Release Procedures¶
The current release procedure for Astropy involves a combination of an automated release script and some manual steps. Future versions will automate more of the process, if not all.
Release Procedure¶
The automated portion of the Astropy release procedure uses zest.releaser to create the tag and update the version. zest.releaser is extendable through hook functions–Astropy already includes a couple hook functions to modify the default behavior, but future releases may be further automated through the implementation of additional hook functions. In order to use the hooks, Astropy itself must be installed alongside zest.releaser. It is recommended to create a virtualenv specifically for this purpose.
This may seem like a lot of steps, but most of them won’t be necessary to repeat for each release. The advantage of using an automated or semi-automated procedure is that ensures a consistent release process each time.
Ensure you have a GPG key pair available for when git needs to sign the tag you create for the release. See Creating a GPG Signing Key and a Signed Tag for more on this.
Update the list of contributors in the
creditsandlicense.rst
file. The easiest way to check this is do:$ git shortlog -sAnd just add anyone from that list who isn’t already credited.
Install virtualenv if you don’t already have it. See the linked virtualenv documentation for details. Also, make sure that you have cython installed, as you will need it to generate the .c files needed for the release.
Create and activate a virtualenv:
$ virtualenv --system-site-packages astropy-release $ source astropy-release/bin/activateObtain a clean version of the Astropy repository. That is, one where you don’t have any intermediate build files. Either use a fresh
git clone
or dogit clean -dfx
.Be sure you’re the “master” branch or, for a bug fix release, on the appropriate bug fix branch. For example, if releasing version 0.2.2 make sure to:
$ git checkout v0.2.xNow install Astropy into the virtualenv:
$ python setup.py installThis is necessary for two reasons. First, the entry points for the releaser scripts need to be available, and these are in the Astropy package. Second, the build process will generate .c files from the Cython .pyx files, and the .c files are necessary for the source distribution.
Install zest.releaser into the virtualenv; use
--upgrade --force
to ensure that the latest version is installed in the virtualenv (if you’re running a csh variant make sure to runrehash
afterwards too):$ pip install zest.releaser==3.49 --upgrade --forceNote
zest.releaser > 3.49 has a still open issue that prevents our release code from correctly updating the
VERSION
variable in oursetup.py
; see zestsoftware/zest.releaser#62.Ensure that all changes to the code have been committed, then start the release by running:
$ fullreleaseYou will be asked to enter the version to be released. Press enter to accept the default (which will normally be correct) or enter a specific version string. A diff will then be shown of CHANGES.rst and setup.py showing that a release date has been added to the changelog, and that the version has been updated in setup.py. Enter ‘Y’ when asked to commit these changes.
You will then be shown the command that will be run to tag the release. Enter ‘Y’ to confirm and run the command.
When asked “Check out the tag (for tweaks or pypi/distutils server upload)” enter ‘N’: zest.releaser does not offer enough control yet over how the register and upload are performed so we will do this manually until the release scripts have been improved.
You will be asked to enter a new development version. Normally the next logical version will be selected–press enter to accept the default, or enter a specific version string. Do not add ”.dev” to the version, as this will be appended automatically (ignore the message that says ”.dev0 will be appended”–it will actually be ”.dev” without the 0). For example, if the just-released version was “0.1” the default next version will be “0.2”. If we want the next version to be, say “0.1.1”, or “1.0”, then that must be entered manually.
You will be shown a diff of CHANGES.rst showing that a new section has been added for the new development version, and showing that the version has been updated in setup.py. Enter ‘Y’ to commit these changes.
When asked to push the changes to a remote repository, enter ‘Y’. This should complete the portion of the process that’s automated at this point.
Check out the tag of the released version. For example:
$ git checkout v0.1Create the source distribution by doing:
$ git clean -dfx # just in case $ python setup.py build sdistCopy the produced
.tar.gz
somewhere and verify that you can unpack it, build it, and get all the tests to pass. It would be best to create a new virtualenv in which to do this.Note
In the future, the
build
command should run automatically as a prerequisite forsdist
. But for now, make sure to run it whenever runningsdist
to ensure that all Cython sources and other generated files are built.Register the release on PyPI with:
$ python setup.py registerUpload the source distribution to PyPI; this is preceded by re-running the sdist command, which is necessary for the upload command to know which distribution to upload:
$ python setup.py build sdist upload --signGo to https://pypi.python.org/pypi?:action=pkg_edit&name=astropy and ensure that only the most recent releases in each actively maintained release line are not marked hidden. For example, if v0.3.1 was just released, v0.3 should be hidden. This is so that users only find the latest bugfix releases.
