Release post - GitLab 11.4

Review Apps: https://release-11-4.about.gitlab.com/2018/10/22/gitlab-11-4-released/

Release post:

• Intro: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/blob/release-11-4/source/posts/2018-10-22-gitlab-11-4-released.html.md
• Items: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/blob/release-11-4/data/release_posts/2018_10_22_gitlab_11_4_released.yml
• Images: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/tree/release-11-4/source/images/11_4

Related files:

• Features YAML link: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/blob/release-11-4/data/features.yml
• Home page banner: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/blob/release-11-4/source/includes/hello-bar.html.haml
• MVPs: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/blob/release-11-4/data/mvps.yml

Handbook references:

• Blog handbook: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/blog/
• Release post handbook: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/blog/release-posts/
• Markdown guide: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/product/technical-writing/markdown-guide/

People:

• Release Post Managers: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/blog/release-posts/managers/
• Release Managers: https://about.gitlab.com/release-managers/

Release post manager	Tech writer	Copyedit	Messaging Lead	Social
@jramsay	@eread	xx	@johnjeremiah	xx

General contributions

Due date: 2018-10-12 (6th working day before the 22nd)

All contributions added by team members, collaborators, and Product Managers (PMs).

Author's checklist

Due date: 2018-10-12 (6th working day before the 22nd) - @jramsay

The PM leading the post is responsible for adding and checking the following items:

• Label MR: ~"blog post" release release post ~P1
• Assign the MR to yourself
• Add milestone
• Update the links and due dates in this MR description
• Make sure the blog post initial files, as well as this MR template contain the latest templates
• Add authorship (author's data)
• Ask the Marketing reviewer to add the introduction
• Add MVP (feature block)
• Add MVP to data/mvps.yml
• Add cover image (image_title) (scaled and compressed)
• Add social sharing image (twitter_image) (scaled and compressed)
• Make sure all feature descriptions are positive and cheerful
• Make sure all features listed in the direction page are included in the post
• Mention the release managers to remind them to add the upgrade barometer section
• Mention the team leads to remind them to add the performance improvements: Yorick, Douwe, Sean, Remy, Stan, Kamil, Tim Z., Clement, Andre
• Ping @atflowers and @aoetama to add the Release Radar webcast link
• Make sure Upgrade barometer is in
• Check which one is the top feature (with Job and William)
• Check if deprecations are included
• Alert people one working day before each due date (post a comment to #release-post Slack channel)
• Remove remaining template sections
• Make sure all images (png, jpg, and gifs) are smaller than 300 KB each
• Run the release post through an automated spell and grammar check
• Perform the content review

Recurring blocks

Due date: 2018-10-12 (6th working day before the 22nd)

The following sections are always present, and managed by the PM or Eng lead owning the related area:

• Add GitLab Runner improvements: Fabio
• Add Omnibus improvements: Joshua
• Add Mattermost update to the Omnibus improvements section: Victor
• Add Performance improvements: Douwe, Sean, Kamil, Yorick, Tim

Feature blocks

Due date: 2018-10-12 (6th working day before the 22nd)

The Product Managers are responsible for adding their feature blocks to the release post by the due date for general contributions. PMs are also responsible for adding any notable Community Contributions.

PMs: please check your box only when all your features and deprecations were added with completion (documentation links, images, etc). Pls don't check if there are still things missing.

• Andreas (@akaemmerle)
• Daniel (@danielgruesso)
• Fabio (@bikebilly)
• James (@jramsay)
• Jason (@jlenny)
• Jeremy (@jeremy_)
• Joshua (@joshlambert)
• Victor (@victorwu)

Tip: make your own checklist:

• Primary features
• Improvements (secondary features)
• Deprecations
• Documentation updated
• Documentation links added to the post
• Community contributions
• Illustrations added to the post (compressed)
• Update features.yml (with accompanying screenshots)

Review

Ideally, complete the review until the 4th working day before the 22nd, so that the 3rd and the 2nd working day before the release could be left for fixes and small improvements.

