Patch Release 3.7.1

Patch Release Process

Forward

• Typically, patch releases are conducted by anchors or more experienced team members. If you are not experienced with the Big Bang minor release process, it is not recommended for you to perform a patch release.
• This upgrade process is applicable only to patch Big Bang version upgrades of Big Bang major versions 1 and 2. It is subject to change in future major versions.
• Patch releases are added to the existing minor release branch. No new branches should be created as part of this process.
• The patch release tag format is as follows: release-<major>.<minor>.<patch> where <patch> is the patch release number. Example: release-2.7.1. The <patch> string is a placeholder for the patch release number in this document.

NOTE: As you work through the release make a list of pain points / unclear steps. Once the release is complete, provide this feedback to the ¹ via MM and/or an MR to update the documentation. This allows us to continuously improve this process for future release engineers.

1. Release Prep

• Make sure you have both Big Bang (product) and Big Bang (dogfood) checked out and updated

• Ensure that your current working directory is dogfood-bigbang/docs/release

• If using R2-D2 automated release tool, make sure release_type in ~/.r2d2/config.yaml is set to patch

• Check last release SHAs

  • Verify that the previous release branch commit hash matches the last release tag hash. Investigate with previous release engineer if they do not match.
  • R2-D2: Check last release SHAs
  Manual Steps

  - Go to Branches in Big Bang (product). - Find the latest release branch. It should be in the format release-..x (e.g. release-2.7.x). You will see an eight-character commit hash below it (e.g. 6c746edd) - Go to Tags in a separate tab. Here you will see the latest release tag listed first. Verify that this tag has the same hash you found in the previous step.

• Check out the most recent minor release branch, all patch changes will be applied to this branch.

  # CLI example, replace `<release-branch>` with the name of the most recent minor release branch
  $ cd [path to local bigbang]
  $ git checkout <release-branch>
  $ git pull

• Cherrypick the required patch commit(s) into the corresponding release branch eg: release-2.18.x for 2.18.1+ patch release.

  • Reopen expired minor milestone: Anchor or Joe reopen expired milestone and assign the cherry picked MRs the minor milestone.
  • Close the expired minor milestone once assigned to related cherry picked BB MRs, package MRs and related issues

• Upgrade Big Bang (product) version references

  • R2-D2: Upgrade Version references
  Manual Steps

  💡 Tip Make the following changes in a single commit so that they can be cherry picked into master later. All changes should be made in the Big Bang (product) repository

  • In base/gitrepository.yaml, update ref.tag to your current release version.

  • Update chart release version chart/Chart.yaml

  • Add a new changelog entry for the release, ex:

    ## [2.<minor>.<patch>]
    
    - [!2.<minor>.<patch>](https://repo1.dso.mil/big-bang/bigbang/-/merge_requests?scope=all&utf8=%E2%9C%93&state=merged&milestone_title=2.<minor>.0); List of merge requests in this release.
    
    <!-- Note: Until R2D2 has been modified to generate release notes using multiple milestones (minor and patch)...
    You need to use the .0 patch version for the milestone.. We do not currently use patch milestones. milestone_title=2.<minor>.0 -->

  • Update /docs/understanding-bigbang/configuration/base-config.md using helm-docs.

    # example release 2.<minor>.x
    $ cd bigbang
    $ git checkout release-2.<minor>.x
    $ docker run -v "$(pwd):/helm-docs" -u $(id -u) jnorwood/helm-docs:v1.5.0 -s file -t .gitlab/base_config.md.gotmpl --dry-run > ./docs/understanding-bigbang/configuration/base-config.md

  • Commit & push changes

    $ git commit -am 'version updates for release <release-tag>'
    $ git push

• Build the amended release notes.

  • Return to dogfood-bigbang/docs/release as your current working directory
  • Make a copy of the most recent minor release notes
  • Increment the patch version in the copied document name and title
  • Add an additional block before ## Upgrade Notices with patch changes

    ## Patch-Specific Changes
    
    ### Package Name
    - [!$MR_NUMBER]($LINK_TO_MR): $MR_TITLE or $SHORT_DESCRIPTION

  • Update Packages table with new package versions
  • Add package changelog entry under package section

  🛑 STOP: also take a look at the notes within the previous release here and ensure that no "manual" additions to the upgrade notices were added.

  • Commit the resulting release notes and push to master in Big Bang (dogfood)

• Reach out to ¹ to review your commits to the release branch prior to moving on to the next step

2. Upgrade and Debug Cluster

• Connect to the dogfood cluster

  📌 NOTE: If you have issues with the AWS CLI commands, adding via the AWS web console is another option. Reach out to ¹ for assistance.

• Verify Flux has reconciled cherrypicked updates

  • Packages have fetched new git repository revisions and match the new release

    $ kubectl get gitrepositories -A

  • Packages have reconciled

    $ watch kubectl get gitrepositories,kustomizations,hr,po -A

  • All pods are in Running or Completed status

    $ kubectl get pods -A

If Flux doesn't reconcile changes after 10 minutes, follow the troubleshooting steps in the minor release process.

