kops/docs/release-process.md

** This file documents the new release process, as used from kOps 1.19 onwards. For the process used for versions up to kOps 1.18, please see the old release process**

Release Process

The kOps project is released on an as-needed basis. The process is as follows:

1. An issue is proposing a new release with a changelog since the last release
2. All OWNERS must LGTM this release
3. An OWNER runs git tag -s $VERSION and inserts the changelog and pushes the tag with git push $VERSION
4. The release issue is closed
5. An announcement email is sent to kubernetes-dev@googlegroups.com with the subject [ANNOUNCE] kOps $VERSION is released

Branches

We maintain a release-1.17 branch for kOps 1.17.X, release-1.18 for kOps 1.18.X etc.

master is where development happens. We create new branches from master as a new kOps version is released, or in preparation for a new release. As we are preparing for a new kubernetes release, we will try to advance the master branch to focus on the new functionality, and start cherry-picking back more selectively to the release branches only as needed.

Generally we don't encourage users to run older kops versions, or older branches, because newer versions of kOps should remain compatible with older versions of Kubernetes.

Releases should be done from the release-1.X branch. The tags should be made on the release branches.

We do currently maintain a release branch which should point to the same tag as the current release-1.X tag.

New Kubernetes versions and release branches

Typically kOps alpha releases are created off the master branch and beta and stable releases are created off of release branches. In order to create a new release branch off of master prior to a beta release, perform the following steps:

1. Create a new periodic E2E prow job for the "next" kubernetes minor version.
   • All kOps prow jobs are defined here
2. Create a new presubmit E2E prow job for the new release branch.
3. Create a new milestone in the GitHub repo.
4. Update prow's milestone_applier config to update master to use the new milestone and add an entry for the new branch that targets master's old milestone.
5. Create the new release branch in git and push it to the GitHub repo.

Update versions

See 1.19.0-alpha.1 PR for example

• Use the hack/set-version script to update versions: hack/set-version 1.20.0 1.20.1

The syntax is hack/set-version <new-release-version> <new-ci-version>

new-release-version is the version you are releasing.

new-ci-version is the version you are releasing "plus one"; this is used to avoid CI jobs being out of semver order.

Examples:

new-release-version	new-ci-version
1.20.1	1.20.2
1.21.0-alpha.1	1.21.0-alpha.2
1.21.0-beta.1	1.21.0-beta.2

• Update the golden tests: hack/update-expected.sh

• Commit the changes (without pushing yet): git add -p && git commit -m "Release 1.X.Y"

Check builds OK

rm -rf .build/ .bazelbuild/
make ci

Send Pull Request to propose a release

git push $USER
hub pull-request

Wait for the PR to merge

Tag the branch

(TODO: Can we automate this? Maybe we should have a tags.yaml file)

git checkout master
git fetch origin
git reset --hard origin/master

Make sure you are on the correct commit, and not a newer one!

VERSION=$(tools/get_version.sh | grep VERSION | awk '{print $2}')
echo ${VERSION}

git tag v${VERSION}
git show v${VERSION}

Double check it is the correct commit!

git push git@github.com:kubernetes/kops v${VERSION}
git fetch origin # sync back up

Wait for CI job to complete

The staging CI job should now see the tag, and build it (from the trusted prow cluster, using Google Cloud Build).

The job is here: https://testgrid.k8s.io/sig-cluster-lifecycle-kops#kops-postsubmit-push-to-staging

It (currently) takes about 10 minutes to run.

In the meantime, you can compile the release notes...

Compile release notes

e.g.

git checkout -b relnotes_${VERSION}

FROM=1.18.0
TO=1.18.1
DOC=1.18
git log v${FROM}..v${TO} --oneline | grep Merge.pull | grep -v Revert..Merge.pull | cut -f 5 -d ' ' | tac  > /tmp/prs
echo -e "\n## ${FROM} to ${TO}\n"  >> docs/releases/${DOC}-NOTES.md
relnotes  -config .shipbot.yaml  < /tmp/prs  >> docs/releases/${DOC}-NOTES.md

Review then send a PR with the release notes:

git add -p && git commit -m "Release notes for ${VERSION}"
git push ${USER}
hub pull-request

Update release branch

For the time being, we are also maintaining a release branch. We push released versions to that.

git push git@github.com:kubernetes/kops release-1.17:release

Propose promotion of artifacts

Create container promotion PR:

cd ${GOPATH}/src/k8s.io/k8s.io

git co -b kops_images_${VERSION}

cd k8s.gcr.io/images/k8s-staging-kops
echo "" >> images.yaml
echo "# ${VERSION}" >> images.yaml
k8s-container-image-promoter --snapshot gcr.io/k8s-staging-kops --snapshot-tag ${VERSION} >> images.yaml

