The EPP Release Process

An online editable version of this document is on hackmd.io, updates should be copied to Eclipse's git repo. The Eclipse version is the official one.

This guide contains the step-by-step process to complete an EPP release.

EPP releases happen for each milestone and release candidate according to the Eclipse Simultaneous Release Plan.

Steps at the beginning of each release cycle (i.e. before M1):

Steps for all Milestones and RCs:

  • [ ] Fix/check links in email, the mirrors link was wrong for M1
  • [ ] Look at renaming zips for mac
  • [ ] at beginning of 2022-06 apply removal of Orbit from simrel
  • [ ] Make sure any outstanding reviews are progressing - e.g. file IP logs, get PMC approval, etc.
    • For 2022-03 there is no review planned, next review expected to be a progress review around 2022-06
  • [ ] Ensure that the CI build is green. Resolving non-green builds will require tracking down problems and incompatibilities across all Eclipse participating projects. cross-project-issues-dev mailing list is a good place to start when tracking such problems.
  • [ ] Check that packages containing incubating projects have that information reflected in Help -> About dialog. See near the end of build output for report of check-incubating.sh script.
    • -incubation and (includes Incubating components) are not used in packageMetaData anymore (See Bug 564214)
  • [ ] On RC1 check “new and noteworthy” version numbers - If any N&N are out of date, remove the N&N entries and notify the corresponding package maintainer.
    • [ ] Search for url= (notice the blank before url) in epp.website.xml to see which ones are contained in the different packages.
    • [ ] Remember that some of the features will release new versions together with the new Eclipse release. Therefore using the currently released version number may be wrong. Instead lookup the feature version to be released with the release train.
  • [ ] Update the JustJ version - look for announcements, particularly from Ed to epp-dev and for the EOL and new release dates of JDKs
    • Coordination may be needed with JustJ and Platform projects to make sure we are all on the same page.
    • [ ] Update the full names of the JRE bundles in remove-justj-from-p2.xml
  • [ ] Update name of the release in strings with a “smart” global find&replace. Be careful on M3 that the replace did not match the Eclipse project name M2E! See this gerrit for an example. Use commit message like [releng] Prepare repo for 2020-12 M1. In particular, check:
    • TODO can this be automated On M1 add the M1 qualifier (e.g. 2021-03-R -> 2021-06-M1, on RC2 set it to R the qualifier e.g. 2021-03-RC1 -> 2021-03-R). Except for eclipse.simultaneous.release.name which should go from 2021-03 (4.19.0) -> 2021-06 M1 (4.20.0 M1) on M1 and 2021-03 RC1 (4.19.0 RC1) -> 2021-03 (4.19.0) on RC2
    • [ ] packages/*/epp.website.xml for product name= line
    • [ ] RELEASE_NAME, RELEASE_MILESTONE, RELEASE_DIR, SIMREL_REPO Variables in parent pom releng/org.eclipse.epp.config/parent/pom.xml
      • SIMREL_REPO should be updated to the URL published in the email to cross-project-issues announcing SimRel repo is ready for EPP build
    • [ ] TODO can this part below be automated
      • On R build, for eclipse.simultaneous.release.name remove qualifier i.e. it should be 2020-12 (4.18.0)
      • On M1 build add the qualifier back in, for eclipse.simultaneous.release.name remove qualifier i.e. it should be 2020-12 M1 (4.18.0 M1)
    • [ ] TODO can this be automated on release builds release.xml template in releng/org.eclipse.epp.config/tools/promote-a-build.sh needs updating
  • [ ] Update the Last Recorded +1 in the email template which any package and platform +1s that have been received since the last update.
  • [ ] Update the build qualifiers to ensure that packages are all updated. See this gerrit for an example. To do this run releng/org.eclipse.epp.config/tools/setGitDate script. This script will make a local commit you need to push.
  • [ ] Wait for announcement that the staging repo is ready on cross-project-issues-dev. An example announcement.
    • [ ] Update SIMREL_REPO if not done above.
  • [ ] Run a CI build that includes the above changes.
  • [ ] Check that there are no unexpected warnings in the console output. Especially look for warnings about failure to sign. (Warnings about Mirror tool seem to be ok and can be ignored. In a historically good build there is one [WARNING] Mirror tool: Messages while mirroring artifact descriptors. per package)
    • If warnings about signings occur that leave the dmg unsigned and the build does not fail, please reopen Bug 567916
  • [ ] Disable the CI build so that the build results are not overwritten while doing the promotion
  • [ ] Run the Notarize MacOSX Downloads CI job to notarize DMG packages on download.eclipse.org if the promoted build was unstable. This can be done after promotion if time is tight or the notarization fails repeatedly. See Bug 571669 for an example of failures.
