Configuration

Where possible (and where it makes sense to), the release configuration reuses variables from the branches' dep/nightly config. These will not be discussed here. This MXR query will show you all of the places in the release automation set-up that branch variables are referenced.

The release configs themselves have a number of variables and options in them. These are discussed below.

sourceRepositories

This variable is information dense dictionary and mostly contains information only relevant to Tagging. Each key of sourceRepositories (eg. "mozilla"), has a value of a dict with the following structure:

• name - The name of the source repository, without any leading directories
• clonePath - (staging only) Where to clone this repository from in repo_setup
• path - Where to clone this repository for everything else (tagging, builds, repacks, et. al)
• revision - The revision to base this release on. If relbranch is None or the provided one does not exist, the automation will update to this revision before creating the relbranch.
• relbranch - The name of the relbranch to use for this release. If set to None, it will be generated automatically. If provided and exists, the automation will update to it before doing any bumping or tagging. If provided and doesn't exist, it will be created.
• bumpFiles - This is another dict, whose keys are the paths in the sourceRepo, and whose values are *another* dict, with the following structure.
  • version - The version number to use in this file on the relbranch
  • nextVersion - The version number to use in this file on the default branch

Here's a concrete example of sourceRepositories for a Firefox build. Note that the bump file versions are typically factored out to earlier variables to avoid repetition.

releaseConfig['sourceRepositories'] = {
  'mozilla': {
    'name': 'mozilla-central',
    'path': 'mozilla-central',
    'revision': 'aaaaabbbbcccc',
    'relbranch': None
    'bumpFiles': {
      'browser/config/version.txt': {
        'version': releaseConfig['appVersion'],
        'nextVersion': releaseConfig['nextAppVersion'],
      },
      'config/milestone.txt': {
        'version': releaseConfig['milestone'],
        'nextVersion': releaseConfig['nextMilestone'],
      },
    }
  }
}

Others

Preparation

There are a couple of things you can do prior to the "go to build" to hasten things when you do receive. Generally, we do the following ahead of time:

• Post updated configs and any other patches you'll need for review, using 'FILLMEOUT' or similar as the revision.
• Mark a clobberer for "Any master", $branch, "Any builder" with clobberer. This will instruct any slave that did the last release on $branch to clobberer their release directories.

If you are doing a test release in staging there is additional setup work to do, and the clobberer URL changes.

L10N Changesets

Currently we have separate changesets files for Fennec and Firefox. Both are generated from the l10n dashboard
First log in to the dashboard with your LDAP and then follow the instructions below

Fennec

• Click "ship it" to load up the milestone (eg: Fennec 8 Beta Build 2)
• This will take you to a page like https://l10n.mozilla.org/shipping/confirm-ship?ms=fennec14_beta_b6
• For 11.0b1+ for platforms use

android,android-xul

• In the 'Add a multi-locale file for' field put

android-multilocale

• select "Add"
  • repo: "releases/mozilla-beta"
  • branch: "default"
  • path: "mobile/android/locales/maemo-locales"
• select "Generate it"
• Copy and paste it into your repo's l10n-changesets_mobile-{version}.json
• go back to the original page
• select "Ship it" to preserve the record of what was shipped

Firefox

Note: these instructions also work for Thunderbird.

• Click "ship it" to load up the milestone (eg: Firefox 8 Beta Build 2)
• This will take you to https://l10n.mozilla.org/shipping/confirm-ship?ms=fx8_beta_b2
• Open in a new tab the "l10n-changesets" URL (don't touch any of the other fields) record the URL on the build notes
• copy and paste the list into your l10n-changesets_mozilla-{version}
• go back to the original page
• select "Ship it"
  • if you forget the URL, you can recreate the URL by judicious modification of the URL from the prior build notes

Starting the automation

Generally, the workflow for kicking off Release Automation is as follows:

• Update the configuration files
• Tag buildbotcustom (branch production-0.8), buildbot-configs (branch production), tools (branch default) with the correct _RELEASE and _BUILDn tags. You must use FIREFOX_${VERSION}_BUILDn and FIREFOX_${VERSION}_RELEASE for Firefox releases, FENNEC_${VERSION}_BUILDn and FENNEC_${VERSION}_RELEASE for Fennec releases, or all 4 tags for combined releases.
• Update the Buildbot Master doing the release
• Run the pre-flight sanity check. This is done in the master directory (watch out for PYTHONPATH). For example:

# Combined release
cd /builds/buildbot/build1/master
source ../bin/activate
PYTHONPATH=. python ../tools/buildbot-helpers/release_sanity.py -u bhearsum -V 6.0b2 --branch mozilla-beta --build-number 1 \
    --release-config release-firefox-mozilla-beta.py --release-config release-fennec-mozilla-beta.py --products firefox,fennec  \
    --dryrun localhost:9001
# Firefox-only release
cd /builds/buildbot/build1/master
PYTHONPATH=. python ../tools/buildbot-helpers/release_sanity.py -u bhearsum -V 6.0b2 --branch mozilla-beta --build-number 1 \
 --release-config release-firefox-mozilla-beta.py --products firefox  \
 --dryrun localhost:9001

• Start the automation by running the sanity script again, without --dryrun. For example:

