Steps in doing an ns-3 release

We typically post release candidates for testing at the following URL:

https://www.nsnam.org/release/ns-allinone-3.X.rcX.tar.bz2

This overview covers the following release stages:

1) new feature additions and bug fixing

2) preparing release candidates for testing

3) making the actual release

4) maintaining the release

1) new feature additions and bug fixing

---------------------------------------

During the software development phase, it is important for the release

manager to try to maintain the following files with updated information:

- AUTHORS

- RELEASE_NOTES

- CHANGES.html

otherwise, this becomes painful to edit (and things are forgotten)

when the release is imminent.

2) preparing release candidates for testing

-------------------------------------------

This step presumes that you have a reasonably solid ns-3-dev that you

and/or the buildbots have been testing

   - building static, optimized, and debug versions

   - try Python visualizer (not tested by buildbots)

      -- ./waf --pyrun src/flow-monitor/examples/wifi-olsr-flowmon.py --vis

   - ensure that tests pass (./test.py -g) and make sure that the buildbots

     are reporting blue based on the tip of the repository

   - revise and check in AUTHORS, RELEASE_NOTES, and CHANGES.html

   - required versions for related libraries (nsc, netanim, pybindgen)

     are correct

   - confirm that Doxygen builds cleanly (./waf doxygen), 

   - confirm all documents build:  './waf docs' and check outputs

Check out a clean ns-3-dev somewhere using ns-3-allinone 

   - hg clone http://code.nsnam.org/ns-3-allinone

   - ./download.py

   - cd ns-3-dev

   - edit VERSION such as "ns-3.14.rc1" (DO NOT commit this change to ns-3-dev)

   - cd ..

   - ./dist.py

This should yield a compressed tarfile, such as:  ns-allinone-3.14.rc1.tar.bz2 

Test this, and when satisfied, upload it to

www.nsnam.org:/var/www/html/releases/ (with apache:apache file ownership)

Announce it to ns-developers as:

https://www.nsnam.org/release/ns-allinone-3.14.rc1.tar.bz2

Iterate the above as needed during the release testing phase.

Note, in the past we have added mercurial tags to ns-3-dev to denote

release candidates, but lately we have not been bothering with this.

If you would like to tag a release candidate, follow these steps

     -- hg tag "ns-3.X.rcX" (for the appropriate version numbers)

     -- hg push ssh://code@code.nsnam.org/repos/ns-3-dev

3) making the release

---------------------

Follow similar steps for creating the release candidate tarballs, except

we will work off of a release repository.

At this point, you are ready for final packaging and repository/site work

tagging ns-3-dev and creating ns-3.X repositories

-------------------------------------------------

We'll refer to the release number as "X" or "x" below.  The steps here 

involve tagging ns-3-dev, copying over ns-3-dev to ns-3.X on code.nsnam.org, 

cloning it locally, making changes from "3-dev" to "3.X" in various places, 

and checking in those changes to the new ns-3.X repository.

1. once you are happy with the most recent release candidate tarball and

do not plan to further touch ns-3-dev, tag ns-3-dev

   - cd into ns-3-dev

     -- hg tag "ns-3.x"

     -- hg push ssh://code@code.nsnam.org//home/code/repos/ns-3-dev

2. copy the tagged ns-3-dev and place it on the repository

   - ssh code.nsnam.org; sudo bash; su code;

     -- cp -r /home/code/repos/ns-3-dev /home/code/repos/ns-3.x

     -- cd /home/code/repos/ns-3.x/.hg and edit the hgrc appropriately:

       [paths]

       default = /home/code/repos/ns-3.x

       [web]

       description = ns-3.x release

       name = ns-3.x

       contact = <ns-developers@isi.edu>

3. check out a clean version of the new release (ns-3.x) 

   to a scratch directory on your local machine 

   - hg clone http://code.nsnam.org/ns-3.x

5. Update the VERSION for this new release, in the ns-3.x directory (i.e.

   NOT in ns-3-dev)

   - change the string 3-dev in the VERSION file to the real version 

     (e.g. 3.14)  This must agree with the version name you chose in the clone.

