RELEASE.md

Release

make release target can be used to create a release. Environment variable RELEASE_VERSION (default value latest) can be used to define the release version. The release target will:

• Update all tags of Docker images to RELEASE_VERSION
• Update documentation version to RELEASE_VERSION
• Set version of the main Maven projects (topic-operator and cluster-operator) to RELEASE_VERSION
• Create TAR.GZ and ZIP archives with the Kubernetes and OpenShift YAML files which can be used for deployment and documentation in HTML format.

The release target will not build the Docker images - they should be built and pushed automatically by Travis CI when the release is tagged in the GitHub repository. It also doesn't deploy the Java artifacts anywhere. They are only used to create the Docker images.

The release process should normally look like this:

1. Create a release branch
2. On the main git branch of the repository:

• Update the versions to the next SNAPSHOT version using the next_version make target. For example to update the next version to 0.6.0-SNAPSHOT run: make NEXT_VERSION=0.6.0-SNAPSHOT next_version.
• Update the product version in attributes.adoc to the next version
• Add a header for the new release to the CHANGELOG.md file

3. Run make clean
4. Export the desired version into the environment variable RELEASE_VERSION
   • Use always the GA version here (e.g. 0.6.0) and not the RC version (0.6.0-rc1)
5. Run make release
   • This will automatically update all files in packaging/ as well as in install/, example/ and helm-chart/
6. Update the checksums for released files in .checksums in the release branch
   • Use the Make commands make checksum_examples, make checksum_install, and make checksum_helm
   • Updated the checksums in the .checksums file in the root directory of the GitHub repository
7. Commit the changes to the existing files (do not add the newly created top level TAR.GZ, ZIP archives or .yaml files into Git)
8. Push the changes to the release branch on GitHub
9. Wait for the CI to complete the build
   • Once it completes, mark the build in the Azure Pipelines UI to be retained forever
   • Download the build artifacts (Docs archives)
   • Copy the build ID (from the URL in Azure Pipelines)
10. Run the operators-release pipeline manually in Azure pipelines
    • Select the release branch from the list
    • Set the desired release version (e.g. 0.6.0-rc1 for RCs or 0.6.0 GA releases)
    • Set the release suffix as 0
    • Set the build ID to the build ID from previous step (For GA, this should be the build ID used for the last RC since there should be no changes)
11. Once the release build is complete:
    • Download the release artifacts
    • Check the images pushed to Quay.io
    • Mark the build in the Azure Pipelines UI to be retained forever
12. Create a GitHub tag and release based on the release branch. Attach the release artifacts and docs as downloaded from the Azure pipelines.
    • For RCs, the tag should be named with the RC suffix, e.g. 0.6.0-rc1
13. (only for GA, not for RCs) Update the website

• Update the _redirects file to make sure the /install/latest redirect points to the new release.
• Update the _data/releases.yaml file to add new release
• Update the documentation:
  • Create new directories docs/operators/<new-version> and docs/operators/<new-version>/full in the website repository
  • Copy files from the operators repository documentation/htmlnoheader to docs/operators/<new-version> in the website repository
  • Copy files from the operators repository documentation/html to docs/operators/<new-version>/full in the website repository
  • Create new files contributing.md, deploying.md, overview.md, quickstart.md, and using.md in docs/operators/<new-version> - the content of these files should be the same as for older versions, so you can copy them and update the version number.
  • Delete the old HTML files and images from docs/operators/latest and docs/operators/latest/full (keep the *.md files)
  • Copy files from the operators repository documentation/htmlnoheader to docs/operators/latest in the website repository
  • Copy files from the operators repository documentation/html to docs/operators/latest/full in the website repository
• Update the Helm Chart repository file by copying helm-charts/helm3/index.yaml in the operators GitHub repository to charts/index.yaml in the website GitHub repository.

12. (only for GA, not for RCs) On the main git branch of the repository:

• Copy the packaging/helm-charts/index.yaml from the release branch to main
• Update the ProductVersion variable in documentation/using/shared/attributes.adoc
• Update the install, examples and helm-chart directories in the main branch with the newly released files
• Update the checksums for released files in .checksums

13. (only for GA, not for RCs) The maven artifacts (api module) will be automatically staged from Azure during the tag build. It has to be releases from Sonatype to get to the main Maven repositories.
14. (only for GA, not for RCs) Update the Strimzi manifest files in Operator Hub community operators repository and submit a pull request upstream. Note: Instructions for this step need updating.
15. (only for GA, not for RCs) Add the new version to the systemtest/src/test/resources/upgrade/StrimziUpgradeST.yaml file for the upgrade tests
16. (only for GA, not for RCs) Add the new version to the systemtest/src/test/resources/upgrade/StrimziDowngradeST.yaml file and remove the old one for the downgrade tests

Updating Kafka Bridge version

The version of Strimzi Kafka Bridge is defined in the file ./bridge.version. Even the main branch is using this fixed version and not the version build from the main branch of Kafka Bridge. If you need to update the Kafka bridge to newer version, you should do it with following steps:

1. Edit the bridge.version file and update it to contain the new Bridge version
2. Run make bridge_version to update the related files to the new version
3. Commit all modified files to Git and open a PR.