Release Process

This is the process to follow to make a new release. This should really be automated someday, but releases are juuuust infrequent enough that it’s less annoying to just do the work each time.

Check the issue tracker milestone

Are you actually ready to release? Check the milestone on github and verify that all its issues are closed. If there are open issues, you’ll have to either resolve them, or bump to the next version.

Merge the main branch

MetalLB uses release branches to track releases. In case a new release is cut as a mirror of main, merge can be used. For example:

git checkout v0.9
git merge main
git push

Using cherry picks

In case only a subset of the changes are brought to the new release, cherry-pick must be used.

git checkout v0.9
git cherry-pick -x f1f86ed658c1e8a6f90f967ed94881d61476b4c0
git push

Note that this will break the release notes generator. If this fix is a backport, please consider filing a backport PR.

Generate the release notes

A convenience generator script is added under website/gen_relnotes.sh. The syntax is as follows:

website/gen_relnotes.sh <branch> <first commit> <last commit>

Where branch is the branch being released, first and last commit is the interval we want to generate the release notes for.

The GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable must be set with a github token which has the following permissions:

Read access to:

  • Contents
  • Pull requests
  • Commit statuses

Finalize release notes

All release notes are always written on the main branch, and copied into release branches in a later step. Point out all new features and actions required by users. If there are very notable bugfixes (e.g. security issues, long-term pain point resolved), point those out as well.

Also update the documentation link so that the soon-to-be latest release’s documentation link points to metallb.io, and the previous releases point to vX-Y-Z--metallb.netlify.com, which is the website pinned at that tagged release.

To get a list of contributors to the release, run git log --format="%aN" $(git merge-base CUR-BRANCH PREV-TAG)..CUR-BRANCH | sort -u | tr '\n' ',' | sed -e 's/,/, /g'. CUR-BRANCH is main if you’re making a minor release (e.g. 0.9.0), or the release branch for the current version if you’re making a patch release (e.g. v0.8 if you’re making v0.8.4). PREV-TAG is the release tag name for the last release (e.g. if you’re preparing 0.8.4, PREV-TAG is v0.8.3. Also think about whether there were significant contributions that weren’t in the form of a commit, and include those people as well. It’s better to err on the side of being too thankful!

Commit the finalized release notes.

Clean the working directory

The release script only works if the Git working directory is completely clean: no pending modifications, no untracked files, nothing. Make sure everything is clean, or run the release from a fresh checkout.

The release script will abort if the working directory isn’t right.

Run the release script

Run inv release X.Y.Z. This will create the appropriate branches, commits and tags in your local repository.

Push the new artifacts

Run git push --tags origin main vX.Y. This will push all pending changes both in main and the release branch, as well as the new tag for the release.

Protect the release branch (skip for patch releases)

For major and minor releases, the release script created a new vX.Y branch. Go into github’s repository settings and mark the branch protected, including from administrators, to guard against accidental force pushes.

Create a new release on github

By default, new tags show up de-emphasized in the list of releases. Create a new release attached to the tag you just pushed. Make the description point to the release notes on the website.

Wait for the image repositories to update

When you pushed, CI kicked off a set of image builds for the new tag. You need to wait for these images to be pushed live before continuing, because the manifests for the new release point to image tags that don’t exist until CI makes them exist.

Check on Quay for a vX.Y.Z tag on each image, or check on CI that the deploy has completed.

Repoint the live website

Move the live-website branch to the newly created tag with git branch -f live-website vX.Y.Z, then force-push the branch with git push -f origin live-website. This will trigger Netlify to redeploy metallb.io with updated documentation for the new version.

Update Slack

Update the topic in #metallb on Kubernetes slack.

Brag about new release

Tweet, post to G+, slack, IRC, whatever. Make some noise, if it’s worth making noise about!