3. UI Tests

GitLab, Gitlab Runner, & Sonarqube

Gitlab

• Login to gitlab with SSO
• Edit profile and change user avatar. (Avatar may take several minutes to update.)
• Go to Security > Access Token and create a personal access token. Select all scopes.
  • Record the token and the token name to provide during automated test

Gitlab Runner

• R2-D2: Gitlab Test

  📌 NOTE: When prompted for the username use the token name and not the name of the user that created the token.

  ‼️ TROUBLESHOOTING: The pipeline may fail if Sonarqube is getting a major version update. Navigate to 'http://sonarqube.release.bigbang.mil/setup' and upgrade it before re-running the test

Sonarqube

• Login to sonarqube with SSO

  ‼️ TROUBLESHOOTING: You will be unable to login if Sonarqube is getting a major version update. Navigate to 'http://sonarqube.release.bigbang.mil/setup' and upgrade it before procee

Prometheus

• Login to Prometheus with SSO

• Go to Status > Targets and confirm that no unexpected services are marked as unhealthy

  • Known Unhealthy Targets
    • vault (the vault container is missing)

  ‼️ TROUBLESHOOTING: If Vault shows up as unhealthy, that may indicate it was rebuilt and the permissions on the vault/secrets/token file within the prometheus pod need to be updated

  Update Vault Token Permissions

  • exec into the vault-agent container on the prometheus-monitoring-monitoring-kube-prometheus-0 pod
  • chmod the vault token

    chmod 644 /vault/secrets/token

4. Create Release

• Finalize the tag in chart/Chart.yaml (remove -rc.x if present), commit and push this change

• Create release candidate tag based on release branch, ie. 2.<minor>.<patch>-rc.0. Tagging will additionally create release artifacts and the pipeline runs north of 1 hour. You will need to request tag permissions from the ¹.

  • To do this via the UI (generally preferred): tags page -> new tag, name: 2.<minor>.<patch>-rc.0, create from: release-2.<minor>.x, message: "release candidate", release notes: leave empty

  • To do this via git CLI:

    $ git tag -a 2.<minor>.<patch>-rc.0 -m "release candidate"
    # list the tags to make sure you made the correct one
    $ git tag -n
    # push
    $ git push --tags

• Confirm pipeline passed for Release Candidate tag.

• Confirm pipeline passed in bb-docs-compiler for latest RC tag (Gets created/scheduled towards the end of the bigbang release pipeline).

  Review all pipeline output looking for failures or warnings. Reach out to the ¹ for a quick review before proceeding.

• Create release tag based on release branch. ie. 2.<minor>.<patch>.

  • To do this via the UI (generally preferred): tags page -> new tag, name: 2.<minor>.<patch>, create from: release-1.<minor>.x, message: release 2.<minor>.<patch>, release notes: leave empty

  • To do this via git CLI:

    $ git tag -a 2.<minor>.<patch> -m "release 2.<minor>.<patch>"
    # list the tags to make sure you made the correct one
    $ git tag -n
    # push
    $ git push --tags

• Ensure Release Notes are accurate

  • Amend Upgrade Notices, based off of the listed notices in the release issue. Also review with ¹ to see if any other major changes should be noted.
  • Adjust known issues as needed: If an issue has been resolved it can be removed and if any new issues were discovered they should be added.
  • Verify table contains all chart upgrades mentioned in the MR list for both the minor and patch release.
  • Verify all internal comments are removed from Release Notes, such as comments directing the release engineer to copy/move things around

• Passed release pipeline.

  Review all pipeline output looking for failures or warnings. Reach out to the ¹ for a quick review before proceeding. One of the last stages of the pipeline will auto grab the release notes generated above from deployments/bigbang in master. Ensure they populated and are formatted correctly.

• Cherry-pick release commit(s) as needed with merge request back to master branch. We do not ever merge release branch back to master. Instead, make a separate branch from master and cherry-pick the release commit(s) into it. Use the resulting MR to close the release issue.

  # Navigate to your local clone of the BB repo
  cd path/to/my/clone/of/bigbang
  # Get the most up to date master
  git checkout master
  git pull
  # Check out new branch for cherrypicking
  git checkout -b 2.<minor>-cherrypick
  
  # Repeat the following for whichever commits are required from release
  # Typically this is the initial release commit (bumped GitRepo, Chart.yaml, CHANGEGLOG, README) and a final commit that re-ran helm-docs (if needed)
  git cherry-pick <commit sha for Nth commit>
  
  git push --set-upstream origin 2.<minor>-cherrypick
  # Create an MR using Gitlab, merging this branch back to master, reach out to [^maintainers] to review

• Close Big Bang Milestone in GitLab.

• Handoff the release to the ¹, they will review then celebrate and announce the release in the public MM channel

1. @jfoster @chris.oconnell @michaelmartin @andrewshoell ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