APACHE SPAMASSASSIN RELEASE PROCEDURE
=====================================

This document contains instructions for producing a release of SpamAssassin.
It is intended to provide instructions and a checklist for the release manager.
This document should also be useful to downstream packagers, although they would
ignore all the details here that have to do with specifics of the Apache release process.
The section on setting up a build and test environment might be useful to someone
having dificulty installing SpamAssassin from source on their own machine.

Setting up a machine for building and testing:

The release build should not be done on a machine that is already used to run SpamAssassin.
If SpamAssassin is installed system-wide, it has the potential of files from the existing
installation being visible to and interfering with the build or test processes.
Also some of the tests have the potential of interfering with running processes associated
with the system-installed SpamAssassin.

The safest course of action for an official release buld is to use a (virtual) machine
made specifically for the purpose. Detailed instructions for installing a build environment
can be found on the Apache SpamAssassin wiki at https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/x/lRKhD

Release manager code signing:

If you are producing a release package authorized by the Apache SpamAssassin PMC, you should
have been given a copy of the project's signing keys and the password to use them.
They are in the form of a tar file that you should unpack into a directory named ~/sabuildtools
on the build machine. It contains a bin subdirectory that contains a symlink to /usr/bin/gpg
which should be installed on the machine. The name ~/sabuildtools is hardcoded in the release
packaging scripts, so be sure to place the files there.
The packaging scripts will prompt you for the password when it signs the final packages.

The build process:

To be certain of producing a clean build, begin by creating a new directory and cd to it.

Checkout trunk from svn at first, even if you are going to build a branch. 

If you are going to build a branch, checkout the branch. Then create the three symlinks to
directories in trunk as exampled below.

  rm -rf ~/build.tmp
  mkdir ~/build.tmp
  cd ~/build.tmp
  svn co https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/spamassassin/trunk
  ## the rest are only done if going to make a branch build instead of from trunk
  mkdir branches
  cd branches
  svn co https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/spamassassin/branches/3.4
  cd 3.4
  ln -s ../../trunk/rules
  ln -s ../../trunk/rulesrc
  ln -s ../../trunk/t.rules

Run "svn status" to ensure you're building/releasing from a pristine
  checkout:

    cd [checkedoutdir]
    svn status

  The output should be blank or look like this (if you are on a branch):

  ?       rules
  ?       rulesrc
  ?       t.rules

  (ie., no "M" or "C" files; any files marked "M" have been locally
  modified, and should be "svn revert"ed before you continue.)

- The directories rules, rulesrc, and t.rules are only in trunk because
  rule development and publishing are only done from trunk.
  The symlinks from a branch checkout allow for the build and test process
  to work with the valid copy of rules that are in trunk. Those rules are
  not included in the install package that is produced.
  
- Rules are ONLY published from trunk.  Rule development should use plugin
  and version conditions to make it so one ruleset works on all modern
  versions of SA.

  With the rules in trunk symlinked, you can expect MANIFEST warnings when
  running things such as make distcheck such as:

    No such file: rules/v400.pre

  NOTE: Don't remove the lines from the MANIFEST though!

- Consider updating the TLD list in 20_aux_tlds.cf.  As of 4/6/2015,
  this is not automated but bug 7165 is open for this purpose.

- edit lib/Mail/SpamAssassin.pm and comment out the $IS_DEVEL_BUILD
  line as noted. Ensure the correct version number is present in $VERSION
  and @EXTRA_VERSION.

  Prereleases: formatted like this: "pre4" -- in $EXTRA_VERSION, and
  $IS_DEVEL_BUILD is 0. When referred to in full, it's "3.1.0-pre4".

  Release candidates: formatted like this: "rc2" -- in $EXTRA_VERSION, and
  $IS_DEVEL_BUILD is 0. When referred to in full, it's "3.1.0-rc2".