You can dry-run the promotion with

cd ${GOPATH}/src/k8s.io/k8s.io
k8s-container-image-promoter --thin-manifest-dir k8s.gcr.io

Currently we send the image and non-image artifact promotion PRs separately.

git add -p
git commit -m "Promote kOps $VERSION images"
git push ${USER}
hub pull-request

Create binary promotion PR:

cd ${GOPATH}/src/k8s.io/k8s.io

git co master
git co -b kops_artifacts_${VERSION}

mkdir -p ./k8s-staging-kops/kops/releases/${VERSION}/
gsutil rsync -r  gs://k8s-staging-kops/kops/releases/${VERSION}/ ./k8s-staging-kops/kops/releases/${VERSION}/

promobot-generate-manifest --src k8s-staging-kops/kops/releases/ >> artifacts/manifests/k8s-staging-kops/${VERSION}.yaml

Verify, then send a PR:

git add artifacts/manifests/k8s-staging-kops/${VERSION}.yaml
git commit -m "Promote kOps $VERSION binary artifacts"
git push ${USER}
hub pull-request

Promote to dockerhub / S3 / github (legacy)

We are in the process of moving to k8s.gcr.io for all images and to artifacts.k8s.io for all non-image artifacts.

In the meantime (and for compatibility), we must also promote to the old locations:

Images to dockerhub:

crane cp gcr.io/k8s-staging-kops/kube-apiserver-healthcheck:${VERSION} kope/kube-apiserver-healthcheck:${VERSION}
crane cp gcr.io/k8s-staging-kops/dns-controller:${VERSION} kope/dns-controller:${VERSION}
crane cp gcr.io/k8s-staging-kops/kops-controller:${VERSION} kope/kops-controller:${VERSION}

Binaries to S3 bucket:

aws s3 sync --acl public-read k8s-staging-kops/kops/releases/${VERSION}/ s3://kubeupv2/kops/${VERSION}/

Binaries to github:

cd ${GOPATH}/src/k8s.io/kops/
shipbot -tag v${VERSION} -config .shipbot.yaml -src ${GOPATH}/src/k8s.io/k8s.io/k8s-staging-kops/kops/releases/${VERSION}/

Until the binary promoter is automatic, we also need to promote the binary artifacts manually:

mkdir -p /tmp/thin/artifacts/filestores/k8s-staging-kops/
mkdir -p /tmp/thin/artifacts/manifests/k8s-staging-kops/

cd ${GOPATH}/src/k8s.io/k8s.io
cp artifacts/manifests/k8s-staging-kops/${VERSION}.yaml /tmp/thin/artifacts/manifests/k8s-staging-kops/

cat > /tmp/thin/artifacts/filestores/k8s-staging-kops/filepromoter-manifest.yaml << EOF
filestores:
- base: gs://k8s-staging-kops/kops/releases/
  src: true
- base: gs://k8s-artifacts-prod/binaries/kops/
  service-account: k8s-infra-gcr-promoter@k8s-artifacts-prod.iam.gserviceaccount.com
EOF

promobot-files --filestores /tmp/thin/artifacts/filestores/k8s-staging-kops/filepromoter-manifest.yaml --files /tmp/thin/artifacts/manifests/k8s-staging-kops/ --dry-run=true

After validation of the dry-run output:

promobot-files --filestores /tmp/thin/artifacts/filestores/k8s-staging-kops/filepromoter-manifest.yaml --files /tmp/thin/artifacts/manifests/k8s-staging-kops/ --dry-run=false --use-service-account

Smoketesting the release

wget https://artifacts.k8s.io/binaries/kops/${VERSION}/linux/amd64/kops

mv kops ko
chmod +x ko

./ko version

Also run through a kops create cluster flow, ideally verifying that everything is pulling from the new locations.

On github

• Download release
• Validate it
• Add notes
• Publish it

Release kOps to homebrew

• Following the documentation we must release a compatible homebrew formulae with the release.
• This should be done at the same time as the release, and we will iterate on how to improve timing of this.

Update the alpha channel and/or stable channel

Once we are satisfied the release is sound:

• Bump the kOps recommended version in the alpha channel

Once we are satisfied the release is stable:

• Bump the kOps recommended version in the stable channel

Update conformance results with CNCF

Use the following instructions: https://github.com/cncf/k8s-conformance/blob/master/instructions.md