Content review

Due date: 2018-10-15 (5th working day before the 22nd)

Performed by the author of the post: @jramsay

• Label MR: ~"blog post" release review-in-progress
• Check all comments in the thread (make sure no contribution was left behind)
• Check Features' names
• Check Features' availability (Core, Starter, Premium, Ultimate badges)
• Check Documentation links (all feature blocks contain documentation_link)
• Make sure documentation_link links to feature webpages when available
• Update home page bannersource/includes/hello-bar.html.haml
• Features were added to data/features.yml (with accompanying screenshots)
• Check all images size < 300KB (compress them all with TinyPNG or similar tool)
• Pull master, resolve any conflicts
• Make sure all discussions in the thread are resolved
• Mention Mark Pundsack to remind him to review
• Assign the MR to the next reviewer (structural check)
• Lock features.yml with File Locking on the 21st

Structural check

Due date: 2018-10-17 (3rd working day before the 22nd)

Performed by technical writers: @eread

• 1. Structural check
• Add the label review-structure
• Check frontmatter (entries, syntax)
• Check image_title and twitter_image
• Check image shadow applied correctly: {image_noshadow: true} when an image already has shadow
• Videos/iframes wrapped in <figure> tags (responsiveness)
• Wrap text
• Check headers in sentence case
• Check feature and product names in capital case
• Check if images are harmonic/consistent
• Add/check cover img reference (at the end of the post)
• Columns (content balance between the columns)
• Meaningful links (SEO)
• Badges consistency (applied to all headings)
• Double check documentation updates
• Check documentation links (point to /ee/, not to /ce/)
• Check about.gitlab.com links: relative URLs
• Check the anchor links in the intro
• Remove any remaining instructions
• Remove HTML comments
• Run deadlink checker
• Pull master
• Update release template with any changes (if necessary)
• Post a comment in the #general channel linking to the review app + MR reminding the team to take a look at the RP and report any problems in the #release-post channel. (Do NOT ping @all or @channel)
• Remove the label review-structure
• Assign the MR to the next reviewer (copyedit)

Further reviews

Due date: 2018-10-18 (2nd working day before the 22nd)

• Copyedit (content team): @erica
  • Title
  • Description
  • Intro
  • Grammar, spelling, clearness (body)
  • Homepage Blurb
  • Tweet social sharing text (for Twitter, FB, and LinkedIn)
  • Assign the MR to the next reviewer (marketing)
• Marketing review (PMMs - messaging lead): @johnjeremiah
  • Write the introduction (by the 6th day before the 22nd)
  • Check/copyedit feature blocks
  • Check/copyedit features.yml
  • Check/copyedit homepage blurb
  • Check/copyedit social sharing text
  • Mention Job for final check
  • Remove the label review-in-progress
  • Assign the MR back to the author

Merge it

The author of the post is responsible for merging the MR and following up with possible adjustments/fixes.

Last check before merging

• Read the important notes below
• Mention @matteeyah to remind him to send the swag pack to the MVP
• Check if all the anchor links in the intro are working
• Check if there are no broken links
• Pull master and fix any conflicts
• Check if there isn't any alert on Slack's #release-post and #general channels
• Check if there isn't any alert on this MR thread
• Check if the tweet copy is ready and someone is ready to share on social media
• Ask the release managers to ping you when the packs are publicly available (and GitLab.com is up and running on the release version)
• Unlock features.yml just before merging
• Merge the MR
• Wait for the pipeline
• Check the look on social media with Twitter Card Validator and Facebook Debugger
• Share on social media

Important notes

• The post is to be merged on the 22nd at 15:00 UTC and as soon as GitLab.com is up and running on the new release version, and all packages are publicly available. Not before.
• The usual release time is 15:00 UTC but it varies according to the deployment. If something comes up and delays the release, the release post will be delayed with the release.
• Coordinate the timing with the release managers. Ask them to keep you in the loop.
• After merging, wait a few minutes to see if no one spot an error (usually posted in #general), then share on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or make sure someone (Emily vH, JJ, Marcia) does.
• Keep an eye on Slack and in the blog post comments for a few hours to make sure no one found anything that should be fixed

