Release Process

The steps for Release Managers to create, vote, and publish releases for Apache Cassandra. While a committer can perform the initial steps of creating and calling a vote on a proposed release, only a PMC member can complete the process of publishing and announcing the release.

Prerequisites

Background docs

  • ASF Release Policy
  • ASF Release Distribution Policy
  • ASF Release Best Practices A debian based linux OS is required to run the release steps from. Debian-based distros provide the required RPM, dpkg and repository management tools.

    Create and publish your GPG key

    guidelines. The key must be 4096 bit RSA. MIT Keyserver. Some gpg clients are publishing the keys here. You are welcome to set the server where the keys will be published by following this guide. like this and ask a PMC to add your key to KEYS file. A PMC will include your public key to this file:
    1. https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/cassandra/KEYS

    Create Release Artifacts

    Any committer can perform the following steps to create and call a vote on a proposed release. Check that there are no open urgent Jira tickets currently being worked on. Also check with the PMC that there’s security vulnerabilities currently being worked on in private. Current project habit is to check the timing for a new release on the dev mailing lists. For successful building process, install this tooling locally: svn, git, ant, devscripts, reprepro, rpmsign, docker, createrepo (the script is checking this tooling is present before proceeding any further). The names of these “packages” are Debian-centric, but equivalents should be discoverable in other systems too. createrepo-c in Debian Bullseye. Please beware that createrepo package is not located in Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. createrepo package is present in Ubuntu Bionic (18.04), createrepo-c is in Ubuntu Jammy (22.04 LTS) and more recent.

    Perform the Release

    Run the following commands to generate and upload release artifacts, to the ASF nexus staging repository and dev distribution location:
    1. cd ~/gitgit clone https://github.com/apache/cassandra-builds.gitgit clone https://github.com/apache/cassandra.git
    1. # Edit the variables at the top of the `prepare_release.sh` fileedit cassandra-builds/cassandra-release/prepare_release.sh
    asf_username variable. Next, gpg_key environment variable must be set to a fingerprint of your gpg key. Execute gpg --list-keys or a similar command to get the value. Finally, you must add ASF remote to your cloned repository and git_asf_remote variable needs to be set to point to that. For example, when this command is executed:
    1. git remote add asf https://gitbox.apache.org/repos/asf/cassandra.git
    git_asf_remote variable needs to be set to asf. NOTE: This is very important step as tags are pushed to ASF repository and they are synchronized to GitHub automatically.
    1. # Ensure your 4096 RSA key is the default secret keyedit ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf # update the `default-key` line
    A reference configuration should look like these examples:
    1. default-key <fingerprint of your key>personal-digest-preferences SHA512cert-digest-algo SHA512default-preference-list SHA512 SHA384 SHA256 SHA224 AES256 AES192 AES CAST5 ZLIB BZIP2 ZIP Uncompressed
    1. edit ~/.rpmmacros # update the `%_gpg_name <key_id>` line# Ensure DEBFULLNAME and DEBEMAIL is defined and exported, in the debian scripts configurationedit ~/.devscripts
    The reference content of these files is:
    1. $ cat ~/.rpmmacros%_gpg_name email@youusedforyourkey.org$ cat ~/.devscriptsDEBFULLNAME="Your Name"DEBEMAIL=email@youusedforyourkey.org
    DEB* environemnt variables exported before proceeding. $HOME/.m2/settings.xml to contain the credentials used to upload artifacts to staging repository. The credentials are your ASF credentials.
    1. $ cat ~/.m2/settings.xml<settings>    <servers>        <server>            <id>apache.releases.https</id>            <username>yourasflogin</username>            <password>yourasfpassword</password>        </server>        <server>            <id>apache.snapshots.https</id>            <username>yourasflogin</username>            <password>yourasfpassword</password>        </server>    </servers></settings>
    The script will eventually ask you for a username and password to push artifacts to SVN. The default prompt for user will be equal to a username of an account at your machine. If your ASF login is not same as your username locally, just error out the prompt (put there wrong password and confirm), and it will ask you for username again without providing any default value. prepare_release.sh is run from the actual cassandra git checkout, on the branch/commit that we wish to tag for the tentative release along with version number to tag.
    1. cd cassandragit switch cassandra-<version-branch># The following cuts the release artifacts (including deb and rpm packages) and deploy to staging environments../cassandra-builds/cassandra-release/prepare_release.sh -v <version>
    Follow the prompts. Staging repositories, where you will find the repository. Select the Cassandra repository and push the “Close” button. Please take a note of the number of that repository like orgapachecassandra-1283 - number is 1283. The script will require the repo number to proceed. It will use this number in the rendered e-mail template sent to the dev list, etc. If building the deb or rpm packages fail, those steps can be repeated individually using the -d and -r flags, respectively. Once DEBs and RPMs are also uploaded, do not forget to merge your commit to prepare the release to trunk and push after all artifacts are uploaded finish the process. You will be also reminded to do that by the script itself at the end.

