Release-Process.md

How to do a Kata Containers Release

This document lists the tasks required to create a Kata Release.

Requirements

• hub

  • Using an application token is required for hub (set to a GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable).

• GitHub permissions to push tags and create releases in Kata repositories.

• GPG configured to sign git tags. https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/managing-commit-signature-verification/generating-a-new-gpg-key

• You should configure your GitHub to use your ssh keys (to push to branches). See https://help.github.com/articles/adding-a-new-ssh-key-to-your-github-account/.

  • As an alternative, configure hub to push and fork with HTTPS, git config --global hub.protocol https (Not tested yet) *

Release Process

Bump all Kata repositories

Bump the repositories using a script in the Kata packaging repo, where:

• BRANCH=<the-branch-you-want-to-bump>
• NEW_VERSION=<the-new-kata-version>

$ cd ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/tools/packaging/release
$ export NEW_VERSION=<the-new-kata-version>
$ export BRANCH=<the-branch-you-want-to-bump>
$ ./update-repository-version.sh -p "$NEW_VERSION" "$BRANCH"

Merge all bump version Pull requests

• The above step will create a GitHub pull request in the Kata projects. Trigger the CI using /test command on each bump Pull request.
• Trigger the test-kata-deploy workflow which is under the Actions tab on the repository GitHub page (make sure to select the correct branch and validate it passes).
• Check any failures and fix if needed.
• Work with the Kata approvers to verify that the CI works and the pull requests are merged.

Tag all Kata repositories

Once all the pull requests to bump versions in all Kata repositories are merged, tag all the repositories as shown below.

$ cd ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/tools/packaging/release
$ git checkout  <kata-branch-to-release>
$ git pull
$ ./tag_repos.sh -p -b "$BRANCH" tag

Point tests repository to stable branch

If your release changes a major or minor version number(not a patch release), then the above ./tag_repos.sh script will create a new stable branch in all the repositories in addition to tagging them. This happens when you are making the first rc release for a new major or minor version in Kata. In this case, you should modify the tests repository to point to the newly created stable branch and not the main branch. The objective is that changes in the CI on the main branch will not impact the stable branch.

In the test directory, change references of the main branch to the new stable branch in:

• README.md
• versions.yaml
• cmd/github-labels/labels.yaml.in
• cmd/pmemctl/pmemctl.sh
• .ci/lib.sh
• .ci/static-checks.sh

See the commits in the corresponding PR for stable-2.1 for an example of the changes.

Check Git-hub Actions

We make use of GitHub actions in this file in the kata-containers/kata-containers repository to build and upload release artifacts. This action is auto triggered with the above step when a new tag is pushed to the kata-containers/kata-containers repository.

Check the actions status page to verify all steps in the actions workflow have completed successfully. On success, a static tarball containing Kata release artifacts will be uploaded to the Release page.

Create release notes

We have a script in place in the packaging repository to create release notes that include a short-log of the commits across Kata components.

Run the script as shown below:

$ cd ${GOPATH}/src/github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/tools/packaging/release
# Note: OLD_VERSION is where the script should start to get changes.
$ ./release-notes.sh ${OLD_VERSION} ${NEW_VERSION} > notes.md
# Edit the `notes.md` file to review and make any changes to the release notes.
# Add the release notes in the project's GitHub.
$ hub release edit -F notes.md "${NEW_VERSION}"

Announce the release

Publish in Slack and Kata mailing list that new release is ready.