Releasing Avocado¶

So you have all PRs approved, the Sprint meeting is done and now Avocado is ready to be released. Great, let’s go over (most of) the details you need to pay attention to.

Which repositories you should pay attention to¶

In general, a release of Avocado includes taking a look and eventually release content in the following repositories:

avocado
avocado-vt

How to release?¶

All the necessary steps are in JSON “testplans” to be executed with the following commands:

$ scripts/avocado-run-testplan -t examples/testplans/release/pre.json
$ scripts/avocado-run-testplan -t examples/testplans/release/release.json

Just follow the steps and have a nice release!

How to refresh Fedora/EPEL modules¶

This is an outline of the steps to update the Fedora/EPEL avocado:latest module stream when there is a new upstream release of avocado. This example is based on updating from 82.0 to 83.0.

Update downstream python-avocado package¶

Use pagure to create a personal fork of the downstream Fedora dist-git python-avocado package source repository https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/python-avocado if you don’t already have one.
Clone your personal fork repository to your local workspace.
Checkout the latest branch–which is the stream branch used by the avocado:latest module definition. Make sure your latest branch is in sync with the most recent commits from the official dist-git repo you forked from.
Locate the official upstream commit hash and date corresponding to the upstream GitHub release tag. (eg., https://github.com/avocado-framework/avocado/releases/tag/75.1) Use those values to update the %global commit and %global commit_date lines in the downstream python-avocado.spec file.
Update the Version: line with the new release tag.
Reset the Release: line to 1%{?gitrel}%{?dist}.
Add a new entry at the beginning of the %changelog section with a message similar to Sync with upstream release 83.0..
See what changed in the upstream SPEC file since the last release. You can do this by comparing branches on GitHub (eg., https://github.com/avocado-framework/avocado/compare/82.0..83.0) and searching for python-avocado.spec. If there are changes beyond just the %global commit, %global commit_date, and Version: lines, and the %changelog section, make any necessary corresponding changes to the downstream SPEC file. Note: the commit hash in the upstream SPEC file will be different that what gets put in the downstream SPEC file since the upstream hash was added to the file before the released commit was made. Add an additional note to your %changelog message if there were any noteworthy changes.
Download the new upstream source tarball based on the updated SPEC by running:
```
spectool -g python-avocado.spec
```
Add the new source tarball to the dist-git lookaside cache and update your local repo by running:
```
fedpkg new-sources avocado-83.0.tar.gz
```
Create a Fedora source RPM from the updated SPEC file and tarball by running:
```
fedpkg --release f33 srpm
```
It should write an SRPM file (eg., python-avocado-83.0-1.fc33.src.rpm) to the current directory.
Test build the revised package locally using mock. Run the build using the same Fedora release for which the SRPM was created:
```
mock -r fedora-33-x86_64 python-avocado-83.0-1.fc33.src.rpm
```
If the package build fails, go back and fix the SPEC file, re-create the SRPM, and retry the mock build. It is occasionally necessary to create a patch to disable specific tests or pull in some patches from upstream to get the package to build correctly. See https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/python-avocado/tree/69lts as an example.
Repeat the SRPM generation and mock build for all other supported Fedora releases, Fedora Rawhide, and the applicable EPEL (currently EPEL8).
When you have successful builds for all releases, git add, git commit, and git push your updates.

Update downstream avocado module¶

Use pagure to create a personal fork of the downstream Fedora dist-git avocado module source repository https://src.fedoraproject.org/modules/avocado if you don’t already have one.
Clone your personal fork repository to your local workspace.
Checkout the latest branch–which the stream branch used for the avocado:latest module definition. Make sure your latest branch is in sync with the latest commits to the official dist-git repo you forked from.
If there are any new or removed python-avocado sub-packages, adjust the avocado.yaml modulemd file accordingly.
Test with a scratch module build for the latest supported Fedora release (f33), including the SRPM created earlier:
```
fedpkg module-scratch-build --requires platform:f33 --buildrequires platform:f33 --file avocado.yaml --srpm .../python-avocado/python-avocado-83.0-1.fc33.src.rpm
```
You can use https://release-engineering.github.io/mbs-ui/ to monitor the build progress.
If the module build fails, go back and fix the modulemd file and try again. Depending on the error, it may necessary to go back and revise the package SPEC file.
Repeat the scratch module build for all other supported Fedora releases, Fedora Rawhide, and EPEL8 (platform:el8). If you’re feeling confident, you can skip this step.
When you have successful scratch module builds for all releases, git add, git commit, git push your update. Note: if avocado.yaml didn’t need modifying, it is still necessary to make a new commit since official module builds are tracked internally by their git commit hash. Recall that git commit has an --allow-empty option.

Release revised module¶

Create PRs to merge the python-avocado rpm and avocado module changes into the latest branches of the master dist-git repositories. If you have commit privileges to the master repositories, you could also opt to push directly.
After the python-avocado rpm and avocado module changes have been merged…
From the latest branch of your module repository in your local workspace, submit the module build using fedpkg module-build. The MBS (Module Build Service) will use stream expansion to automatically build the module for all current Fedora/EPEL releases. Again, you can use https://release-engineering.github.io/mbs-ui/ to monitor the progress of the builds.
If you want to test the built modules at this point, use odcs (On Demand Compose Service) to create a temporary compose for your Fedora release:
```
odcs create module avocado:latest:3120200121201503:f636be4b
```
You can then use wget to download the repofile from the URL referenced in the output to /etc/yum.repos.d/ and then you’ll be able to install your newly built avocado:latest module. Don’t forget to remove the odcs repofile when you are done testing.
Use https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/ to create new updates for avocado:latest (using options type=enhancement, severity=low, default for everything else) for each Fedora release and EPEL8 – except Rawhide which happens automatically.
Bodhi will push the updates to the testing repositories in a day or two. Following the push and after the Fedora mirrors have had a chance to sync, you’ll be able to install the new module by including the dnf option --enablerepo=updates-testing-modular (epel-testing-modular for EPEL).
After receiving enough bodhi karma votes (three by default) or after enough days have elapsed (seven for Fedora, twelve for EPEL), bodhi will push the updated modules to the stable repositories. At that point, the updated modules will be available by default without any extra arguments to dnf.