Do not enabled “Auto-hide old releases” as that may hide bugfix releases from older release lines that we may still want to make available.
Update the “stable” branch to point to the new stable release For example:
$ git checkout stable $ git reset --hard v0.1 $ git push origin stable --forceUpdate Readthedocs so that it builds docs for the corresponding github tag. Also verify that the
stable
Readthedocs version builds correctly for the new version (it should trigger automatically once you’ve done the previous step.)When releasing a patch release, also set the previous version in the release history to “protected”. For example when releasing v1.1.2, set v1.1.1 to “protected”. This prevents the previous releases from cluttering the list of versions that users see in the version dropdown (the previous versions are still accessible by their URL though).
If this was a major/minor release (not a bug fix release) create a bug fix branch for this line of release. That is, if the version just released was “v<major>.<minor>.0”, create bug fix branch with the name “v<major>.<minor>.x”. Starting from the commit tagged as the release, just checkout a new branch and push it to the remote server. For example, after releasing version 0.3, do:
$ git checkout -b v0.3.xThen edit
setup.py
so that theVERSION
variable is'0.3.1.dev'
, and commit that change. Then, do:$ git push upstream v0.3.xNote
You may need to replaceupstream
here withastropy
or whatever remote name you use for the main astropy repository.The purpose of this branch is for creating bug fix releases like “0.3.1” and “0.3.2”, while allowing development of new features to continue in the master branch. Only changesets that fix bugs without making significant API changes should be merged to the bug fix branches.
- Update astropy/astropy-website for the new version. Two files need to be updated:
index.rst
has two tags near the top specifying the current release, and thedocs.rst
file should be updated by putting the previous release in as an older version, and updating the “latest developer version” link to point to the new release.- Run the
upload_script.py
script inastropy-website
to update the actual web site.
Modifications for a beta/release candidate release¶
For major releases with a lot of changes, we sometimes do beta and/or release candidates to have a chance to catch significant bugs before the true release. If the release you are performing is this kind of pre-release, some of the above steps need to be modified. The primary difference is that these releases go on the http://testpypi.python.org server instead of the regular PyPI. The testpypi server provides a place to test the release and host it, but never appears anywhere on the regular server. The price is that testpypi is not guaranteed to be up long-term, but for short-term pre-releases, this is no problem.
The primary modifications to the release procedure are:
- When prompted for a version number (step #13), you will need to manually
enter something like “1.0b1” or “1.0rc1”. You should follow this numbering
scheme (
x.yb#
orx.y.zrc#
), as it will ensure the release is ordered “before” the main release by various automated tools. - On steps #18 and #19, where you register and upload to PyPI, it is important
that you add the option
-r https://testpypi.python.org/pypi
. This ensures the release information and files are sent to the test server instead of the real PyPI server. This will probably require you to set up a~/.pypirc
file appropriate for the testpypi server. See https://wiki.python.org/moin/TestPyPI for more on how to do this. - Do not do step #20 or later, as those are tasks for an actual release.
Note
~/.pypirc
files necessary for uploading to the testpypi server
require you to include your password to be able to manage to do
register
properly. This can be insecure, because it means you have
to put your PyPI password in a plain-text file. So you’ll want to set
the ~/.pypirc
file permissions to be quite restrictive, use a
temporary PyPI password just for doing releases, or some other measure
to ensure your password remains secure.
Maintaining Bug Fix Releases¶
Astropy releases, as recommended for most Python projects, follows a <major>.<minor>.<micro> version scheme, where the “micro” version is also known as a “bug fix” release. Bug fix releases should not change any user- visible interfaces. They should only fix bugs on the previous major/minor release and may also refactor internal APIs or include omissions from previous releases–that is, features that were documented to exist but were accidentally left out of the previous release. They may also include changes to docstrings that enhance clarity but do not describe new features (e.g., more examples, typo fixes, etc).
