Release Guide

Making an Operator SDK release involves:

  • Updating CHANGELOG.md and migration guide.
  • Tagging and signing a git commit and pushing the tag to GitHub.
  • Building a release binary and signing the binary
  • Creating a release by uploading binary, signature, and CHANGELOG.md updates for the release to GitHub.
  • Creating a patch version branch of the form v1.2.x for major and minor releases.

Releases can only be performed by maintainers.

Dependency and platform support

Go version

Release binaries will be built with the Go compiler version specified in the Operator SDK’s prerequisites section.

Kubernetes versions

As the Operator SDK interacts directly with the Kubernetes API, certain API features are assumed to exist in the target cluster. The currently supported Kubernetes version will always be listed in the SDK prerequisites section.

Operating systems and architectures

Release binaries will be built for the x86_64 architecture for MacOS Darwin platform and for the following GNU Linux architectures: x86_64, ppc64le, s390x.

Base images for ansible-operator, helm-operator, and scorecard-proxy will be built for the following GNU Linux architectures: x86_64, ppc64le, s390x.

Support for the Windows platform is not on the roadmap at this time.

Binaries and signatures

Binaries will be signed using a maintainers’ verified GitHub PGP key. Both binary and signature will be uploaded to the release. Ensure you import maintainer keys to verify release binaries.

Release tags

Every release will have a corresponding git semantic version tag beginning with v, ex. v1.2.3.

Make sure you’ve uploaded your GPG key and configured git to use that signing key either globally or for the Operator SDK repository. Tagging will be handled by release.sh.

Note: the email the key is issued for must be the email you use for git.

  1. $ git config [--global] user.signingkey "$GPG_KEY_ID"
  2. $ git config [--global] user.email "$GPG_EMAIL"

Also, make sure that you setup the git gpg config as follows.

  1. $ cat ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf
  2. default-key $GPG_KEY_ID

NOTE If you do a release from an OSX machine, you need to configure gnu-gpg to sign the release’s tag:

  • Install the requirements by running: brew install gpg2 gnupg pinentry-mac
  • Append the following to your ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc
  1. export GPG_TTY=`tty`
  • Restart your Terminal or source your ~/.*rc file
  • Then, make sure git uses gpg2 and not gpg
  1. $ git config --global gpg.program gpg2
  • To make sure gpg2 itself is working
  1. $ echo "test" | gpg2 --clearsign

GitHub release information

Locking down branches

Once a release PR has been made and all tests pass, the SDK’s master branch should be locked so commits cannot happen between the release PR and release tag push. To lock down master:

  1. Go to Settings -> Branches in the SDK repo.
  2. Under Branch protection rules, click Edit on the master rule.
  3. In section Protect matching branches of the Rule settings box, increase the number of required approving reviewers to its maximum allowed value.

Now only administrators (maintainers) should be able to force merge PRs. Make sure everyone in the relevant Slack channel is aware of the release so they do not force merge by accident.

Unlock master after the release has completed (after step 3 is complete) by changing the number of required approving reviewers back to 1.

Releasing

The GitHub Releases tab in the operator-sdk repo is where all SDK releases live. To create a GitHub release:

  1. Go to the SDK Releases tab and click the Draft a new release button in the top right corner.
  2. Select the tag version v1.3.0, and set the title to v1.3.0.
  3. Copy and paste any CHANGELOG.md under the v1.3.0 header that have any notes into the description form (see below).
  4. Attach all binaries and .asc signature files to the release by dragging and dropping them.
  5. Click the Publish release button.

Note: if this is a pre-release, make sure to check the This is a pre-release box under the file attachment frame. If you are not sure what this means, ask another maintainer.

Release notes

GitHub release notes should thoroughly describe changes made to code, documentation, and design of the SDK. PR links should be included wherever possible.

The following sections, often directly copied from our changelog, are used as release notes:

  1. [Version as title, ex. v1.2.3]
  3. ### Added
  4. - [Short description of feature added] (#PR)
  5. ...
  7. ### Changed
  8. - [Short description of change made] (#PR)
  9. ...
  11. ### Deprecated
  12. - [Short description of feature deprecated] (#PR)
  13. ...
  15. ### Removed
  16. - [Short description of feature removed] (#PR)
  17. ...
  19. ### Bug Fixes
  20. - [Short description of bug and fix] (#PR)
  21. ...

Release Signing

When a new release is created, the tag for the commit it signed with a maintainers’ gpg key and the binaries for the release are also signed by the same key. All keys used by maintainers will be available via public PGP keyservers such as pool.sks-keyservers.net.

