Release 11.9.0-rc4

Preparation

• If we are NOT in Feature Freeze, one can ignore creating Preparation MRs

  • Create Preparation MRs for this version:

    # In Slack
    /chatops run prepare 11.9.0-rc4

  • Perform automated cherry picking into the preparation branches:

    # In Slack
    /chatops run cherry_pick 11.9.0-rc4

• Ensure the CE preparation MR has been fully merged into the EE counterpart

• Merge the preparation branches

• For omnibus-gitlab cherry-pick remaining merge requests directly into CE stable branch. Then, merge the CE Omnibus stable branch into EE.

• Check the following list of critical issues/MRs which are to be included in 11.9.0-rc4. Ensure each has made both CE and EE:

  • REFERENCE_TO_MR_TO_PICK

• Ensure builds are green on Omnibus CE stable branch and Omnibus EE stable branch

Packaging

• Sync stable branches to dev

  • CE
  • EE
  • Omnibus CE branch
  • Omnibus EE branch

• Tag the 11.9.0-rc4 version using the tag command:

  # In Slack:
  /chatops run tag 11.9.0-rc4

• Check progress of EE packages build and CE packages build

  • This might take a while (around 80 min).
  • We only need the EE packages to finish to continue with next steps.

Deploy

Deploys to production require confirmation from a production team member before proceeding. Use /chatops run oncall prod in the #production channel to find who's on call and ping someone. Deploys to staging or canary can be done at will, just mention it in the #production channel.

staging.gitlab.com

• Staging deploys via the deployer pipeline happen automatically as soon as the EE packages build reaches the gitlab_com:upload_deploy stage of the pipeline.

QA

• Create a "QA Task" issue using the ChatOps command:

  # In Slack, replacing LAST_DEPLOYED_VERSION with the appropriate value:
  /chatops run qa_issue vLAST_DEPLOYED_VERSION..v11.9.0-rc4

• Wait for the QA Task deadline to pass
• Confirm that https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/58784 is no longer an issue and it won't be a problem on production

canary VMs on gitlab.com

• Notify #production that you're about to deploy on canary

• Deploy 11.9.0-rc4 to the canary VMs on gitlab.com

  # In Slack:
  /chatops run deploy 11.9.0-rc4.ee.0 --production --canary

• Link to deployment job (even failed attempts) =>

• Confirm that there are no errors on canary

  • canary errors on sentry.gitlab.net
  • canary dashboard

gitlab.com (production)

• Get confirmation from a production team member to deploy production. If someone besides the oncall confirms, @mention the oncall so they are aware.

• Confirm there are no critical alerts on gitlab.com on the alerting dashboard

• Deploy 11.9.0-rc4 to GitLab.com

  # In Slack:
  /chatops run deploy 11.9.0-rc4.ee.0 --production

• Link to deployment job (even failed attempts) =>

Release

• Publish the packages via ChatOps:

  # In Slack:
  /chatops run publish 11.9.0-rc4

• Verify that packages appear on packages.gitlab.com

• Verify that Docker images appear on hub.docker.com: EE / CE

• Post a tweet about the 11.9.0-rc4 release in the #releases channel:

  !tweet "GitLab 11.9.0-rc4 is available: https://packages.gitlab.com/gitlab/unstable
  This is a release candidate, we'll release 11.9 on the 22nd of this month."