Bug fix releases are typically managed by maintaining one or more bug fix branches separate from the master branch (the release procedure below discusses creating these branches). Typically, whenever an issue is fixed on the Astropy master branch a decision must be made whether this is a fix that should be included in the Astropy bug fix release. Usually the answer to this question is “yes”, though there are some issues that may not apply to the bug fix branch. For example, it is not necessary to backport a fix to a new feature that did not exist when the bug fix branch was first created. New features are never merged into the bug fix branch–only bug fixes; hence the name.
In rare cases a bug fix may be made directly into the bug fix branch without going into the master branch first. This may occur if a fix is made to a feature that has been removed or rewritten in the development version and no longer has the issue being fixed. However, depending on how critical the bug is it may be worth including in a bug fix release, as some users can be slow to upgrade to new major/micro versions due to API changes.
Issues are assigned to an Astropy release by way of the Milestone feature in the GitHub issue tracker. At any given time there are at least two versions under development: The next major/minor version, and the next bug fix release. For example, at the time of writing there are two release milestones open: v0.2.2 and v0.3.0. In this case, v0.2.2 is the next bug fix release and all issues that should include fixes in that release should be assigned that milestone. Any issues that implement new features would go into the v0.3.0 milestone–this is any work that goes in the master branch that should not be backported. For a more detailed set of guidelines on using milestones, see Using Milestones and Labels.
Backporting fixes from master¶
Most fixes are backported using the git cherry-pick
command, which applies
the diff from a single commit like a patch. For the sake of example, say the
current bug fix branch is ‘v0.2.x’, and that a bug was fixed in master in a
commit abcd1234
. In order to backport the fix, simply checkout the v0.2.x
branch (it’s also good to make sure it’s in sync with the main Astropy
repository) and cherry-pick the appropriate commit:
$ git checkout v0.2.x
$ git pull upstream v0.2.x
$ git cherry-pick abcd1234
Sometimes a cherry-pick does not apply cleanly, since the bug fix branch
represents a different line of development. This can be resolved like any
other merge conflict: Edit the conflicted files by hand, and then run
git commit
and accept the default commit message. If the fix being
cherry-picked has an associated changelog entry in a separate commit make
sure to backport that as well.
What if the issue required more than one commit to fix? There are a few
possibilities for this. The easiest is if the fix came in the form of a
pull request that was merged into the master branch. Whenever GitHub merges
a pull request it generates a merge commit in the master branch. This merge
commit represents the full difference of all the commits in the pull request
combined. What this means is that it is only necessary to cherry-pick the
merge commit (this requires adding the -m 1
option to the cherry-pick
command). For example, if 5678abcd
is a merge commit:
$ git checkout v0.2.x
$ git pull upstream v0.2.x
$ git cherry-pick -m 1 5678abcd
In fact, because Astropy emphasizes a pull request-based workflow, this is the most common scenario for backporting bug fixes, and the one requiring the least thought. However, if you’re not dealing with backporting a fix that was not brought in as a pull request, read on.
See also
Merge commits and cherry picks for further explanation of the cherry-pick command and how it works with merge commits.
If not cherry-picking a merge commit there are still other options for dealing with multiple commits. The simplest, though potentially tedious, is to simply run the cherry-pick command once for each commit in the correct order. However, as of Git 1.7.2 it is possible to merge a range of commits like so:
$ git cherry-pick 1234abcd..56789def
This works fine so long as the commits you want to pick are actually congruous with each other. In most cases this will be the case, though some bug fixes will involve followup commits that need to back backported as well. Most bug fixes will have an issues associated with it in the issue tracker, so make sure to reference all commits related to that issue in the commit message. That way it’s harder for commits that need to be backported from getting lost.
Making fixes directly to the bug fix branch¶
As mentioned earlier in this section, in some cases a fix only applies to a bug fix release, and is not applicable in the mainline development. In this case there are two choices:
- An Astropy developer with commit access to the main Astropy repository may check out the bug fix branch and commit and push your fix directly.