For new maintainers who have not done a release and do not have their PGP key on a public keyserver, output your armored public key using this command:

  1. $ gpg --armor --export "$GPG_EMAIL" > mykey.asc

Then, copy and paste the content of the outputted file into the Submit a key section on pool.sks-keyservers.net or any other public keyserver that synchronizes the key to other public keyservers. Once that is done, other people can download your public key and you are ready to sign releases.

Verifying a release

To verify a git tag, use this command:

  1. $ git verify-tag --verbose "$TAG_NAME"

If you do not have the mantainers public key on your machine, you will get an error message similiar to this:

  1. git verify-tag --verbose "$TAG_NAME"
  2. object 61e0c23e9d2e217f8d95ac104a8f2545c102b5c3
  3. type commit
  4. tag v0.6.0
  5. tagger Ish Shah <ishah@redhat.com> 1552688145 -0700
  7. Operator SDK v0.6.0
  8. gpg: Signature made Fri Mar 15 23:15:45 2019 CET
  9. gpg:                using RSA key <KEY_ID>
  10. gpg: Can't check signature: No public key

To download the key, use the following command, replacing $KEY_ID with the RSA key string provided in the output of the previous command:

  1. $ gpg --recv-key "$KEY_ID"

To verify a release binary using the provided asc files see the installation guide.

Release steps

These steps describe how to conduct a release of the SDK, upgrading from v1.2.0 to v1.3.0. Replace these versions with the current and new version you are releasing, respectively.

Note: master should be frozen between steps 1 and 3 so that all commits will be either in the new release or have a pre-release version, ex. v1.2.0+git. Otherwise commits might be built into a release that shouldn’t or have an incorrect version, which makes debugging user issues difficult.

(Patch release only) Cherry-picking to a release branch

As more than one patch may be created per minor release, branch names of the form v1.3.x are created after a minor version is released. Bug fixes will be merged into the release branch only after testing.

Add fixes to the release branch by doing the following:

  1. $ git checkout v1.3.x
  2. $ git checkout -b release-v1.3.1
  3. $ git cherry-pick "$GIT_COMMIT_HASH" # Usually from master
  4. $ git push origin release-v1.3.1

Create a PR from release-v1.3.1 to v1.3.x. Once CI passes and your PR is merged, continue to step 1.

1. Create a PR for release version, CHANGELOG.md, and migration guide updates

Once all PR’s needed for a release have been merged, branch from master:

  1. $ git checkout master
  2. $ git pull

If making a patch release, check out the corresponding minor version branch:

  1. $ git checkout v1.2.x
  2. $ git pull

Create a new branch to push release commits:

  1. $ git checkout -b release-v1.3.0

Run the CHANGELOG and migration guide generator:

  1. $ GEN_CHANGELOG_TAG=v1.3.0 make gen-changelog

Commit the following changes:

  • version/version.go: update Version to v1.3.0.
  • internal/scaffold/go_mod.go, change the require line version for github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk from master to v1.3.0.
  • internal/scaffold/helm/go_mod.go: same as for internal/scaffold/go_mod.go.
  • internal/scaffold/ansible/go_mod.go: same as for internal/scaffold/go_mod.go.
  • doc/user/install-operator-sdk.md: update the linux and macOS URLs to point to the new release URLs.
  • CHANGELOG.md: commit changes (updated by changelog generation).
  • website/content/en/docs/migration/v1.3.0.md: commit changes (created by changelog generation).
  • changelog/fragments/*: commit deleted fragment files (deleted by changelog generation).

(Non-patch releases only) Lock down the master branch to prevent further commits between this and step 4. See this section for steps to do so.

Create and merge a new PR for release-v1.3.0.

2. Create a release tag, binaries, and signatures

The top-level release.sh script will take care of verifying versions in files described in step 1, and tagging and verifying the tag, as well as building binaries and generating signatures by calling make release.

Call the script with the only argument being the new SDK version:

  1. $ ./release.sh v1.3.0

NOTE The ./release.sh script requires GNU sed and the GNU make instead of the default installed sed. Install them with: brew install gnu-sed and brew install make, then ensure they are present in your $PATH.

Release binaries and signatures will be in build/. Both binary and signature file names contain version, architecture, and platform information; signature file names correspond to the binary they were generated from suffixed with .asc. For example, signature file operator-sdk-v1.3.0-x86_64-apple-darwin.asc was generated from a binary named operator-sdk-v1.3.0-x86_64-apple-darwin. To verify binaries and tags, see the verification section.

Note: you must have both git and gpg default PGP keys set locally for release.sh to run without error. Additionally you must add your PGP key to a public-key-server.

