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Release

Release cycle

Currently we don’t release regularly. Whenever we think it makes sense to release a new version we do it.
You might want to ask in our Slack channel external-dns when the next release will come out.

Staging Release cycle

A new staging image is released weekly and can be found on the official staging registry.

There is a time lag between merging changes into the master branch and the subsequent creation of the staging image.

Example command to fetch 10 most recent staging images:

export EXT_DNS_VERSION="v0.22.0"
curl -sLk https://gcr.io/v2/k8s-staging-external-dns/external-dns/tags/list | jq | grep "$EXT_DNS_VERSION" | tail -n 10

Versioning convention

These are the conventions that we will be using for releases following 0.7.6:

  • Patch version should be updated if we need to merge bugfixes, e.g. provider a does need a fix in order make updates working again. I would see updating or improving documentation here.
  • Minor version should be updated if new features are implemented in existing providers or new provider get introduced.
  • Major version should be upgraded if we introduce breaking changes.

Semantic Versioning Discipline

External-DNS follows semantic versioning principles:

  • 0.x → pre-stable, APIs subject to change.
  • 1.x → not yet considered.

Versioning & Releases
External-DNS opts to stay within 0.x versioning scheme.
We strive for stability, but reserve the right to introduce breaking changes in minor version bumps when necessary.

How to release a new image

Prerequisite

We use https://github.com/cli/cli to automate the release process. Please install it according to the official documentation.

You must be an official maintainer of the project to be able to do a release.

Steps

  1. Run scripts/releaser.sh to create a new GitHub release (and git tag). Alternatively create a release in the GitHub UI and use the autogenerate release notes feature.
  2. The step above triggers the Kubernetes CI/CD system Prow. Verify that a new image was built and uploaded to gcr.io/k8s-staging-external-dns/external-dns.
  3. Create a PR in the k8s.io repo promoting the staging image by sha256 digest (from scripts/get-sha256.sh). Once that PR merges, the image is available at registry.k8s.io under the release tag.
    • See https://github.com/kubernetes/k8s.io/pull/8466 for reference
  4. Verify that the image is pullable with the given tag:
    • docker run registry.k8s.io/external-dns/external-dns:v0.x.0 --version
  5. Only after the image is pullable: branch from the default branch and run scripts/version-updater.sh to update the image tag in kustomize/ manifests and documentation.
  6. Open and merge the version-updater PR.
  7. Open an issue to release the corresponding Helm chart (chart process below), assigned to a chart maintainer.
  8. Once the version-updater PR is merged, the release is complete.

Git tags vs kustomize manifests (known lag)

Image promotion and in-repo manifest updates cannot happen in a single commit on the release tag. CI needs the git tag first to build and promote the image; kustomize/docs must not advertise a tag until that image is live on registry.k8s.io.

Consequences:

Source Image tag in manifests
Git release tag (e.g. v0.18.0) Still points at the previous release image until a follow-up commit lands
master after the version-updater PR Matches the new release image
Helm chart appVersion after chart release Matches the new release image

So:

  • Do not treat the kustomize tree on the git tag as the source of truth for that version’s image.
  • Prefer the Helm chart, or the post-release version-updater commit on master, for install manifests that pin the new tag.

How to release a new chart version

The chart needs to be released in response to an ExternalDNS image release or on an as-needed basis; this should be triggered by an issue to release the chart.

Steps

  • Create a PR to update Chart.yaml with the ExternalDNS version in appVersion, agreed on chart release version in version and annotations showing the changes
  • Validate that the chart linting is successful
  • Merge the PR to trigger a GitHub action to release the chart