EPICS Base Release Procedures & Checklist

This document describes the procedures and provides a checklist of tasks that should be performed when creating production releases of EPICS Base.

The Release Process

The decision to make a new release is taken during the Core Developers bi-weekly meetings in an informal manner. The steps detailed below were written to remind Andrew (or whoever does the release) exactly what has to be done, since it’s so easy to miss steps.

Roles

The following roles are used below:

Release Manager Responsible for managing and tagging the release

Core Developers Responsible for maintaining the EPICS software

Website Editors Responsible for the EPICS websites

Preparing for a release

Release Manager: Notify core developers about the upcoming release and ask about any remaining tasks that must be finished.

All developers: Check the bug tracker for any outstanding items and handle appropriately.

Release Manager: Set a Feature Freeze date, by which time all Git branches for enhancements and new functionality should have been merged. After this date, commits and merges should only be made to fix problems that show up during testing.

Release Manager & all developers: Request that documentation be updated and information about new features be added before the release date:

Release Notes
Doxygen annotations
Other documents on docs.epics-controls.org

Release Manager: Review and update this checklist for the upcoming release. Update the release version number in the tags and messages below.

Testing

All Developers: Run the internal test programs on supported platforms that aren’t checked by CI.

ALL Developers: Check that all makeBaseApp templates build and run properly, all xxxApp and xxxBoot types and any internal options, e.g. setting STATIC_BUILD=YES or using a different INSTALL_LOCATION in configure/CONFIG_SITE.

Release Manager: Check that documentation has been updated:

Release Notes
Doxygen annotations
Other documents on docs.epics-controls.org

Core Developers: Reach a consensus that the software is ready to release.

Creating the final release version

A. For each external submodule to be tagged

Release Manager:

cd base-7.0/modules/<module>; git grep UNRELEASED and insert the submodule’s version number into any doxygen annotations that have a @since UNRELEASED comment. Commit (don’t push yet).
Check that the submodule’s Release Notes have been updated to cover all changes; add missing items as necessary, and set the module version number and release date if appropriate. Commit the changes to the submodule’s Notes file (don’t push).
Copy the new submodule version number and Release Notes entries into a new file named <module>-<release>.md in the base-7.0/documentation/new-notes directory.
Edit the module’s release version file configure/CONFIG_<module>_VERSION and any Doxyfile in the top-level and/or documentation directories. In these, set DEVELOPMENT_FLAG=0 and remove -dev from the PROJECT_NUMBER string. Commit these changes (don’t push):
```
git commit -m "Final commit for <submodule-version>"
```

Tag the submodule (replace ANJ with your initials):

git tag -m "ANJ: Tag for EPICS 7.0.11" <submodule-version>

Generate documentation for modules with release_notes.dox files. Prepare to update the github-pages website as follows:
```
cd base-7.0/modules/<module>/documentation
make commit
git push --force upstream gh-pages
```
Q: Delay this git push until later?
Update the Git submodule on the Base-7.0 branch to the newly-tagged version, check the module’s status matches the tag:
```
cd base-7.0/modules
git add <module>
git submodule status --cached
```
Don’t commit the submodule updates yet.
Edit the module’s release version file configure/CONFIG_<module>_VERSION and its top-level Doxyfile; increment the MAINTENANCE_VERSION, set the DEVELOPMENT_FLAG value to 1, and update the PROJECT_NUMBER string, appending -dev to the new module version number. Commit changes.
Push commits and the new tag to the submodule’s GitHub repository (assumed to be the upstream remote):
```
cd base-7.0/modules/<module>
git push --follow-tags upstream master
```

B. After all submodules have been updated

Release Manager:

Commit the submodule updates which were added for each submodule in step 7 above to the 7.0 branch (don’t push):
```
cd base-7.0/modules
git commit -m "Update git submodules for release"
```
Make sure that the output from git submodule status --cached only shows the appropriate version tags in the right-most parenthesized column with no -<n>-g<xxxxxxx> suffix.
Add and commit the new Release Note entry files that were created for each submodule in step 3 above (don’t push):
```
cd base-7.0/documentation
git add new-notes
git commit -m "Add submodule release note entries"
```

C. In the main epics-base repository

Release Manager:

cd base-7.0; git grep UNRELEASED and insert the release version to any doxygen annotations that have a @since UNRELEASED comment. Commit (don’t push).
Edit the main EPICS Base version file and the built-in module version files:
- configure/CONFIG_BASE_VERSION
- configure/CONFIG_LIBCOM_VERSION
- configure/CONFIG_CA_VERSION
- configure/CONFIG_DATABASE_VERSION
Version numbers should be set according to the level of changes made since the last release. Note that the MAINTENANCE_VERSION or PATCH_LEVEL value will have been incremented immediately after the previous release tag was applied, so don’t double-increment them. Set all DEVELOPMENT_FLAG values to 0 and set the EPICS_DEV_SNAPSHOT to an empty string (no quotes).