  $IS_DEVEL_BUILD is 0 even with rc and pre versions because rc and pre
  numbers are never reused.  Just increment higher each time.

  Full releases: @EXTRA_VERSION is blank and IS_DEVEL_BUILD is 0.

- Ensure that it builds and that the new version number takes hold:

    make clean
    perl Makefile.PL < /dev/null
    make ENABLE_SSL=yes
    ./spamassassin -L -t < sample-nonspam.txt | grep X-Spam-

  Verify that the X-Spam-* headers use the correct version string,
  without an SVN revision number (those are only for dev and pre builds).

  NOTE: If the date is old, don't worry, it will change later with the
        relbuild checkout.

  Also, a warning about "warn: config: could not find site rules
  directory" is ok too.  It's because no init.pre exists in the default
  rules location.

- create the Changes file.  

  NOTE: If you do not use a fresh checkout, you may miss recent entries if
  you also did development on the same checkout.  Use a fresh checkout
  when making your builds to avoid this issue.

  MAKE CERTAIN THIS IS RUN IN THE ROOT OF YOUR CHECKOUT!

  There are two options here:

  - For releases on a maintenance branch (e.g. 3.0.1, .2, etc.):

      TZ=UTC svn log --non-interactive --stop-on-copy > Changes

    This will output all of the changes since the .0 release in the
    current branch (the last copy -- note, if a copy was done
    afterwards (move between repositories, etc, you'll need to
    modify that command).

  - For releases on the trunk (e.g. a .0 release):

      TZ=UTC svn log -r HEAD:1906050 --non-interactive > Changes

    r497472 was the release of 3.2.0-pre1; r233108 was the start of 3.2.0,
    just after the 3.1.0 branch was created; r46030 was the start of the
    3.1.0 work (created 3.0 branch); replace with the correct rev number
    for the point you want to start at if different. I used r1149751 to
    produce the first 3.4.0-pre release, for example.  r1567124 is the
    3.4.0 release tag revision.  r1676613 is the 3.4.1 release tag
    revision. r1906050 is the 4.0.0 release tag revision. r1916545 is the
    4.0.1 release tag revision.

    To find the release tag revision, first get the tag name using the tags website, i.e.: 
      https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/spamassassin/tags/
    or on the command line
      svn ls https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/spamassassin/tags/ | grep release

    then the command (using the actual release tag you want to look up)

     svn log https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/spamassassin/tags/spamassassin_release_3_4_6 -v --stop-on-copy

- Exclude some automated and rule maintenance changes from the logs:

    cat Changes | perl -ne ' BEGIN{$/=("-"x72)."\n"}
    chomp; @ln=split/^/;
    next if @ln==3 && $ln[2]=~/^\s*(updated scores for revision.*|promotions validated|auto-generated rules|[Uu]pdate generated ruleset|)\s*$/;
    print "@ln$/"' > Changes.tmp

- Word wrap the Changes file with something like 

    fold -sw 74 Changes.tmp > Changes && rm -f Changes.tmp

- run "make distcheck" to ensure all files are included in the
  distribution that should be, and to ensure all files that are listed
  in the MANIFEST also exist in SVN.

    make distcheck

  With the rules in trunk symlinked, you can expect MANIFEST warnings when
  running things such as make distclean such as:

    No such file: rules/v400.pre

  NOTE: Don't remove the lines from the MANIFEST though!

- run "make disttest" to ensure all default tests pass once the
  distribution is fully packaged.

    make disttest < /dev/null

    The point of disttest is that it creates a subdirectory with only the
    files from MANIFEST, so it tests in the same environment as that of
    an unpacked distribution tar, without the presence of rules files
    that are not in MANIFEST. To get the same testing for the root tests
    cd into the Mail-Spamassin* subdirectory that make disttest created and run
      sudo make test TEST_FILES="t/spamd_root*"
    You can similarly cd into that directory to re-run tests such as dcc.t
    that can fail due to temporary problems accessing a remote server. 