   - change the version and release string for the documentation in 

     doc/manual/source, doc/tutorial/source, doc/tutorial-pt/source, 

     and doc/models/source conf.py files

     This should hopefully be updated in the future to simply pull from the

     VERSION file.

   - hg commit -m "update VERSION to ns-3.x"

   - hg push ssh://code@code.nsnam.org//home/code/repos/ns-3.x

creating the distribution tarball

---------------------------------

1. Create final tarballs

    You need to work with a clean ns-3-allinone-3.x directory

   - hg clone http://code.nsnam.org/ns-3-allinone

   - cd ns-3-allinone

   - ./download.py -n ns-3.x

   - ./dist.py (notice we did not build here)

   - this will create an ns-allinone-3.x.tar.bz2 tarball

   - sanity check this tarball just to make sure everything went ok

2. upload "ns-allinone-3.x.tar.bz2" to the /var/www/html/releases/ directory on 

   the www.nsnam.org server

   - scp ns-allinone-3.x.tar.bz2 www.nsnam.org:~

   - ssh www.nsnam.org

   - sudo cp ns-allinone-3.x.tar.bz2 /var/www/html/releases

   - cd !$

3. give it 644 file permissions, and user/group = apache if it is not already

   - sudo chown apache:apache ns-allinone-3.x.tar.bz2

   - sudo chmod 644 ns-allinone-3.x.tar.bz2

4. if this is a final release (not RC)

   - delete RC releases from /var/www/html/releases

preparing the documentation

----------------------------

1. If final release, build release documentation

   - sudo bash; su nsnam; cd /home/nsnam/bin 

   ./update-docs -r http://code.nsnam.org/ns-3.x -R

2. Check if these new files are available on the website

preparing the Wordpress-based main website

------------------------------------------

1. create a new ns-3.x page which should be visible from

http://www.nsnam.org/ns-3.x

- New Features

- Download

- Bugs Fixed

- Documentation

2. Repoint http://www.nsnam.org/releases/latest to the new page

   Repoint /var/www/html/doxygen-release to the new release doxygen.

3. Update the Older Releases page to create an entry for the previous

release (there are two such pages, one under Releases and one under

Documentation)

4. The main page http://www.nsnam.org should point to

ns-3.x in the "Download" and "Documentation" boxes

ns-3 wiki edits

---------------

1. Create ns-3.(X+1) wiki page if not done already.

2. edit front page and Roadmap

Bugzilla

--------

1. Add a product version "ns-3.x" to the available versions.

Announcing

----------

1. Final checks

   - check manual, tutorial, model, and doxygen documentation links

   - download tarball from web, build and run tests for as many

     targets as you can

   - download release from mercurial, build and run tests for as

     many targets as you can

   - test and verify until you're confident the release is solid.

2. announce to ns-developers and ns-3-users, with summary of release notes

4) maintaining the release

--------------------------

First, create skeletal sections in CHANGES.html and RELEASE_NOTES to

start collecting inputs for the ns-3.(x+1) release.

The project may decide to make incremental, bug-fix releases from

time to time, with a minor version number (e.g. ns-3.7.1).  To do

this, changesets may be cherry-picked from ns-3-dev and added to

ns-3.x repository.  Do not move over changesets that pertain to 

adding new features, but documentation fixes and bug fixes are good 

changesets to make available in a minor release.  The same steps

above for making a release are generally followed, although one

does not need to create a separate repository, but instead just tags

the existing ns-3-dev and ns-3.x repositories with a "ns-3.x.1" type

of tag.

Also, on the main website, make sure that "latest release" points to

the right page.  See how it was handled for ns-3.12 (which made

a minor release): https://www.nsnam.org/ns-3.12/