[Feature flag] Rollout of `vulnerability_location_image_filter`
Summary
This issue is to rollout the image filter feature on production,
that is currently behind the vulnerability_location_image_filter
feature flag.
This feature was introduced in !69867 (merged) to gaurd the usage of index index_vulnerability_occurrences_on_location_image
introduced in !70275 (merged)
See !69867 (comment 677652236) for the discussion
Owners
- Team: Container Security
- Most appropriate slack channel to reach out to:
#g_protect_container_security
- Best individual to reach out to: Sashi Kumar (
@sashi_kumar
) - PM: Sam White (
@sam.white
)
Expectations
What are we expecting to happen?
Vulnerabilities graphql query with image filter will use the created index and does not cause any performance drop.
What might happen if this goes wrong?
If the index usage has any performance issue, the vulnerabilties graphql query will have impact.
What can we monitor to detect problems with this?
Delay or timeout in the db_duration and could be found in Kibana.
Rollout Steps
Rollout on non-production environments
-
Ensure that the feature MRs have been deployed to non-production environments. -
/chatops run auto_deploy status fa6da1765412ed840fd5754b0badaa84629a19c9
-
-
Enable the feature globally on non-production environments. -
/chatops run feature set vulnerability_location_image_filter true --dev
-
/chatops run feature set vulnerability_location_image_filter true --staging
-
-
Verify that the feature works as expected. Posting the QA result in this issue is preferable.
Preparation before production rollout
-
Ensure that the feature MRs have been deployed to both production and canary. -
/chatops run auto_deploy status fa6da1765412ed840fd5754b0badaa84629a19c9
-
-
Check if the feature flag change needs to be accompanied with a change management issue. Cross link the issue here if it does. -
Ensure that you or a representative in development can be available for at least 2 hours after feature flag updates in production. If a different developer will be covering, or an exception is needed, please inform the oncall SRE by using the @sre-oncall
Slack alias. -
Ensure that documentation has been updated (More info). -
Announce on the feature issue an estimated time this will be enabled on GitLab.com. -
If the feature might impact the user experience, notify #support_gitlab-com
and your team channel (more guidance when this is necessary in the dev docs).
Global rollout on production
All /chatops
commands that target production should be done in the #production
slack channel for visibility.
-
Confirm the feature flag is enabled on staging
without incident -
Roll out the feature to targeted testing projects/groups first -
/chatops run feature set --project=gitlab-org/gitlab vulnerability_location_image_filter true
-
/chatops run feature set --project=gitlab-org/gitlab-foss vulnerability_location_image_filter true
-
/chatops run feature set --project=gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com vulnerability_location_image_filter true
-
-
Incrementally roll out the feature. - If the feature flag in code has an actor, perform actor-based rollout.
-
/chatops run feature set vulnerability_location_image_filter <rollout-percentage> --actors
-
- If the feature flag in code does NOT have an actor, perform time-based rollout (random rollout).
-
/chatops run feature set vulnerability_location_image_filter <rollout-percentage>
-
- If the feature flag in code has an actor, perform actor-based rollout.
-
Verify the change has the desired outcome with the limited rollout before enabling the feature globally on production. -
Enable the feature globally on production environment. /chatops run feature set vulnerability_location_image_filter true
-
Announce on the feature issue that the feature has been globally enabled.
(Optional) Release the feature with the feature flag
If you're still unsure whether the feature is deemed stable but want to release it in the current milestone, you can change the default state of the feature flag to be enabled. To do so, follow these steps:
-
Create a merge request with the following changes. Ask for review and merge it. -
Set the default_enabled
attribute in the feature flag definition totrue
. -
Create a changelog entry.
-
-
Ensure that the default-enabling MR has been deployed to both production and canary. If the merge request was deployed before the code cutoff, the feature can be officially announced in a release blog post. -
/chatops run auto_deploy status <merge-commit-of-default-enabling-mr>
-
-
Close the feature issue to indicate the feature will be released in the current milestone. -
Set the next milestone to this rollout issue for scheduling the flag removal. -
(Optional) You can create a separate issue for scheduling the steps below to Release the feature. -
Set the title to "[Feature flag] Cleanup vulnerability_location_image_filter
". -
Execute the /copy_metadata https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/340915
quick action to copy the labels from this rollout issue. -
Link this rollout issue as a related issue. -
Close this rollout issue.
-
WARNING: This approach has the downside that it makes it difficult for us to clean up the flag. For example, on-premise users could disable the feature on their GitLab instance. But when you remove the flag at some point, they suddenly see the feature as enabled and they can't roll it back to the previous behavior. To avoid this potential breaking change, use this approach only for urgent matters.
Release the feature
After the feature has been deemed stable, the clean up should be done as soon as possible to permanently enable the feature and reduce complexity in the codebase.
-
Create a merge request to remove vulnerability_location_image_filter
feature flag. Ask for review and merge it.-
Remove all references to the feature flag from the codebase. -
Remove the YAML definitions for the feature from the repository. -
Create a changelog entry.
-
-
Ensure that the cleanup MR has been deployed to both production and canary. If the merge request was deployed before the code cutoff, the feature can be officially announced in a release blog post. -
/chatops run auto_deploy status <merge-commit-of-cleanup-mr>
-
-
Close the feature issue to indicate the feature will be released in the current milestone. -
Clean up the feature flag from all environments by running these chatops command in #production
channel:-
/chatops run feature delete vulnerability_location_image_filter --dev
-
/chatops run feature delete vulnerability_location_image_filter --staging
-
/chatops run feature delete vulnerability_location_image_filter
-
-
Close this rollout issue.
Rollback Steps
-
This feature can be disabled by running the following Chatops command:
/chatops run feature set vulnerability_location_image_filter false