# buildbot should in in $PATH, source ve env
source ../bin/activate
PYTHONPATH=. python ../tools/buildbot-helpers/release_sanity.py -u rail \
 -V 6.0b2 --branch mozilla-beta --build-number 1 \
 -c release-firefox-mozilla-beta.py -c release-fennec-mozilla-beta.py --products firefox,fennec localhost:9001

If you're working in staging you must make sure to pass in the correct staging release config (staging_release-firefox-<branch name>.py)

If for some reason you need to perform the sendchange manually, here's a sample. Note that the branch name is the repo path to the source repository. In staging, this will be a user repo. All parameters are required:</p>

buildbot sendchange --username bhearsum --master localhost:9010 --branch releases/mozilla-release \
    -p script_repo_revision:FIREFOX_3_6_12_RELEASE -p products:firefox,fennec release_build

Starting Signing

The next step is to start the signing automation, which will download builds as they become available, and start the signing process once all builds are ready. For more details on starting the signing automation, see the Combined Signing page.

Android signing procedure is outlined here

Tree Merges (release driver)

Sync mozilla-beta to mozilla-release

Mercurial repositories used for final releases should be synced from mozilla-beta.

Tip of default on mozilla-release should be tagged and closed. mozilla-beta should be tagged and pulled. It creates new tip of default on mozilla-release. See Aurora specific sync mechanics for the details.

L10N repositories uses noop (dummy) merge if needed to simplify localizers life.

To handle this process use the following scripts.

Sync mozilla-beta to mozilla-release

Script available here (beta2release.sh) do not use as it doesn't update confvars.sh

# Adjust VERSION variable which stands for the current Firefox version in mozilla-release
VERSION=8
HG_USER="ffxbld <release@mozilla.com>"

hg clone http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-release
hg clone http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta

beta_rev=$(hg -R mozilla-beta id -i -r default)
release_rev=$(hg -R mozilla-release id -i -r default)

RELEASE_BASE_TAG="RELEASE_BASE_`date +%Y%m%d`"
RELEASE_TAG="FIREFOX_RELEASE_$VERSION"

hg -R mozilla-beta tag -r $beta_rev -u "$HG_USER" -m "Added tag $RELEASE_BASE_TAG for changeset $beta_rev. CLOSED TREE a=release DONTBUILD" $RELEASE_BASE_TAG
hg -R mozilla-beta push -e "ssh -l ffxbld -i ~/.ssh/ffxbld_dsa" ssh://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta

hg -R mozilla-release tag -r $release_rev -u "$HG_USER" -m "Added tag $RELEASE_TAG for changeset $release_rev. CLOSED TREE a=release" $RELEASE_TAG
hg -R mozilla-release commit -u "$HG_USER" -m "Closing old head. CLOSED TREE a=release" --close-branch

hg -R mozilla-release pull mozilla-beta
hg -R mozilla-release up -C default

# edit shipped-locales file if you need to remove some beta locales
# edit confvars.sh:
-ACCEPTED_MAR_CHANNEL_IDS=firefox-mozilla-beta,firefox-mozilla-release
+ACCEPTED_MAR_CHANNEL_IDS=firefox-mozilla-release

-MAR_CHANNEL_ID=firefox-mozilla-beta
+MAR_CHANNEL_ID=firefox-mozilla-release

# commit the changes
hg -R mozilla-release commit -u "$HG_USER" -m "Updating confvars.sh CLOSED TREE a=release"

# push back
# hg -R mozilla-release push -f -e "ssh -l ffxbld -i ~/.ssh/ffxbld_dsa" ssh://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-release

L10N sync

Script available here (beta2release_l10n.sh)

#!/bin/bash
set -x
set -e

HG_USER="ffxbld <release@mozilla.com>"
HG_HOST=hg.mozilla.org
repo=mozilla-release
release_repo_path=releases/l10n/mozilla-release
beta_repo_path=releases/l10n/mozilla-beta
wd=`pwd`/l10n

mkdir -p $wd
cd $wd

for l in `wget -q -O- http://$HG_HOST/releases/$repo/raw-file/default/browser/locales/shipped-locales | grep -v en-US | awk '{print $1}'`; do
    hg clone http://$HG_HOST/$release_repo_path/$l
    hg clone http://$HG_HOST/$beta_repo_path/$l $l.beta
    release_rev=`hg -R $l id -i -r default`
    beta_rev=`hg -R $l.beta id -i -r default`
    hg -R $l pull $l.beta
    hg -R $l up -C default
    heads=`hg -R $l heads --template '{rev}\n' default|wc -l`
    if [ "x$heads" != "x1" ]; then
        hg -R $l up -C -r $beta_rev
        HGMERGE=true hg -R $l merge -r $release_rev
        hg -R $l revert -a -y --no-backup -r $beta_rev
        hg -R $l commit -m "Merge from mozilla-beta" -u "$HG_USER"
        hg -R $l commit -u $HG_USER -m "Merge from mozilla-beta. CLOSED TREE a=release"
    fi
    hg -R $l diff -r $beta_rev -r default
    hg -R $l push -f -e "ssh -l ffxbld -i ~/.ssh/ffxbld_dsa" ssh://$HG_HOST/$release_repo_path/$l
done