- Preferable: You may also make a pull request through GitHub against the bug fix branch rather than against master. Normally when making a pull request from a branch on your fork to the main Astropy repository GitHub compares your branch to Astropy’s master. If you look on the left-hand side of the pull request page, under “base repo: astropy/astropy” there is a drop-down list labeled “base branch: master”. You can click on this drop-down and instead select the bug fix branch (“v0.2.x” for example). Then GitHub will instead compare your fix against that branch, and merge into that branch when the PR is accepted.
Preparing the bug fix branch for release¶
There are two primary steps that need to be taken before creating a bug fix release. The rest of the procedure is the same as any other release as described in Release Procedure (although be sure to provide the right version number).
- Any existing fixes to the issues assigned to the current bug fix release milestone, or labeled with the relevant “backport-x.y.z” label must be merged into the bug fix branch.
- The Astropy changelog must be updated to list all issues–especially user-visible issues–fixed for the current release. The changelog should be updated in the master branch, and then merged into the bug fix branch. Most issues should already have changelog entries for them. But it’s typical to forget this, so if doesn’t exist yet please add one in the process of backporting. See Updating and Maintaining the Changelog for more details.
To aid in this process there is a suggest_backports.py script in the astropy-tools repository. The script is not perfect and still needs a little work, but it will get most of the work done. For example, if the current bug fix branch is called ‘v0.2.x’ run it like so:
$ suggest_backports.py astropy astropy v0.2.x -f backport.sh
This will search GitHub for all issues assigned to the next bug fix release
milestone that’s associated with the given bug fix branch (‘v0.2.2’ for
example), find the commits that fix those issues, and will generate a shell
script called backport.sh
containing all the git cherry-pick
commands
to backport all those fixes.
The suggest_backports.py
script will typically take a couple minutes to
run, but once it’s done simply execute the generated script from within your
local clone of the Astropy repository:
$ ./backport.sh
This will checkout the appropriate bug fix branch (‘v0.2.x’ in this example),
do a git pull upstream v0.2.x
to make sure it’s up to date, and then start
doing cherry-picks into the bug fix branch.
Note
As discussed earlier, cherry-pick may result in merge conflicts. If this
occurs, the backport.sh
script will exit and the conflict should be
resolved manually, followed by running git commit
. To resume the
backport.sh
script after the merge conflict, it is currently necessary
to edit the script to either remove or comment out the git cherry-pick
commands that already ran successfully.
The author of the script hopes to improve it in the future to add
git rebase
like functionality, such that running
backport.sh --continue
or backport.sh --skip
will be possible in
such cases.
Warning
It has also been noted that the suggest_backports.py
script is not
perfect, and can either miss issues that need to be backported, and in some
cases can report false positives.
It’s always a good idea before finalizing a bug fix release to look on GitHub through the list of closed issues in the release milestone and check that each one has a fix in the bug fix branch. Usually a quick way to do this is for each issue to run:
$ git log --oneline <bugfix-branch> | grep #<issue>
Most fixes will mention their related issue in the commit message, so this
tends to be pretty reliable. Some issues won’t show up in the commit log,
however, as their fix is in a separate pull request. Usually GitHub makes
this clear by cross-referencing the issue with its PR. A future version
of the suggest_backports.py
script will perform this check
automatically.
Finally, not all issues assigned to a release milestone need to be fixed before making that release. Usually, in the interest of getting a release with existing fixes out within some schedule, it’s best to triage issues that won’t be fixed soon to a new release milestone. If the upcoming bug fix release is ‘v0.2.2’, then go ahead and create a ‘v0.2.3’ milestone and reassign to it any issues that you don’t expect to be fixed in time for ‘v0.2.2’.
Creating a GPG Signing Key and a Signed Tag¶
One of the main steps in performing a release is to create a tag in the git repository representing the exact state of the repository that represents the version being released. For Astropy we will always use signed tags: A signed tag is annotated with the name and e-mail address of the signer, a date and time, and a checksum of the code in the tag. This information is then signed with a GPG private key and stored in the repository.
Using a signed tag ensures the integrity of the contents of that tag for the future. On a distributed VCS like git, anyone can create a tag of Astropy called “0.1” in their repository–and where it’s easy to monkey around even after the tag has been created. But only one “0.1” will be signed by one of the Astropy project coordinators and will be verifiable with their public key.