data/release_posts/2018_10_22_gitlab_11_4_released.yml

-###
-#
-# Release post data file
-#
-# Start the release post with this file, named `YYYY_MM_22_gitlab_X_Y_released.yml`
-# placed into `data/release_posts/`.
-#
-# Notes:
-#  - All description entries support markdown. Use it as you do for a regular markdown file.
-#   Just make sure the indentation is respected.
-#
-## Entries:
-#
-# - name: Amazing Feature # feature name: make it consistent, use the same name here, in the features.yml file, and in the docs
-# - available_in: [core, starter, premium, ultimate]
-# - gitlab_com: false # apply this for features not available in GitLab.com
-# - documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/#amazingdoc' # up-to-date documentation - required
-# - image_url: '/images/x_y/feature-a.png'
-# - image_noshadow: true # this eliminates double shadows for images that already have a shadow
-# - video: # overrides image_url - use the "embed" link
-# - reporter: pm1 # GitLab handle of the user adding the feature block in the list (not the feature author)
-# - team: teamname # GitLab team that implemented the feature (e.g., CI/CD, Secure - see https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#team-labels)
-# - issue_url: 'https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/12345' # link to the issue on GitLab.com where the feature is discussed and developed - required but replaceable with epic_url or mr_url
-# - issueboard_url: 'https://gitlab.com/group/project/boards/123?=' # link to the issue board for the feature (not required)
-# - epic_url: 'https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/123' # link to the epic for the feature (not required)
-# - mr_url: 'https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/123' # link to the MR that introduced the feature (not required)
-# - webpage_url: '/features/gitlab-geo/' # link to the marketing webpage for a given feature (not required)
-#
-# Read through the Release Posts Handbook for more information:
-# https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/blog/release-posts/
-#
-# ATTENTION: Leave these instructions and the example blocks (with their inline comments) up until the time the review starts. Once you've added an item, and **only by then**, please remove the inline comment to indicate that the item has been updated, thus we can clear up the comments on the go and easily spot what's missing.
-###
-
 features:
 # TOP FEATURE
   top:
@@ -61,6 +27,10 @@ features:
         they appear as normal individual comments. This allows individual team members
         the flexibility to do code review however they want, but still being compatible
         with the entire team.
+        
+        In future iterations, we will improve the feature to provide a [preview](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/4327)
+        before the batch submit action, and also combine all those notifications
+        that those comments currently generate, into [one batched notification](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/4326).
 # PRIMARY FEATURES
   primary:
@@ -115,14 +85,16 @@ features:
       team: manage
       issue_url: 'https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/49801'
       description: | # supports markdown
-        Lorem ipsum [dolor sit amet](#link), consectetur adipisicing elit.
-        Perferendis nisi vitae quod ipsum saepe cumque quia `veritatis`.
-        Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit.
-        Voluptate eveniet, adipisci earum sed harum nostrum
-        itaque beatae, repellat sunt unde.
-    - name: "Set your status message within the user menu"
+        Now matter how engaged you are on GitLab, your activity is a relevant
+        source of information and engagement indicator, displayed right at your 
+        personal profile page. Showing your personal profile should immediately 
+        indicate what you are working on.
+        With this release, we introduce a redesigned profile page overview, showing
+        your activity via a known, but shortened contribution graph with your latest
+        activities and your most relevant personal GitLab projects.
+    - name: "Set and show your status message within the user menu"
       available_in: [core, starter, premium, ultimate]
       documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/profile/#current-status'
       image_url: '/images/11_4/user-menu-status.png'
@@ -131,15 +103,14 @@ features:
       issue_url: 'https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/49075'
       description: | 
         With [GitLab 11.2](https://about.gitlab.com/2018/08/22/gitlab-11-2-released/#personal-status-messages/) 
-        we introduced personal status messages for the first time that allow to 
+        we introduced personal status messages for the first time, allowing to 
         share your current availability, mood or simply your favorite animal.
-        With this release, we make setting your status even more simple and frictionless. 
-        A new "Set status" item in the user menu provides a modal that allows you to 
-        set or clear your status right in context.
-
-        In addition, your set status is now shown in the user menu as part of your full name and user
-        name, including set Emoji and message.
+        With this release, we make setting your status even more simple and frictionless.
+        A new "Set status" item in your user menu provides a fresh modal that allows
