makefile does an svn cp of the prior revision of the docs to branch the docs so you have less to upload on the new docs.

User and password from here:

https://code.google.com/hosting/settings

If subversion assumes a different username than your google one and asks for a password right away simply hit enter. Subversion will fail and then ask for another username and password. This time enter the username and password from the page linked above. After that subversion should save the username/password somewhere under ~/.subversion/auth folder.

Issues

How do the issues get updated?  Do you run a script to do
this?  When do you do it, after the final 2.2.2 is released?

By hand.

Our current process is an issue should be updated to say Status = Submitted, FixedIn-2.2.2 once the change is submitted, but before the release.

After the release is actually made, you can search in Google Code for “Status=Submitted FixedIn=2.2.2” and then batch update these changes to say Status=Released. Make sure the pulldown says “All Issues” because Status=Submitted is considered a closed issue.

Mailing List

  • Send an email to the mailing list to announce the release, consider including some or all of the following in the email:

    • A link to the release and the release notes (if a final release)

    • A link to the docs

    • Describe the type of release (stable, bug fix, RC) 

To: Repo and Gerrit Discussion <repo-discuss@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Announce: Gerrit 2.2.2.1  (Stable bug fix update)

I am pleased to announce Gerrit Code Review 2.2.2.1.

Download:

  http://code.google.com/p/gerrit/downloads/list


This release is a stable bug fix release with some
documentation updates including a new "Contributing to
Gerrit" doc:

  http://gerrit-documentation.googlecode.com/svn/Documentation/2.2.2/dev-contributing.html


To read more about the bug fixes:

  http://gerrit-documentation.googlecode.com/svn/ReleaseNotes/ReleaseNotes-2.2.2.1.html

-Martin
 * Jun 14, 2012 - Gerrit 2.4.1 [https://groups.google.com/d/topic/repo-discuss/jHg43gixqzs/discussion Released]

  • Update the new discussion group announcement to be sticky

  • Update the previous discussion group announcement to no longer be sticky

    • See above (unclick checkbox)

Merging Stable Fixes to master

After every stable-fix release, stable should be merged to master to ensure that none of the fixes ever get lost.

git config merge.summary true
git checkout master
git reset --hard origin/master
git branch -f stable origin/stable
git merge stable

Part of Gerrit Code Review