- Run the release test suite using the command
   xt/run_release_test_suite.sh
   
  This runs all tests, not just the defaults set in t/config.dist and also
  runs an additional, more stringent set of tests. There are some tests that
  will still be skipped because they are not yet ready for regular use or are
  deprecated for now. See the wiki page on setting up a release environment for
  information on how to set up to run the sawampersand test.

- Run the tests that require sudo privileges. DO NOT run these on a machine that
  runs a production copy of SpamAssassin. As a precaution these tests require that
  you edit t/config.dist to set run_root_tests to y. Also, these tests run some
  processes as user 'nobody' and must be run in a directory that is accessible. Typical
  linux systems give no permissions for "other" on home directory trees. You will
  have to change the permissions or run these tests from within a different directory.

    sudo make test TEST_FILES="t/root*.t"

- Check in the updated Changes file, and SpamAssassin.pm.

    svn commit -m "preparing to release X.Y.Z" Changes lib/Mail/SpamAssassin.pm

  (If you are privately preparing a security release, and don't wish to
  perform commits to public SVN repos, you can defer this step until
  later.)

- If there are any issues to note, make sure to edit the UPGRADE file.
  Every x.x.0 release at a minimum should include a section.

- Check the README file for any items to change.

- Review the CREDITS to update Committers - https://whimsy.apache.org/
  can help with this.

- Review the CREDITS to update Copyright

- Review the Project Branding Report Checklist at
  https://www.apache.org/foundation/marks/pmcs#checklist

- SVN tag the release files.  This is done using "svn copy".

  - For a maintenance release (x.y.1, x.y.2):

    vers=3_4_3

    Then run:

    repo=https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/spamassassin
    svn delete -m "replaced old tag" $repo/tags/spamassassin_release_$vers
    svn copy -m "creating tag for release $vers" $repo/branches/3.4 $repo/tags/spamassassin_release_$vers


  - For a maintenance release candidate(x.y.1-rc1), pre-release (x.y.1-preZ) or alpha (x.y.1-alphaZ):

    vers=3_4_3_rc_1

    #Then run:

    repo=https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/spamassassin
    svn delete -m "replaced old tag" $repo/tags/spamassassin_release_$vers
    svn copy -m "creating tag for release $vers" $repo/branches/3.4 $repo/tags/spamassassin_release_$vers


  - For a trunk release (x.y.0):

    vers=3_4_0

    repo=https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/spamassassin
    svn delete -m "replaced old tag" $repo/tags/spamassassin_release_$vers
    svn copy -m "creating tag for release $vers" \
        $repo/trunk $repo/tags/spamassassin_release_$vers

  - For a trunk release candidate (x.y.0-rc1), pre-release (x.y.0-preZ) or alpha (x.y.0-alphaZ):

    vers=3_4_0_rc_2

    Then run:

    repo=https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/spamassassin
    svn delete -m "replaced old tag" $repo/tags/spamassassin_release_$vers
    svn copy -m "creating tag for release $vers" $repo/trunk $repo/tags/spamassassin_release_$vers

    
  This will do a completely server-side tagging (which is the same as
  a branch really) of whatever the latest branch revision to be the new
  base of the tag release.

  (If you are privately preparing a security release, and don't wish to
  perform commits to public SVN repos, you can defer this step until
  later.)


- Check out the code from the tag you just made:

    #Switch to a non-privileged user
    vers=3_4_3
    repo=https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/spamassassin
    rm -rf ~/relbuild
    svn co $repo/tags/spamassassin_release_$vers ~/relbuild
    cd ~/relbuild

  (If you are privately preparing a security release, you will need
  to ensure that the code in this build directory matches up using
  some other mechanism, since SVN is public.)