Commit the above changes (don’t push):

cd base-7.0
git add configure/CONFIG_*_VERSION
git commit -m "Set core version numbers for release"

When EPICS_DEV_SNAPSHOT is empty because a release is being created, the documentation/Makefile supports a build target release for creating a new release notes file documentation/RELEASE-<version>.md from the Markdown files in the documentation/new-notes directory. When run, it copies the notes entries from all the new-notes/*.md files, then deletes the files and prepares a Git commit to apply those changes permanently to the repository.

Run these commands to generate the RELEASE-7.0.11.md file and remove the individual release note entry files:
```
cd base-7.0/documentation
make release
```
The make release command adds some changes into the Git index but doesn’t commit them. These commands let you check what was done and commit the result (don’t push yet!):
```
git status
git diff --staged
git commit -m "Generate RELEASE-7.0.11.md notes file"
```
If you need to undo those Git actions before committing and confirm that happened, use make unrelease; git status

D. Tag the main repository

Release Manager: Tag the epics-base module in Git (replace ANJ with your initials):

cd base-7.0
git tag -m "ANJ: Tagged for release" R7.0.11

Don’t push to GitHub yet.

E. After tagging

Release Manager: Edit the main EPICS Base version file and the built-in module version files:

configure/CONFIG_BASE_VERSION
configure/CONFIG_LIBCOM_VERSION
configure/CONFIG_CA_VERSION
configure/CONFIG_DATABASE_VERSION

Version numbers should be set for the next expected patch/maintenance release by incrementing the MAINTENANCE_VERSION or PATCH_LEVEL value in each file. Set all DEVELOPMENT_FLAG values to 1 and EPICS_DEV_SNAPSHOT to -DEV.

Commit these changes (don’t push).

Release Manager: Export the tagged version into a tarfile. The make-tar.sh script generates a gzipped tarfile directly from the tag, excluding the files and directories that are only used for continuous integration:

cd base-7.0
./.tools/make-tar.sh R7.0.11 ../base-7.0.11.tar.gz base-7.0.11/

Create a GPG signature file of the tarfile as follows:

cd ..
gpg --armor --sign --detach-sig base-7.0.11.tar.gz

Release Manager: Test the tar file by extracting its contents and building it on at least one supported platform. If this succeeds the commits and new git tag can be pushed to the GitHub repository’s 7.0 branch (assumed to be the upstream remote):

git push --follow-tags upstream 7.0

Publish the Release

These stages don’t have to happen in this particular order.

A. Publish to epics.anl.gov

Website Editor: Copy the tarfile and its signature to the Base download area of the website.

Website Editor: Add the new release tar file to the website Base download index page.

Website Editor: Create or update the website subdirectory that holds the release documentation, and copy in the files to be published with this release version.

Website Editor: Update the webpage for the new release with links to the release documents and tar file.

Website Editor: Link to the release webpage from other relevant areas of the website, updating the front page and sidebar.

Website Editor: Add an entry to the website News page, linking to the new version webpage.

B. Publish to epics-controls.org

Website Editor: Upload the tar file and its .asc signature file to the epics-controls web-server.

scp base-7.0.11.tar.gz base-7.0.11.tar.gz.asc epics-controls:download/base

Website Editor: Follow instructions on Add a page for a new release to create a new release webpage (not required for a patch release, just edit the existing page). Update the TablePress “Point Releases” table and add the new download, and adjust the Html Snippet for the series download.

Not covered in the instructions on the website: Go to Posts, find a previous release and use “Duplicate Post”, then edit the result and publish it. This generates the News item.

C. Publish to GitHub

Release Manager: Go to the GitHub Create release from tag R7.0.11 page. Upload the tar file and its .asc signature file to the new GitHub release page, or just drag-n-drop them into the page. Copy/paste the text from the previous release and edit. Submit.

Release Manager: We used to close out bug reports in Launchpad at release-time, this would be the time to do that if we want an equivalent on GitHub.

Make Announcement

Release Manager: Announce the release on the tech-talk mailing list, and possibly on the EPICS Matrix Chat server.