+        you to set and clear your status right within context.  
+        In addition, your set status is also shown in your user menu, on top of 
+        your full name and user name, including set Emoji and message.
     - name: "Move ability to use includes in `.gitlab-ci.yml` from Starter to Core"
       available_in: [core, starter, premium, ultimate] # required
@@ -406,13 +377,13 @@ features:
       reporter: akaemmerle
       team: manage
       issue_url: 'https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/44998'
-      description: | # supports markdown
-        Lorem ipsum [dolor sit amet](#link), consectetur adipisicing elit.
-        Perferendis nisi vitae quod ipsum saepe cumque quia `veritatis`.
-        Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit.
-        Voluptate eveniet, adipisci earum sed harum nostrum
-        itaque beatae, repellat sunt unde.
+      description: | 
+        Depending on your responsibilities, administrating GitLab can provide 
+        a very complex challenge due to all things GitLab offers.
+        With this release, we improve the experience of our Admin Area Settings by
+        moving all sections into new, individual Settings sub-pages. This provides 
+        Admins a time-saving shortcut to access any detail to manage.
     - name: "Explore project by most stars"
       available_in: [core, starter, premium, ultimate]
@@ -423,10 +394,9 @@ features:
       issue_url: 'https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/47203'
       description: |
         At GitLab, we try our best to enable you to provide any chance to explore
-         relevant and cool projects on your GitLab instance.
-
+        relevant and cool projects on your GitLab instance.  
         With this release, a new filter "Most stars" provides an incredible useful 
-        filter to show project most liked on your instance.
+        filter to show projects most liked on your instance.
         Thank you for this contribution, [Jacopo Beschi](https://gitlab.com/jacopo-beschi)!
@@ -437,14 +407,14 @@ features:
       reporter: akaemmerle
       team: manage
       issue_url: 'https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/51457'
-      description: | # supports markdown
-        Lorem ipsum [dolor sit amet](#link), consectetur adipisicing elit.
-        Perferendis nisi vitae quod ipsum saepe cumque quia `veritatis`.
-
-        Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit.
-        Voluptate eveniet, adipisci earum sed harum nostrum
-        itaque beatae, repellat sunt unde.
+      description: | 
+        We recently introduced a new code language bar on the Project overview page
+        that provides a fast overview about programming languages involved.
+        With GitLab 11.4, we introduce a more absolute measure by showing an 
+        additional percentage value for each relevant code language shown. This 
+        provides a more quantative touch point of your project technology stack.
+        
         Thank you for this contribution, [Johann Hubert Sonntagbauer](https://gitlab.com/johann.sonntagbauer)
     - name: "Download two-factor authentication codes as file"
@@ -454,13 +424,14 @@ features:
       reporter: akaemmerle
       team: manage
       issue_url: 'https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/47963'
-      description: | # supports markdown
-        Lorem ipsum [dolor sit amet](#link), consectetur adipisicing elit.
-        Perferendis nisi vitae quod ipsum saepe cumque quia `veritatis`.
-        Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit.
-        Voluptate eveniet, adipisci earum sed harum nostrum
-        itaque beatae, repellat sunt unde.
+      description: |
+        Two-factor authentification is a de facto standard for signing up for any relevant web-based
+        application. At GitLab we understand and take this serious. Whenever you set up a two-factor
+        authentication initially, we provide limited recovery codes that allow you to regain access 
+        to your account as a fallback. 
+        With this release, we now support to download recovery codes via a new "Download codes" button
+        in addition.
         Thank you for this contribution, [Johann Hubert Sonntagbauer](https://gitlab.com/johann.sonntagbauer)
@@ -536,7 +507,19 @@ features:
         maintainers can prefill the policy in the **Settings > CI/CD > License Management** page by
         choosing from a set of common licenses, or add a custom entry to that list.
-    - name: "Support for Git protocol v2"
+    - name: "Alert thresholds now displayed on metrics dashboard"
+      available_in: [ultimate] # required
+      documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/integrations/prometheus.html#setting-up-alerts-for-prometheus-metrics'
+      image_url: '/images/11_4/alert_threshold.png'
+      reporter: joshlambert
+      team: monitor
+      issue_url: 'https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/6036'
+      description: | # supports markdown
+        With GitLab 11.4, configured alert thresholds are now displayed directly on the metrics charts.
+        This allows easier determination of which metrics are currently generating alerts, and better
+        visualization of the interplay of the metric and alert threshold.
+
+    - name: "Git protocol v2"
       available_in: [core, starter, premium, ultimate]
       documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/administration/git_protocol.html' # required
       reporter: jramsay
@@ -555,20 +538,34 @@ features:
         references in the repository. For example, fetching updates for a
         single branch (e.g. `git fetch origin master`) would also retrieve a
         complete list of all references. In the case of large projects, this
-        could be over 100,000 refs and 10s of megabytes of data. Try it
-        yourself by running:
-
-        ```
-        # Original Git wire protocol
-        GIT_TRACE_PACKET=1 git -c protocol.version=0 ls-remote https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce.git master
-
-        # New Git wire protocol v2
-        GIT_TRACE_PACKET=1 git -c protocol.version=2 ls-remote https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce.git master
-        ```
+        could be over 100,000 refs and 10s of megabytes of data.
         Git protocol v2 is supported from Git v2.18.0 and is opt-in. To enable
         globally run `git config --global protocol.version=2`. Git protocol v2
-        over SSH is not yet enabled on GitLab.com and must be enabled manually
+        over SSH is not yet enabled on GitLab.com and must be enabled manually.
+
+    - name: "Prometheus 2.0 upgrade for Omnibus GitLab"
+      available_in: [core, starter, premium, ultimate]
+      gitlab_com: false
+      documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/update/gitlab_11_changes.html#11-4' # required
+      reporter: joshlambert
+      team: monitor
+      issue_url: 'https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/omnibus-gitlab/issues/2940'
+      description: |
+        Omnibus GitLab comes out of the box with Prometheus, allowing [easy observability of deployed instances](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/administration/monitoring/prometheus/).
+        The Prometheus team has released a major new version, the 2.x series,  which offers a 
+        [number of improvements](https://prometheus.io/blog/2017/11/08/announcing-prometheus-2-0/).
+        These include improved performance and a more efficient time-series database format. Unfortunately
+        because of the architectural changes to the database, it is not backwards compatible with the old 1.x format.
+
+        With GitLab 11.4, Prometheus 2.4.2 is now available in the Omnibus package so users can take advantage its benefits.
+
+        * New installations of 11.4 and above will start with Prometheus 2.
+        * Existing installations will not be automatically upgraded. We have added a new command, `gitlab-ctl prometheus-upgrade`, which can 
+        be utilized to [upgrade Prometheus and optionally migrate data](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/update/gitlab_11_changes.html#11-4). Prometheus will be stopped during data migration.
+        * Users will need to move to Prometheus 2.0, before being able to [upgrade to GitLab 12.0](#deprecations).
+
+        For more information on upgrading Prometheus to 2.4.2, please review our [update documentation](https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/update/gitlab_11_changes.html#11-4).
     - name: "Geo improvements"
       available_in: [premium, ultimate]
@@ -610,13 +607,14 @@ features:
       available_in: [core, starter, premium, ultimate]
       gitlab_com: false
       documentation_link: 'https://docs.gitlab.com/omnibus/'
-      reporter: pm1 # required
-      team: teamname # required
+      reporter: joshlambert # required
+      team: distribution # required
       description: | # supports markdown
+        - `redis` has been updated to 3.2.12, which is a critical security update that fixes multiple vulnerabilities. After upgrating to 11.4, run `gitlab-ctl restart redis` to ensure the new version is running.
         - GitLab 11.4 includes [Mattermost 5.3](https://mattermost.com/blog/mattermost-5-3-enhanced-search-on-desktop-and-mobile-plugin-hackathon-highlights-and-more/),
         an [open source Slack-alternative](https://mattermost.com/) whose newest release includes enhanced search on desktop and mobile, plus much more.
         It includes [security updates](https://about.mattermost.com/security-updates/) and upgrading is recommended.
-        - `git` has been updated to 2.18.1, `redis` to 3.2.12, `libpng` to 1.6.35
+        - `git` has been updated to 2.18.1, and `libpng` to 1.6.35.
         - `gnupg` has been updated to 2.2.10, `gpgme` to 1.10.0, `libgcrypt` to 1.8.3, `npth` to 1.6, `libgpg-error` to 1.32, and `libassuan` to 2.5.1.
         - Certificates in the `trusted_certs` directory are now set to `0644` permissions instead of `0755`.
@@ -663,10 +661,8 @@ cover_img:
 cta:
   - title: "Join us for an upcoming event" # default
     link: '/events/'
-  - title: "Release Radar webcast" # default
-    link: '' # add release radar link here
-  - title: Lorem ipsum amet # optional
-    link:
+  - title: "Sign up for the 11.4 Release Radar webcast"
+    link: '/webcast/monthly-release/gitlab-11.4---collaboration/'
 # UPGRADE BAROMETER
 barometer:
@@ -680,8 +676,7 @@ barometer:
     GitLab Geo users, please consult the documentation on [upgrading Geo](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/administration/geo/replication/updating_the_geo_nodes.html).
-# DEPRECATIONS (optional)
-# include as many deprecation blocks as necessary
+# DEPRECATIONS
 deprecations:
   - feature_name: "Support for Docker Versions in GitLab Runner"
     due: October 22, 2018