- use the following commands to run build/update_stable to build
  the tar.gz, tar.bz2 and zip files into ~/public_html/devel/

    NOTE: link rules, t.rules and rulesrc to a trunk checkout if needed!

    killall gpg-agent
    #THESE THREE ln LINES ARE NOT NEEDED FOR A TRUNK RELEASE
    ln -s ~/usr/src/Mail-SpamAssassin/trunk/rules
    ln -s ~/usr/src/Mail-SpamAssassin/trunk/rulesrc
    ln -s ~/usr/src/Mail-SpamAssassin/trunk/t.rules
    ./build/update_stable

  The above places files in ~/public_html/devel/

- test the files!  redo until they work!! ;)

- Write the release announcement mail!  This is a simple matter of copying
  the previous release's announcement, updating the version numbers and
  links, fixing the MD5 and SHA1 checksums in this mail, and summarising
  the important changes from the Changes file.

    cp build/announcements/3.4.1.txt build/announcements/3.4.2.txt
    svn add !$
    vi !$

  NOTE: Here's a quick example to concat the checksums:
        ls *3.4.2* | grep sha | xargs cat --

- (for any rc, prerelease, or full release) Place the tarballs in a
  discreet location (discreet means not linked from the "downloads" page
  of the website, but included in the mail to the dev list) Post the URL,
  SHA sums, and proposed release announcement mail to the dev list.
  If this is for a full release, make the subject of the mail
  [VOTE] Release of X.Y.Z - vote will close on XXXday, MONTH DD, YYYY HH:MM UTC
  and have the mail call for a 72 hour vote for release.

  https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/spamassassin/
  qualifies as "discreet".

  Pre-release and RC don't need votes if only announced to the dev list.

  - (for a pre or rc release), - upload .tar.gz (not .bz2) tarball to CPAN
  at https://pause.cpan.org/:

        https://pause.perl.org/pause/authenquery?ACTION=add_uri

  See notes below for issues on indexing but the tar should be named in a 
  manner that CPAN will process it as a Developer Release per

  https://www.cpan.org/modules/04pause.html#developerreleases

  As of 2014-02-05, adding -TRIAL to the filename should work. For example:

        Mail-SpamAssassin-3.4.1-rc2-TRIAL.tar.gz

- (for a full release) Send email to sysadmins@spamassassin.apache.org
  requesting that a CNAME record be created so rule updates can work
  with the new version number that will be created in svn after the
  release is completed. There is no harm in this being done in advance,
  and doing it at the start of the 72 hour vote period allows for it
  to be done before the new version number is committed.
  
- (for a full release) 3 +1's votes from PMC members are required to 
  proceed with the next steps for an official, non pre-release ASF
  software release.

- If you've been doing some steps in private, for a security release,
  now's the time to perform them publicly; tagging etc.

- Edit lib/Mail/SpamAssassin.pm, and uncomment the $IS_DEVEL_BUILD line.
  SVN commit it (and the release announcement file from above, if
  you made one):

	svn commit -m "X.Y.Z RELEASED"

- [X.Y.0 RELEASES ONLY]: Now, start the new development codebase.  For
  minor updates of a 2.x tree (e.g. 2.x.1, 2.x.2), you don't need to
  branch; for major updates (2.x.0) you need to create a new development
  branch, off the trunk.

    repo=https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/spamassassin
    svn copy $repo/tags/spamassassin_release_3_4_1 $repo/branches/3.4 \
    -m 'Creating 3.4 branch based on 3.4.1 so that trunk can go to 4.0'

  "trunk" is SVN's concept of head.  Typically, our branches are named
  for their minor version number.  In the example above, 3.4 is the
  branch for the stable 3.4.x releases.

  - In the new development codebase, edit lib/Mail/SpamAssassin.pm
    and bump the $VERSION line to the correct version.

  - then, commit the new version number to the new branch:

        svn commit -m "X.Y.N devel cycle started"

	(where X.Y.N is the new version number)

- [X.Y.0 RELEASES ONLY]: in trunk, bump the version to the correct
  version in the following files (just as above for the branch):

  - lib/Mail/SpamAssassin.pm

- (full release only) If you didn't send that email about DNS CNAME
  to sysadmins@spamassassin.apache.org before the vote, do it now!

