Europa/Final Daze

The following is a "blow-by-blow" schedule of the final days leading up to the Europa simultaneous release. This is one of the responsibilities of our heterogeneous projects working together towards having a simultaneous release. Failure to follow these procedures and schedules can have dire consequences, which we all have seen before at one time or another -- if not done in the right way, in the right order, at the right time, mirrors get busy replicating one project, but other projects have difficulty accessing eclipse.org to produce their final builds much less upload them, so a "chain reaction" begins and everyone is much delayed simply due to network and infrastructure bottlenecks -- or, I should say, from someone not following these procedures and schedules! :) Plus, this schedule and procedure should ensure the mirror system get's fully populated before demand for downloads gets in full swing -- meaning much fewer delays, 403's, and failed downloads for end-users -- which all Eclipse users will appreciate.

From Now to 6/28

Clean up "old" builds and releases

Delete or archive "old" builds or releases that are mirrored. This is important to reduce space used on the mirror servers. Not only is this a "nice" thing to always do, it is essential for this Europa release, as it can help avoid those mirror servers from filling up once they get the final release and they themselves having problems mirroring Europa, once it is released. And, of course, if they have problems, we all have problems! Everyone should have space at, if not already using, archive.eclipse.org, and if you are not sure how to "archive" a release there, please ask.

Prepare releases offline

That is, prepare your final releases zipped files, update jars, etc., but do not put zipped up builds, update jars, etc., in their final (mirrored) release areas of eclipse.org until instructed to do so. This may require some projects to "turn off" some final step of their build process, depending on how they do it, and how and when its copied to eclipse.org. If you have a special circumstance that does not fit in the following procedure and schedule, please send a note to discuss with our Eclipse Webmaster (Denis Roy) at webmaster@eclipse.org and work out a plan to accommodate your special situation.

Note: this may mean some projects need to "adjust" their final build procedures, so they do not rely on some other projects official, final, mirrored release, but this should not be required as any "pre-req'd" projects should just be making minor changes to doc, or highly local and internal bug fixes (nothing that would be changing constants or API's or even non API signatures!). If you do need some official, final release of a pre-req project, please work with them to find out where to get it from (other than a mirrored location).

All times below are in Eastern Daylight Time (which is UTC-4).

Wednesday 6/27

by 17:00 EDT, at the latest

• projects have prepared zips downloads and all update site files (again, offline -- just have them ready to go).
• projects ensure update jars are in their "temporary" locations, as listed in the feature-*.xml files
• projects ensured europa.tools feature-*.xml and the europa.website site.xml files all up to date
• europa 'staging' will be created to verify all are accurate, and ready to be copied to releases area
  • Bjorn, please send e-mail to cross-project informing that the final "staging" is up, so EPP can build their packages
• EPP will start building packages as soon as europa 'staging' is ready (staging will be the input for the packages)
• last opportunity for anyone to declare "emergency, stop ship" (and it had really better be an emergency! A simple build machine crash does not qualify ... better have backups! ... and, maybe, a lab fire might qualify if it is wide spread :)

Thursday 6/28

10:00 EDT

1. Denis disables replication
2. gives the OK to upload on cross-project mailing list
3. advises all committers that download.eclipse.org is frozen

10:05 to 14:00

1. teams push builds in, projects to advise on cross-project list when upload is complete

This Includes:

• upload/copy/rsync zip files.
• update their own 'released' update sites.
• Europa "staging" copied to "releases"
• upload EPP packages <== this is super important, as the new Main Downloads Page makes the EPP downloads the default!

14:00

All projects e-mail (20 of them) to cross-project list confirm build/update copy is done, (Eclipse Project is largest, 4 hours is typical, so exact time may vary)

14:01

Denis sends mail to eclipse-mirrors requesting a manual sync, ask for torrents from ibiblio

14:02

• wait overnight, see if mirrors get the files
• projects should prepare final web pages, announcements, press releases, etc.

Friday 6/29

09:00 EDT

• Denis to do a mirror-site sanity check. How many? Are they all done? Assuming all is well,

1. (re)enable cluster sync
2. All confirmed "go" with note to cross-project, committers lists
3. Put web pages live, make announcements

09:30

watch eclipse.org servers glow red, especially build server

12:00

Ottawa committers are invited to the Foundation's office for celebrations with beer and pizza. If you're coming, please let me know - webmaster at eclipse org - so we can plan how much beer and food to get. We'll also be giving out swag for those committers who don't have any.