Failed Docker job in RC tag pipeline not detected by release tooling

During the RC tagging for the 18.6 monthly release, we encounter a failure in the Docker job in the Update VERSION to 18.6.0-rc43-ee pipeline.

In this screenshot, it looks like the Omnibus RC43 tag pipeline succeeded with manual/blocked status, but the downstream pipeline for the trigger job check-packages-functionality failed.

Fortunately, Balu was able to see it before we tag the final release.

Upon checking, the same error happened in the RC42 tag, but since the check-packages-functionality trigger job shows as successful, the release tooling is not able to see this as part of the RC validations:

• RC42 validation: https://ops.gitlab.net/gitlab-org/release/tools/-/jobs/21237525
• RC43 validation: https://ops.gitlab.net/gitlab-org/release/tools/-/jobs/21252955

If we (RMs) were not tagged by the Build team (Balu), we might not have noticed this and tagged the final release. This will cause the final release to be broken and might put us in a difficult situation, given that tomorrow is the release day.

Action Item

• Remove the allow_failure from the check-packages-functionality CI config: gitlab-org/omnibus-gitlab!8908 (merged)
• Merge backports
  • 18.4: gitlab-org/omnibus-gitlab!8948 (closed) (closed as it is already out of the maintenance policy)
  • 18.5: gitlab-org/omnibus-gitlab!8947 (merged)
  • 18.6: gitlab-org/omnibus-gitlab!8946 (merged)