Rugged Release Guide

This release guide is largely inspired from Hipparchus Release Guide and Orekit Release Guide. It lists the steps that have been used in the past to release a new version of Rugged. When in doubt ask the experts: Sébastien Dinot sebastien.dinot@csgroup.eu for website questions and Jonathan Guinet jonathan.guinet@csgroup.eu or Guylaine Prat guylaine.prat@csgroup.eu for everything else.

Prerequisites

  1. Obtain private key of the Rugged Signing Key, key id: 9A928E5485FBC44A2A4F9C2E9128808ECB6C9DED
  2. Register for account on OSSRH and associate it with the Rugged project, see: https://central.sonatype.org/pages/ossrh-guide.html

If you need help with either, ask on the development section of the Rugged forum.

Once you have a SonaType OSS account, the corresponding credentials must be set in the servers section of your $HOME/.m2/settings.xml file, using an id of ossrh:

<servers>
  <server>
    <id>ossrh</id>
    <username>the user name to connect to the OSS site</username>
    <password>the encrypted password</password>
  </server>
</servers>

Use mvn -ep to generate an encrypted password.

Install Graphviz

Graphviz (dot) is used to generated diagrams of the technical documentation (static site).

Verify the status of develop branch

Before anything, check on the continuous integration site that everything is fine on develop branch:

  • All tests pass;
  • Code coverage is up to the requirements;
  • There are no bugs, vulnerabilities or code smells.

If not, fix the warnings and errors first !

It is also necessary to check on the Gitlab CI/CD that everything is fine on develop branch (i.e. all stages are passed).

Prepare Git branch for release

Release will be performed on a dedicated branch, not directly on master or develop branch. So a new branch must be created as follows and used for everything else:

git branch release-X.Y
git checkout release-X.Y

Update maven plugins versions

Release is a good opportunity to update the maven plugin versions. They are all gathered at one place, in a set of properties in rugged/pom.xml, for instance:

<rugged.spotbugs-maven-plugin.version>4.0.4</rugged.spotbugs-maven-plugin.version>
<rugged.jacoco-maven-plugin.version>0.8.5</rugged.jacoco-maven-plugin.version>
<rugged.maven-assembly-plugin.version>3.1.1</rugged.maven-assembly-plugin.version>
...

You can find the latest version of the plugins using the search feature at http://search.maven.org/#search. The properties name all follow the pattern rugged.some-plugin-name.version, the plugin name should be used in the web form to check for available versions.

Beware that in some cases, the latest version cannot be used due to incompatibilities. For example when a plugin was not recently updated and conflicts appear with newer versions of its dependencies.

Beware also that some plugins use configuration files that may need update too. This is typically the case with maven-checkstyle-plugin and spotbugs-maven-plugin. The /checkstyle.xml and /spotbugs-exclude-filter.xml files may need to be checked.

Before committing these changes, you have to check that everything works. So run the following command:

mvn clean
LANG=C mvn -Prelease site

If something goes wrong, either fix it by changing the plugin configuration or roll back to an earlier version of the plugin.

Browse the generated site starting at page target/site/index.html and check that everything is rendered properly. You may also check the contents of the pages.

When everything runs fine and the generated site is OK, then you can commit the changes:

git add rugged/pom.xml rugged/checkstyle.xml rugged/spotbugs-exclude-filter.xml
git commit -m "Updated maven plugins versions."

Updating changes.xml

Finalize the file src/changes/changes.xml file.

The release date and description, which are often only set to TBD during development, must be set to appropriate values. The release date at this step is only a guess one or two weeks in the future, in order to take into account the 5 days release vote delay.

Replace the TBD description with a text describing the version released: state if it is a minor or major version, list the major features introduced by the version etc (see examples in descriptions of former versions).

Commit the changes.xml file.

git add src/changes/changes.xml
git commit -m "Updated changes.xml for official release."

Updating documentation

Several files must be updated to take into account the new version:

file name usage required update
src/site/markdown/index.md site home page Update the text about the new features (see changes from changes.xml)
src/site/markdown/downloads.md.vm downloads links Declare the new versions, don't forget the date

Once the files have been updated, commit the changes:

git add src/site/markdown/*.md
git commit -m "Updated documentation for the release."

Change library version number

The pom.xml file contains the version number of the library. During development, this version number has the form X.Y-SNAPSHOT. For release, the -SNAPSHOT part must be removed.

Commit the change:

git add pom.xml
git commit -m "Dropped -SNAPSHOT in version number for official release."

Check the JavaDoc

Depending the JDK version (Oracle, OpenJDK, etc), some JavaDoc warnings can be present. Make sure there is no JavaDoc warnings by running the following command:

mvn javadoc:javadoc

If possible, run the above command with different JDK versions.

Tag and sign the git repository

When all previous steps have been performed, the local git repository holds the final state of the sources and build files for the release. It must be tagged and the tag must be signed. Note that before the vote is finished, the tag can only signed with a -RCx suffix to denote Release Candidate. The final tag without the -RCx suffix will be put once the vote succeeds, on the same commit (which will therefore have two tags). Tagging and signing is done using the following command, with -RCn replaced with the Release Candidate number:

git tag X.Y-RCn -s -u 9A928E5485FBC44A2A4F9C2E9128808ECB6C9DED -m "Release Candidate n for version X.Y."

The tag should be verified using command:

git tag -v X.Y-RCn

Pushing the branch and the tag

When the tag is ready, the branch and the tag must be pushed to Gitlab so everyone can review it:

git push --tags origin release-X.Y

Static site (technical documentation)

The static site is generated locally using:

mvn clean
LANG=C mvn site

The official site is automatically updated on the hosting platform when work is merged into branches develop, release-* or master.

Generating signed artifacts

When these settings have been set up, generating the artifacts is done by running the following commands:

mvn deploy -DskipStagingRepositoryClose=true -Prelease

During the generation, maven will trigger gpg which will ask the user for the pass phrase to access the signing key. If maven didn’t prompt to you, you have to add -Dgpg.passphrase=[passphrase]

Once the commands ends, log into the SonaType OSS site https://oss.sonatype.org/ and check the staging repository contains the expected artifacts with associated signatures and checksums:

  • rugged-X.Y.pom
  • rugged-X.Y.jar
  • rugged-X.Y-sources.jar
  • rugged-X.Y-javadoc.jar

The signature and checksum files have similar names with added extensions .asc, .md5 and .sha1.

Sometimes, the deployment to Sonatype OSS site also adds files with double extension .asc.md5 and .asc.sha1, which are in fact checksum files on a signature file and serve no purpose and can be deleted.

Remove rugged-X.Y.source-jar* since they are duplicates of the rugged-X.Y-sources.jar* artifacts. Then click the “Close” button.

Calling for the vote

Everything is now ready so the developers and PMC can vote for the release. Create a post in the Rugged development category of the forum with a subject line of the form:

[VOTE] Releasing Rugged X.Y from release candidate n

and content of the form:

This is a VOTE in order to release version X.Y of the Rugged library.
Version X.Y is a maintenance release.


Highlights in the X.Y release are:
  - feature 1 description
  ...
  - feature n description

The release candidate n can be found on the GitLab repository as
tag X.Y-RCn in the release-X.Y branch:
<https://gitlab.orekit.org/orekit/rugged/tree/X.Y-RCn>

The release notes can be read here:
<https://test.orekit.org/site-rugged-X.Y/changes-report.html>

Maven artifacts are available at
<https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/orgorekit-xxxx/>

The votes will be tallied in 120 hours for now, on 20yy-mm-ddThh:mm:00Z
(this is UTC time).

You should also ping PMC members so they are aware of the vote. Their vote is essential for a release as per project governance.

Failed vote

If the vote fails, the maven artifacts must be removed from OSS site by dropping the repository. Then a new release candidate must be created, with a new number, a new tag and new artifacts. Another vote is needed for this new release candidate. So make the necessary changes and then start from the “Tag and sign the git repository” step.

Successful vote

When the vote for a release candidate succeeds, follow the steps below to publish the release.

Tag release version

As the vote passed, a final signed tag must be added to the succeeding release candidate, verified and pushed:

git tag X.Y -s -u 9A928E5485FBC44A2A4F9C2E9128808ECB6C9DED -m "Version X.Y."
git tag -v X.Y
git push --tags

Merge release branch into master

Merge the release branch into the master branch to include any changes made.

git checkout master
git merge --no-ff release-X.Y

Then commit and push.

Merge master branch into develop

Merge the master branch into the develop branch to include any changes made.

git checkout develop
git merge --no-ff master

Then update the version number to prepare for the next development cycle:

  • edit the pom.xml to update version to a SNAPSHOT,
  • make space in the /src/changes/changes.xml file for new changes.

Then commit and push.

Publish maven artifacts

The maven artifacts must be published using OSS site to release the repository. Select the Rugged repository in “Staging Repositories” and click the “Release” button in Nexus Repository Manager.

Upload to Gitlab

Navigate to Projects > Rugged > Repository > Tags. Find the X.Y tag and click the edit button to enter release notes. Use the path in the Nexus repository to set the artifacts in the release notes.

  • rugged-X.Y.jar
  • rugged-X.Y-sources.jar
  • rugged-X.Y-javadoc.jar

Navigate to Projects > Rugged > Project Overview > Releases and make sure it looks nice.

Synchronize the Github mirror

To enhance the visibility of the project, a mirror is maintained on Github. The releases created on Gitlab are not automatically pushed on this mirror. They have to be declared manually to make visible the vitality of Rugged.

  1. Login to Github
  2. Go to the Rugged releases page
  3. Click on the Draft a new release button
  4. In the “Tag version” field of the form and in the “Release title” field, enter the tag of the release to be declared
  5. Describe the release as it has been done on Gitlab
  6. Click on “Publish release”

Github automically adds two assets (zip and tarball archives of the tagged source code).

Update Rugged website

Several edits need to be made to the Rugged website after the vote. Fetch the current code:

git clone https://gitlab.orekit.org/orekit/website-2015

Switch to develop branch.

Edit rugged/overview.html with the new Orekit and Hipparchus versions. Don't forget to update the rugged/img/rugged-architecture.png image with the new dependencies.

Create a new post for the release in _post/ using as template a previous Rugged post (in order to be published in the Rugged News page).

Once the modification pushed to develop branch, wait the pipeline on Gitlab is finished, then the test website will be updated.

Once the modification validated, merge the develop branch into the master branch and pushed the master branch. Once the pipeline on Gitlab is finished, then the website will be updated.

Close X.Y milestone

In Gitlab, navigate to Projects > Rugged > Issues > Milestones. Click “Close Milestone” for the line corresponding to the release X.Y.

Announce release

The last step is to announce the release by creating a post in the Rugged announcements category of the forum with a subject line of the form:

Rugged X.Y released

and content of the form:

The Rugged team is pleased to announce the release of Rugged version X.Y. 
This is a minor/major version, including both new features and bug fixes. 
The main changes are:

  - feature 1 description
  ...
  - feature n description

This version depends on Orekit X.x and Hipparchus Y.y.

For complete release notes please see:
https://www.orekit.org/site-rugged-X.Y/changes-report.html

The maven artifacts are available in maven central. 
The source and binaries can be retrieved from the forge releases page:
https://gitlab.orekit.org/orekit/rugged/-/releases