litecoin/doc/release-process.md

Release Process

Before every release candidate:

• Update translations (ping wumpus on IRC) see translation_process.md.

Before every minor and major release:

• Update bips.md to account for changes since the last release.
• Update version in sources (see below)
• Write release notes (see below)
• Update src/chainparams.cpp nMinimumChainWork with information from the getblockchaininfo rpc.

Before every major release:

• Update hardcoded seeds, see this pull request for an example.

First time / New builders

Check out the source code in the following directory hierarchy.

cd /path/to/your/toplevel/build
git clone https://github.com/litecoin-project/gitian.sigs.ltc.git
git clone https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin-detached-sigs.git
git clone https://github.com/devrandom/gitian-builder.git
git clone https://github.com/litecoin-project/litecoin.git

Litecoin maintainers/release engineers, update version in sources

Update the following:

• configure.ac:
  • _CLIENT_VERSION_MAJOR
  • _CLIENT_VERSION_MINOR
  • _CLIENT_VERSION_REVISION
  • Don't forget to set _CLIENT_VERSION_IS_RELEASE to true
• src/clientversion.h: (this mirrors configure.ac - see issue #3539)
  • CLIENT_VERSION_MAJOR
  • CLIENT_VERSION_MINOR
  • CLIENT_VERSION_REVISION
  • Don't forget to set CLIENT_VERSION_IS_RELEASE to true
• doc/README.md and doc/README_windows.txt
• doc/Doxyfile: PROJECT_NUMBER contains the full version
• contrib/gitian-descriptors/*.yml: usually one'd want to do this on master after branching off the release - but be sure to at least do it before a new major release

Write release notes. git shortlog helps a lot, for example:

git shortlog --no-merges v(current version, e.g. 0.7.2)..v(new version, e.g. 0.8.0)

(or ping @wumpus on IRC, he has specific tooling to generate the list of merged pulls and sort them into categories based on labels)

Generate list of authors:

git log --format='%aN' "$*" | sort -ui | sed -e 's/^/- /'

Tag version (or release candidate) in git

git tag -s v(new version, e.g. 0.8.0)

Setup and perform Gitian builds

Setup Gitian descriptors:

pushd ./litecoin
export SIGNER=(your Gitian key, ie bluematt, sipa, etc)
export VERSION=(new version, e.g. 0.8.0)
git fetch
git checkout v${VERSION}
popd

Ensure your gitian.sigs.ltc are up-to-date if you wish to gverify your builds against other Gitian signatures.

pushd ./gitian.sigs.ltc
git pull
popd

Ensure gitian-builder is up-to-date:

pushd ./gitian-builder
git pull
popd

Fetch and create inputs: (first time, or when dependency versions change)

pushd ./gitian-builder
mkdir -p inputs
wget -P inputs https://bitcoincore.org/cfields/osslsigncode-Backports-to-1.7.1.patch
wget -P inputs http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/osslsigncode/osslsigncode/osslsigncode-1.7.1.tar.gz
popd

Create the OS X SDK tarball, see the OS X readme for details, and copy it into the inputs directory.

Optional: Seed the Gitian sources cache and offline git repositories

By default, Gitian will fetch source files as needed. To cache them ahead of time:

pushd ./gitian-builder
make -C ../litecoin/depends download SOURCES_PATH=`pwd`/cache/common
popd

Only missing files will be fetched, so this is safe to re-run for each build.

NOTE: Offline builds must use the --url flag to ensure Gitian fetches only from local URLs. For example:

pushd ./gitian-builder
./bin/gbuild --url litecoin=/path/to/litecoin,signature=/path/to/sigs {rest of arguments}
popd

The gbuild invocations below DO NOT DO THIS by default.

Build and sign Litecoin Core for Linux, Windows, and OS X:

pushd ./gitian-builder
./bin/gbuild --memory 3000 --commit litecoin=v${VERSION} ../litecoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-linux.yml
./bin/gsign --signer $SIGNER --release ${VERSION}-linux --destination ../gitian.sigs.ltc/ ../litecoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-linux.yml
mv build/out/litecoin-*.tar.gz build/out/src/litecoin-*.tar.gz ../

./bin/gbuild --memory 3000 --commit litecoin=v${VERSION} ../litecoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-win.yml
./bin/gsign --signer $SIGNER --release ${VERSION}-win-unsigned --destination ../gitian.sigs.ltc/ ../litecoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-win.yml
mv build/out/litecoin-*-win-unsigned.tar.gz inputs/litecoin-win-unsigned.tar.gz
mv build/out/litecoin-*.zip build/out/litecoin-*.exe ../

./bin/gbuild --memory 3000 --commit litecoin=v${VERSION} ../litecoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-osx.yml
./bin/gsign --signer $SIGNER --release ${VERSION}-osx-unsigned --destination ../gitian.sigs.ltc/ ../litecoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-osx.yml
mv build/out/litecoin-*-osx-unsigned.tar.gz inputs/litecoin-osx-unsigned.tar.gz
mv build/out/litecoin-*.tar.gz build/out/litecoin-*.dmg ../
popd

Build output expected:

1. source tarball (litecoin-${VERSION}.tar.gz)
2. linux 32-bit and 64-bit dist tarballs (litecoin-${VERSION}-linux[32|64].tar.gz)
3. windows 32-bit and 64-bit unsigned installers and dist zips (litecoin-${VERSION}-win[32|64]-setup-unsigned.exe, litecoin-${VERSION}-win[32|64].zip)
4. OS X unsigned installer and dist tarball (litecoin-${VERSION}-osx-unsigned.dmg, litecoin-${VERSION}-osx64.tar.gz)
5. Gitian signatures (in gitian.sigs.ltc/${VERSION}-<linux|{win,osx}-unsigned>/(your Gitian key)/)

Verify other gitian builders signatures to your own. (Optional)

Add other gitian builders keys to your gpg keyring

gpg --import litecoin/contrib/gitian-keys/*.pgp

Verify the signatures

pushd ./gitian-builder
./bin/gverify -v -d ../gitian.sigs.ltc/ -r ${VERSION}-linux ../litecoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-linux.yml
./bin/gverify -v -d ../gitian.sigs.ltc/ -r ${VERSION}-win-unsigned ../litecoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-win.yml
./bin/gverify -v -d ../gitian.sigs.ltc/ -r ${VERSION}-osx-unsigned ../litecoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-osx.yml
popd

Next steps:

Commit your signature to gitian.sigs.ltc:

pushd gitian.sigs.ltc
git add ${VERSION}-linux/${SIGNER}
git add ${VERSION}-win-unsigned/${SIGNER}
git add ${VERSION}-osx-unsigned/${SIGNER}
git commit -a
git push  # Assuming you can push to the gitian.sigs.ltc tree
popd

Wait for Windows/OS X detached signatures:

• Once the Windows/OS X builds each have 3 matching signatures, they will be signed with their respective release keys.
• Detached signatures will then be committed to the litecoin-detached-sigs repository, which can be combined with the unsigned apps to create signed binaries.

Create (and optionally verify) the signed OS X binary:

pushd ./gitian-builder
./bin/gbuild -i --commit signature=v${VERSION} ../litecoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-osx-signer.yml
./bin/gsign --signer $SIGNER --release ${VERSION}-osx-signed --destination ../gitian.sigs.ltc/ ../litecoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-osx-signer.yml
./bin/gverify -v -d ../gitian.sigs.ltc/ -r ${VERSION}-osx-signed ../litecoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-osx-signer.yml
mv build/out/litecoin-osx-signed.dmg ../litecoin-${VERSION}-osx.dmg
popd

Create (and optionally verify) the signed Windows binaries:

pushd ./gitian-builder
./bin/gbuild -i --commit signature=v${VERSION} ../litecoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-win-signer.yml
./bin/gsign --signer $SIGNER --release ${VERSION}-win-signed --destination ../gitian.sigs.ltc/ ../litecoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-win-signer.yml
./bin/gverify -v -d ../gitian.sigs.ltc/ -r ${VERSION}-win-signed ../litecoin/contrib/gitian-descriptors/gitian-win-signer.yml
mv build/out/litecoin-*win64-setup.exe ../litecoin-${VERSION}-win64-setup.exe
mv build/out/litecoin-*win32-setup.exe ../litecoin-${VERSION}-win32-setup.exe
popd

Commit your signature for the signed OS X/Windows binaries:

pushd gitian.sigs.ltc
git add ${VERSION}-osx-signed/${SIGNER}
git add ${VERSION}-win-signed/${SIGNER}
git commit -a
git push  # Assuming you can push to the gitian.sigs.ltc tree
popd

After 3 or more people have gitian-built and their results match:

• Create SHA256SUMS.asc for the builds, and GPG-sign it:

sha256sum * > SHA256SUMS

The list of files should be:

litecoin-${VERSION}-aarch64-linux-gnu.tar.gz
litecoin-${VERSION}-arm-linux-gnueabihf.tar.gz
litecoin-${VERSION}-i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar.gz
litecoin-${VERSION}-x86_64-linux-gnu.tar.gz
litecoin-${VERSION}-osx64.tar.gz
litecoin-${VERSION}-osx.dmg
litecoin-${VERSION}.tar.gz
litecoin-${VERSION}-win32-setup.exe
litecoin-${VERSION}-win32.zip
litecoin-${VERSION}-win64-setup.exe
litecoin-${VERSION}-win64.zip

The *-debug* files generated by the gitian build contain debug symbols for troubleshooting by developers. It is assumed that anyone that is interested in debugging can run gitian to generate the files for themselves. To avoid end-user confusion about which file to pick, as well as save storage space do not upload these to the litecoin.org server, nor put them in the torrent.

• GPG-sign it, delete the unsigned file:

gpg --digest-algo sha256 --clearsign SHA256SUMS # outputs SHA256SUMS.asc
rm SHA256SUMS

(the digest algorithm is forced to sha256 to avoid confusion of the Hash: header that GPG adds with the SHA256 used for the files) Note: check that SHA256SUMS itself doesn't end up in SHA256SUMS, which is a spurious/nonsensical entry.

• Upload zips and installers, as well as SHA256SUMS.asc from last step, to the litecoin.org server.

• Update litecoin.org version

• Announce the release:

  • litecoin-dev mailing list

  • Litecoin Core announcements list https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/litecoin-dev

  • blog.litecoin.org blog post

  • litecointalk.io forum announcement

  • Update title of #litecoin on Freenode IRC

  • Optionally twitter, reddit /r/Litecoin, ... but this will usually sort out itself

  • Add release notes for the new version to the directory doc/release-notes in git master

  • Celebrate