    Call for a Vote

    $HOME/Mail directory and send to the dev mailing list:
    1. I propose the following artifacts for release as <version>.sha1: <git-sha>Git: https://gitbox.apache.org/repos/asf?p=cassandra.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/tags/<version>-tentativeArtifacts: https://repository.apache.org/content/repositories/orgapachecassandra-<nexus-id>/org/apache/cassandra/apache-cassandra/<version>/Staging repository: https://repository.apache.org/content/repositories/orgapachecassandra-<nexus-id>/The distribution packages are available here: https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/cassandra/${version}/The vote will be open for 72 hours (longer if needed).[1]: (CHANGES.txt) https://git1-us-west.apache.org/repos/asf?p=cassandra.git;a=blob_plain;f=CHANGES.txt;hb=<version>-tentative[2]: (NEWS.txt) https://git1-us-west.apache.org/repos/asf?p=cassandra.git;a=blob_plain;f=NEWS.txt;hb=<version>-tentative

    Post-vote operations

    Any PMC member can perform the following steps to formalize and publish a successfully voted release.

    Publish Artifacts

    Run the following commands to publish the voted release artifacts:
    1. cd ~/git# edit the variables at the top of the `finish_release.sh` fileedit cassandra-builds/cassandra-release/finish_release.sh# After cloning cassandra-builds repo, `finish_release.sh` is run from the actual cassandra git checkout,# on the tentative release tag that we wish to tag for the final release version number tag.cd ~/git/cassandra/git checkout <version>-tentative../cassandra-builds/cassandra-release/finish_release.sh -v <version>
    If successful, take note of the email text output which can be used in the next section “Send Release Announcement”. The output will also list the next steps that are required.

    Promote Nexus Repository

  • Nexus repository again.
  • Click on “Staging Repositories” and then on the repository with id “cassandra-staging”.
  • Find your closed staging repository, select it and choose “Release”. This may take some time, but eventually the repository will no longer show in Staging Repositories.
  • Next click on “Repositories”, and select “Public Repositories” and validate that your artifacts exist as you expect them.

    Update and Publish Website

    docs for building and publishing the website. Also update the CQL doc if appropriate.

    Release version in JIRA

    Release the JIRA version.
  • In JIRA go to the version that you want to release and release it.
  • Create a new version, if it has not been done before.

    Update to Next Development Version

    Update the codebase to point to the next development version:
    1. cd ~/git/cassandra/git checkout cassandra-<version-branch>edit build.xml          # update `<property name="base.version" value="…"/> `edit debian/changelog   # add entry for new versionedit CHANGES.txt        # add entry for new versiongit commit -m "Increment version to <next-version>" build.xml debian/changelog CHANGES.txt# …and forward merge and push per normal procedure

    Wait for Artifacts to Sync

    downloads.apache.org/cassandra/

    Send Release Announcement

    Fill out the following email template and send to both user and dev mailing lists:
    1. The Cassandra team is pleased to announce the release of Apache Cassandra version <version>.Apache Cassandra is a fully distributed database. It is the right choicewhen you need scalability and high availability without compromisingperformance. http://cassandra.apache.org/Downloads of source and binary distributions are listed in our downloadsection: http://cassandra.apache.org/download/This version is <the first|a bug fix> release[1] on the <version-base> series. As always,please pay attention to the release notes[2] and let us know[3] if youwere to encounter any problem.Enjoy![1]: (CHANGES.txt) https://git1-us-west.apache.org/repos/asf?p=cassandra.git;a=blob_plain;f=CHANGES.txt;hb=<version>[2]: (NEWS.txt) https://git1-us-west.apache.org/repos/asf?p=cassandra.git;a=blob_plain;f=NEWS.txt;hb=<version>[3]: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CASSANDRA
    Update Slack Cassandra topic —————————————- cassandra Slack room <slack> /topic cassandra.apache.org | Latest releases: 4.1.0, 4.0.7, 3.11.4, 3.0.18 | ask, don’t ask to ask

    Tweet from @Cassandra

    Tweet the new release, from the @Cassandra account

    Delete Old Releases

    When to Archive. An example of removing old releases:
    1. svn co https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/cassandra/ cassandra-distsvn rm <previous_version> debian/pool/main/c/cassandra/<previous_version>*svn st# check and commit