- !WARNING! After the next step, the version number will be considered
  "burned". The number is locked for this particular code.  The same
  number cannot be used for a future different release.  So make sure
  you're happy before you go on!

  If you need to redo something, before the next step is done,
  re-comment the $IS_DEVEL_BUILD line, revert the $VERSION bump,
  and go back to 'Ensure the new version number takes hold'.
  You can retag with the normal 'svn copy' command used in
  'SVN tag the release files', even if that tag already existed; but be
  sure to check in another commit message to note what happened, e.g.:

    svn commit -m "oops, had to redo: THIS IS THE REAL X.Y.Z RELEASE"

- publish the tarballs

  ASF bylaws prohibit the distribution of files claiming to be
  releases from the website, without 3 PMC +1 votes, so you need to
  make it clear that this is an unofficial "test build" by placing it
  in project's dist.apache.org subdir:

  NOTE: It's also feasible that you could publish via SVNPubSub as noted 
  below but using the SVN repository at:

    https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/SpamAssassin

  The choice is up to the Release Manager for these test builds.

  For full release builds, you need to publish using SVNPubSub.
 
  This is a simple matter of svn committing the new artifacts and signature 
  files to https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/spamassassin/ once a
  release vote passes. 

  NOTE - In 2021 ASF replaced use of the mirror system for distributing
  downloads with use of a global CDN. As a result, there is no longer a
  delay after uploading files until the files are visible. If you are
  used to the old system requiring you to wait 24 hours after uploading
  before updating the download page on the web site and announcing the
  release, rejoice, you no longer need to.
  
  Publish tarballs by manipulating the repo on svn, which is at
   https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/spamassassin/

  - svn checkout or update the repo
  - Copy the new version artifact files to the source dir and svn add them
  - svn delete the files for now-obsolete versions

    Only the most recent version of each supported release line should be
    stored.  The archives will auto update.  
    See https://www.apache.org/dev/release#archived.
  - Commit

- (for full release builds) Update the files in build/announcements/$vers.txt
  to insert the correct checksums for the files that were uploaded. This directory
  is not part of the release tarball, so committing it does not change the hashes.
  
- (for full release builds) update the main website "downloads.html" to link to
  the new version of download files. This will involve changing the version number
  in the download links for the install files, their detached GPG signature and hashes,
  and the link to the announcement text.

    https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/spamassassin/site

- Update the "news.html" and the announcement on the index.html home page.

- Log on to: https://reporter.apache.org/addrelease.html?spamassassin
  and add your release data (version and date) to the database.

- As long as you are editing and will be committing the web pages, check the
  copyright date at the bottom of every *.html page.
  
- update the 'doc' tree in the SpamAssassin website 

  WARNING: edit 'build/update_website_docs' beforehand and set the "PERL"
  "WEBDIR" and "vers" lines.  On my build system, the website checkout is
  in ~/asf/Mail-SpamAssassin/site and perl is in the path so nothing special is
  needed.

        #If needed, remove the old docs - This will be different for v4.0
        cd ~/asf/Mail-SpamAssassin/site
        svn up
        svn delete --force full/3.4.x
        svn commit -m "removing old doc tree from website" 

        #Checkout the current release
        cd /tmp
        svn checkout https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/spamassassin/tags/spamassassin_release_3_4_3/ release
        cd /tmp/release
        #link your rules and rulesrc
        ln -s ~/usr/src/Mail-SpamAssassin/trunk/rules
        ln -s ~/usr/src/Mail-SpamAssassin/trunk/rulesrc 
        build/update_website_docs

        cd ~/asf/Mail-SpamAssassin/site
        svn add full/3.4.x
        svn commit -m "updating new doc tree on website" full