    • [ ] Check the build script output to make sure that the curl calls were successful (e.g. no curl: (92) HTTP/2 stream 0 was not closed cleanly: INTERNAL_ERROR (err 2) messages)
    • If there is an error like the above the .dmg file that is copied to download.eclipse.org is corrupt. Run notarize-prepare-to-redo to rename the -signed file back to -tonotarize and then re-run the notarize job
  • Other notes about notarization
    • NOTE It seems perfectly normal that the notarize job needs to be run multiple times as so many notarization attempts fail due to 500 and 000 response codes from the notarization server. See Bug 571669
    • NOTE Sometimes the notarization server has an error that causes a failure that requires Webmaster support. Error looks like “an existing transporter instance is currently uploading this package”. To resolve request assistance in Bug 573875 (like what was done in Comment 11 of that bug). (TODO it may be possible to workaround this error by always using a different random ID when doing the notarization.)
  • [ ] Sanity check the build for the following:
    • [ ] Download a package from the build's staging output
    • [ ] Made sure filenames contain expected build name and milestone, e.g. 2020-03-M2
    • [ ] Splash screen says expected release name (with no milestone), e.g. 2020-03
    • [ ] Help -> About says expected build name and milestone, e.g. 2020-03-M2
    • [ ] org.eclipse.epp.package.* features and bundles have the timestamp of the forced qualifier update or later
    • [ ] Upgrade from previous release works. To test the upgrade an equivalent to the simrel release composite site needs to done. Add the following software sites to available software, check for updates and then make sure stuff works. In particular check error log and that core features (Such as JDT, Platform) have been upgraded.
      • https://download.eclipse.org/staging/2022-03/ - NOTE Use SIMREL_REPO if the staging repo has been updated since the SIMREL_REPO location was created.
      • https://download.eclipse.org/technology/epp/staging/repository/
    • [ ] Verify no non-EPP content is in the p2 repo (especially justj, update remove-justj-from-p2.xml if needed)
    • [ ] See this email for background on these tests to run about multiple versions of ASM as a test of the PGP vs Orbit flow
      • [ ] Which bundles ends up SimRel - or do both end up there. I assume that it will be the Orbit one because it is more recent as far as p2 is concerned (not sure, just best guess).
      • [ ] Starting from the SDK, does installing features from SimRel cause both to be installed, and if so, are both resolved.
  • [ ] Edit the Jenkins build
    • [ ] Mark build as Keep forever
    • [ ] Edit Jenkins Build Information and name it (e.g. 2020-03 M3)
  • [ ] In the evening Ottawa time, run the Promote a Build CI job to prepare build artifacts and copy them to download.eclipse.org
    • [ ] Optional - useful when testing changes to the promotion scripts: Run the build once in DRY_RUN mode to ensure that the output is correct before it is copied to download.eclipse.org.
    • This is done late in the day to try and reduce impact of adding dozens of GB on the download server and having all the mirrors start to pick it up right away. See epp-dev emails that led to this decision.
    • The DRY_RUN can be done earlier in the day and is a good way to increase the chance that the final promotion step will be successful.
  • [ ] Run the Notarize MacOSX Downloads CI job to notarize DMG packages on download.eclipse.org if the promoted build was unstable
  • [ ] Update SIMREL_REPO to the staging repo so CI builds run against CI of SimRel (e.g. see this gerrit)
  • [ ] Re-enable the CI build
  • [ ] Send email to epp-dev to request package maintainers test it. The email is templated in email.txt in the release directory.
  • [ ] Archive old milestones/RCs so that they don't accumulate on the mirrors
  • [ ] 24 Hours before Final release Make sure files are in final location to allow downloads to mirror
    • [ ] Tag the release, e.g. with 2020-03_R. Example command line: git tag -s -a 2020-03_R -m"2020-03 Release" 1b7a1c1af156e3ac57768b87be258cd22b49456b
    • [ ] rename the provisional release milestone to final directory (E.g. 2020-09/202009101200 -> 2020-09/R (to match what is in release.xml) - this only applies to downloads, not to packages This can be done with a script like TODO: make a job for this :
ssh genie.packaging@projects-storage.eclipse.org /bin/bash << EOF
  set -u # run with unset flag error so that missing parameters cause build failure
  set -e # error out on any failed commands
  set -x # echo all commands used for debugging purposes
  mv -v /home/data/httpd/download.eclipse.org/technology/epp/downloads/release/2021-03/202103121200 /home/data/httpd/download.eclipse.org/technology/epp/downloads/release/2021-03/R
  touch /home/data/httpd/download.eclipse.org/technology/epp/downloads/release/2021-03/R/*
EOF