Push tag v1.3.0 upstream:

  1. $ git push --tags

Once this tag passes CI, go to step 3. For more info on tagging, see the release tags section.

Note: If CI fails for some reason, you will have to revert the tagged commit, re-commit, and make a new PR.

3. Create a PR for post-release version updates

Check out a new branch from master (or use your release-v1.3.0 branch) and commit the following changes:

  • version/version.go: update Version to v1.3.0+git.
  • internal/scaffold/go_mod.go, change the require line version for github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk from v1.3.0 to master.
  • internal/scaffold/helm/go_mod.go: same as for internal/scaffold/go_mod.go.
  • internal/scaffold/ansible/go_mod.go: same as for internal/scaffold/go_mod.go.

Create a new PR for this branch, targetting the master branch. Once this PR passes CI and is merged, master can be unfrozen.

If the release is for a patch version (e.g. v1.3.1), an identical PR should be created, targetting the v1.3.x branch. Once this PR passes CI and is merged, v1.3.x can be unfrozen.

4. Releasing binaries, signatures, and release notes

(Non-patch releases only) Unlock the master branch. See this section for steps to do so.

The final step is to upload binaries, their signature files, and release notes from CHANGELOG.md for v1.3.0. See this section for steps to do so.

5. Making a new release branch

If you have created a new major or minor release, you need to make a new branch for it. To do this, checkout the tag that you created and make a new branch that matches the version you released with x in the position of the patch number. For example, to make a new release branch after v1.3.0 and push it to the repo, you would follow these steps:

  1. $ git checkout tags/v1.3.0
  2. Note: checking out 'tags/v1.3.0'.
  3. ...
  4. $ git checkout -b v1.3.x
  5. Switched to a new branch 'v1.3.x'
  6. $ git push origin v1.3.x
  7. Total 0 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
  8. remote:
  9. remote: Create a pull request for 'v1.3.x' on GitHub by visiting:
  10. remote:      https://github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk/pull/new/v1.3.x
  11. remote:
  12. To github.com:operator-framework/operator-sdk.git
  13.  * [new branch]      v1.3.x -> v1.3.x

Now that the branch exists, you need to make the post-release PR for the new release branch. To do this, simply follow the same steps as in step 3 with the addition of changing the branch name in the go.mod scaffold from master to the new branch (for example, v1.3.x). Then, make the PR against the new branch.

6. Updating the Homebrew formula

We support installing via Homebrew, so we need to update the operator-sdk Homebrew formula once the release is cut. Follow the instructions below, or for more detailed ones on the Homebrew contribution README, to open a PR against the repository.

  1. docker run -t -d linuxbrew/brew:latest
  2. docker exec -it <CONTAINER_ID> /bin/bash`
  3. # Run the following commands in the container.
  4. git config --global github.name <GITHUB-USERNAME>
  5. git config --global github.token <GITHUB-TOKEN>
  6. # Replace the release version of the newly cut release.
  7. OPERATORSDKURL=https://github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk/archive/<RELEASE-VERSION>.tar.gz
  8. curl $OPERATORSDKURL -o operator-sdk
  9. # Calculate the SHA256
  10. OPERATORSUM="$(sha256sum operator-sdk | cut -d ' ' -f 1)"
  11. brew bump-formula-pr --strict --url=$OPERATORSDKURL --sha256=$OPERATORSUM operator-sdk

Note: If there were any changes made to the CLI commands, make sure to look at the existing tests, in case they need updating.

You’ve now fully released a new version of the Operator SDK. Good work! Make sure to follow the post-release steps below.

(Post-release) Updating the operator-sdk-samples repo

Many releases change SDK API’s and conventions, which are not reflected in the operator-sdk-samples repo. The samples repo should be updated and versioned after each SDK major/minor release with the same tag, ex. v1.3.0, so users can refer to the correct operator code for that release.

The release process for the samples repo is simple:

  1. Make changes to all relevant operators (at least those referenced by SDK docs) based on API changes for the new SDK release.
  2. Ensure the operators build and run as expected (see each operator’s docs).

  3. Once all API changes are in master, create a release tag locally:

    1. $ git checkout master && git pull
    2. $ VER="v1.3.0"
    3. $ git tag --sign --message "Operator SDK Samples $VER" "$VER"
    4. $ git push --tags

(Post-release) Updating the release notes

Add the following line to the top of the GitHub release notes for v1.3.0:

  1. **NOTE:** ensure the `v1.3.0` tag is referenced when referring to sample code in the [SDK Operator samples repo](https://github.com/operator-framework/operator-sdk-samples/tree/v1.3.0) for this release. Links in SDK documentation are currently set to the samples repo `master` branch.

Last modified January 1, 0001