Generating a public/private key pair¶
Git uses GPG to created signed tags, so in order to perform an Astropy release
you will need GPG installed and will have to generated a signing key pair.
Most *NIX installations come with GPG installed by default (as it is used to
verify the integrity of system packages). If you don’t have the gpg
command, consult the documentation for your system on how to install it.
For OSX, GPG can be installed from MacPorts using sudo port install gnupg
.
To create a new public/private key pair, simply run:
$ gpg --gen-key
This will take you through a few interactive steps. For the encryption and expiry settings, it should be safe to use the default settings (I use a key size of 4096 just because what does a couple extra kilobytes hurt?) Enter your full name, preferably including your middle name or middle initial, and an e-mail address that you expect to be active for a decent amount of time. Note that this name and e-mail address must match the info you provide as your git configuration, so you should either choose the same name/e-mail address when you create your key, or update your git configuration to match the key info. Finally, choose a very good pass phrase that won’t be easily subject to brute force attacks.
If you expect to use the same key for some time, it’s good to make a backup of both your public and private key:
$ gpg --export --armor > public.key
$ gpg --export-secret-key --armor > private.key
Back up these files to a trusted location–preferably a write-once physical medium that can be stored safely somewhere. One may also back up their keys to a trusted online encrypted storage, though some might not find that secure enough–it’s up to you and what you’re comfortable with.
Add your public key to a keyserver¶
Now that you have a public key, you can publish this anywhere you like–in your e-mail, in a public code repository, etc. You can also upload it to a dedicated public OpenPGP keyserver. This will store the public key indefinitely (until you manually revoke it), and will be automatically synced with other keyservers around the world. That makes it easy to retrieve your public key using the gpg command-line tool.
To do this you will need your public key’s keyname. To find this enter:
$ gpg --list-keys
This will output something like:
/path/to/.gnupg/pubring.gpg
---------------------------------------------
pub 4096D/1234ABCD 2012-01-01
uid Your Name <your_email>
sub 4096g/567890EF 2012-01-01
The 8 digit hex number on the line starting with “pub”–in this example the “1234ABCD” unique keyname for your public key. To push it to a keyserver enter:
$ gpg --send-keys 1234ABCD
But replace the 1234ABCD with the keyname for your public key. Most systems come configured with a sensible default keyserver, so you shouldn’t have to specify any more than that.
Create a tag¶
Now test creating a signed tag in git. It’s safe to experiment with this–you can always delete the tag before pushing it to a remote repository:
$ git tag -s v0.1 -m "Astropy version 0.1"
This will ask for the password to unlock your private key in order to sign the tag with it. Confirm that the default signing key selected by git is the correct one (it will be if you only have one key).
Once the tag has been created, you can verify it with:
$ git tag -v v0.1
This should output something like:
object e8e3e3edc82b02f2088f4e974dbd2fe820c0d934
type commit
tag v0.1
tagger Your Name <your_email> 1339779534 -0400
Astropy version 0.1
gpg: Signature made Fri 15 Jun 2012 12:59:04 PM EDT using DSA key ID 0123ABCD
gpg: Good signature from "Your Name <your_email>"
You can use this to verify signed tags from any repository as long as you have the signer’s public key in your keyring. In this case you signed the tag yourself, so you already have your public key.
Note that if you are planning to do a release following the steps below, you will want to delete the tag you just created, because the release script does that for you. You can delete this tag by doing:
$ git tag -d v0.1
Creating a MacOS X Installer on a DMG¶
The bdist_dmg
command can be used to create a .dmg
disk image for
MacOS X with a .pkg
installer. In order to do this, you will need to
ensure that you have the following dependencies installed:
To create a .dmg
file, run:
python setup.py bdist_dmg
Note that for the actual release version, you should do this with the Python
distribution from python.org (not e.g. MacPorts, EPD,
etc.). The best way to ensure maximum compatibility is to make sure that
Python and Numpy are installed into /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework
using the latest stable .dmg
installers available for those packages. In
addition, the .dmg
should be build on a MacOS 10.6 system, to ensure
compatibility with 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8.
Before distributing, you should test out an installation of Python, Numpy, and
Astropy from scratch using the .dmg
installers, preferably on a clean
virtual machine.