- update the tag used to point to "current release":

    repo=https://svn.apache.org/repos/asf/spamassassin
    vers=3_4_3
    svn delete -m "updating for new release"  $repo/tags/spamassassin_current_release_3.4.x
    svn copy -m "updating for new release" $repo/tags/spamassassin_release_$vers $repo/tags/spamassassin_current_release_3.4.x

- upload release .tar.gz (not .bz2) tarball to CPAN at https://pause.cpan.org/:

        https://pause.perl.org/pause/authenquery?ACTION=add_uri

  (Note that recently, PAUSE has started indexing sub-modules under
  Mail::SpamAssassin::, and it can't deal with our multi-maintainer
  setup.  You may receive mail indicating that "indexing failed" after
  the upload; as long as the main Mail::SpamAssassin module was indexed
  correctly, this is fine.  However, it would help if you could visit

        https://pause.perl.org/pause/authenquery?ACTION=share_perms

  select 3.1 ("Make someone else co-maintainer"), and ensure that the
  other releasers all have permissions as
  'co-maintainer' on the full set of your listed modules in the
  "Mail::SpamAssassin::" namespace.

- announce on the users@spamassassin.apache.org,
  dev@spamassassin.apache.org, announce@spamassassin.apache.org and the
  announce@apache.org  mailing lists using the previously-prepared release 
  announcement.

  **IMPORTANT: Address the email to yourself as the To:, Bcc: all lists
  and set a Reply-To: of dev@spamassassin.apache.org.

  NOTE: you must send this mail with a "From:" address @apache.org,
  otherwise it'll be bounced by the ASF's custom spam filtering
  rules.  See [1] below for more requirements for the announce email.

- Approve the posting to the announce list (the list admins will get a
  mail indicating how to do this.)

- Add the new version to the Bugzilla versions list:

        https://bz.apache.org/SpamAssassin/editversions.cgi?product=Spamassassin&action=add

- Add a milestone for the next version to the Bugzilla milestones list:

        https://bz.apache.org/SpamAssassin/editmilestones.cgi?action=add&product=Spamassassin
        (use a sortkey of "0")

- Confirm with SpamAssassin SysAdmins group that we are ready in DNS for
  masscheck and rule updates for the next version

  For many years all releases since 3.3.3 use the same ruleset.  
    3.4.2 already has a cname for this.  
    3.3.2 and before are set to a static ruleset.  

  We have been good on using version specific and plugin conditions to 
  allow one ruleset to rule them all.  

  Since we plan to release rules that continue to be version compatible 
  back to 3.3.3, only a CNAME is needed for newer releases to point at 
  3.3.3.

- Change the sortkey for the previous release's milestone from "0" to "10":

        https://bz.apache.org/SpamAssassin/editmilestones.cgi?product=Spamassassin

- Update https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpamAssassin


-------------
[1]

Hello PMCs --a quick reminder that messages sent to announce@apache.org
feature prominently in the weekly Apache News Round-ups [1].

In order for your announcement be happily moderated through, don't forget
to:

0) write "[ANNOUNCE]", "[ANN]", or "[SECURITY]" in the subject line as
appropriate

1) send the email in PLAINTEXT --all else will be rejected

2) include the appropriate URL for downloading the release or more
information regarding the announcement

3) include the DOAP! Whilst you may know what your project is, there's a
chance that others don't, particularly those with funky names/acronyms.
Hone your message and polish that one-liner!

3a) speaking of DOAP, relationships are nice --does your project
involve/play with other technologies? If so, state the relationship.

4) include a way for folks to learn more. Link to the project home page or
a mailing list or some other relevant resource.

5) personalize your closing --whether your choose to sign off using your
name or (on behalf of) the collective PMC, doing something friendly
reinforces the "community" aspect of the ASF.

 
Thanks so much,
Sally


[1] https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/date/20150612
// vim:tw=74: