1============================= 2How To Validate a New Release 3============================= 4 5.. contents:: 6 :local: 7 :depth: 1 8 9Introduction 10============ 11 12This document contains information about testing the release candidates that will 13ultimately be the next LLVM release. For more information on how to manage the 14actual release, please refer to :doc:`HowToReleaseLLVM`. 15 16Overview of the Release Process 17------------------------------- 18 19Once the release process starts, the Release Manager will ask for volunteers, 20and it'll be the role of each volunteer to: 21 22* Test and benchmark the previous release 23 24* Test and benchmark each release candidate, comparing to the previous release and candidates 25 26* Identify, reduce and report every regression found during tests and benchmarks 27 28* Make sure the critical bugs get fixed and merged to the next release candidate 29 30Not all bugs or regressions are show-stoppers and it's a bit of a grey area what 31should be fixed before the next candidate and what can wait until the next release. 32 33It'll depend on: 34 35* The severity of the bug, how many people it affects and if it's a regression or a 36 known bug. Known bugs are "unsupported features" and some bugs can be disabled if 37 they have been implemented recently. 38 39* The stage in the release. Less critical bugs should be considered to be fixed between 40 RC1 and RC2, but not so much at the end of it. 41 42* If it's a correctness or a performance regression. Performance regression tends to be 43 taken more lightly than correctness. 44 45.. _scripts: 46 47Scripts 48======= 49 50The scripts are in the ``utils/release`` directory. 51 52test-release.sh 53--------------- 54 55This script will check-out, configure and compile LLVM+Clang (+ most add-ons, like ``compiler-rt``, 56``libcxx``, ``libomp`` and ``clang-extra-tools``) in three stages, and will test the final stage. 57It'll have installed the final binaries on the Phase3/Releasei(+Asserts) directory, and 58that's the one you should use for the test-suite and other external tests. 59 60To run the script on a specific release candidate run:: 61 62 ./test-release.sh \ 63 -release 3.3 \ 64 -rc 1 \ 65 -no-64bit \ 66 -test-asserts \ 67 -no-compare-files 68 69Each system will require different options. For instance, x86_64 will obviously not need 70``-no-64bit`` while 32-bit systems will, or the script will fail. 71 72The important flags to get right are: 73 74* On the pre-release, you should change ``-rc 1`` to ``-final``. On RC2, change it to ``-rc 2`` and so on. 75 76* On non-release testing, you can use ``-final`` in conjunction with ``-no-checkout``, but you'll have to 77 create the ``final`` directory by hand and link the correct source dir to ``final/llvm.src``. 78 79* For release candidates, you need ``-test-asserts``, or it won't create a "Release+Asserts" directory, 80 which is needed for release testing and benchmarking. This will take twice as long. 81 82* On the final candidate you just need Release builds, and that's the binary directory you'll have to pack. 83 84This script builds three phases of Clang+LLVM twice each (Release and Release+Asserts), so use 85screen or nohup to avoid headaches, since it'll take a long time. 86 87Use the ``--help`` option to see all the options and chose it according to your needs. 88 89 90findRegressions-nightly.py 91-------------------------- 92 93TODO 94 95.. _test-suite: 96 97Test Suite 98========== 99 100.. contents:: 101 :local: 102 103Follow the `LNT Quick Start Guide <http://llvm.org/docs/lnt/quickstart.html>`__ link on how to set-up the test-suite 104 105The binary location you'll have to use for testing is inside the ``rcN/Phase3/Release+Asserts/llvmCore-REL-RC.install``. 106Link that directory to an easier location and run the test-suite. 107 108An example on the run command line, assuming you created a link from the correct 109install directory to ``~/devel/llvm/install``:: 110 111 ./sandbox/bin/python sandbox/bin/lnt runtest \ 112 nt \ 113 -j4 \ 114 --sandbox sandbox \ 115 --test-suite ~/devel/llvm/test/test-suite \ 116 --cc ~/devel/llvm/install/bin/clang \ 117 --cxx ~/devel/llvm/install/bin/clang++ 118 119It should have no new regressions, compared to the previous release or release candidate. You don't need to fix 120all the bugs in the test-suite, since they're not necessarily meant to pass on all architectures all the time. This is 121due to the nature of the result checking, which relies on direct comparison, and most of the time, the failures are 122related to bad output checking, rather than bad code generation. 123 124If the errors are in LLVM itself, please report every single regression found as blocker, and all the other bugs 125as important, but not necessarily blocking the release to proceed. They can be set as "known failures" and to be 126fix on a future date. 127 128.. _pre-release-process: 129 130Pre-Release Process 131=================== 132 133.. contents:: 134 :local: 135 136When the release process is announced on the mailing list, you should prepare 137for the testing, by applying the same testing you'll do on the release candidates, 138on the previous release. 139 140You should: 141 142* Download the previous release sources from http://llvm.org/releases/download.html. 143 144* Run the test-release.sh script on ``final`` mode (change ``-rc 1`` to ``-final``). 145 146* Once all three stages are done, it'll test the final stage. 147 148* Using the ``Phase3/Release+Asserts/llvmCore-MAJ.MIN-final.install`` base, run the test-suite. 149 150If the final phase's ``make check-all`` failed, it's a good idea to also test the 151intermediate stages by going on the obj directory and running ``make check-all`` to find 152if there's at least one stage that passes (helps when reducing the error for bug report 153purposes). 154 155.. _release-process: 156 157Release Process 158=============== 159 160.. contents:: 161 :local: 162 163When the Release Manager sends you the release candidate, download all sources, 164unzip on the same directory (there will be sym-links from the appropriate places 165to them), and run the release test as above. 166 167You should: 168 169* Download the current candidate sources from where the release manager points you 170 (ex. http://llvm.org/pre-releases/3.3/rc1/). 171 172* Repeat the steps above with ``-rc 1``, ``-rc 2`` etc modes and run the test-suite 173 the same way. 174 175* Compare the results, report all errors on Bugzilla and publish the binary blob 176 where the release manager can grab it. 177 178Once the release manages announces that the latest candidate is the good one, you 179have to pack the ``Release`` (no Asserts) install directory on ``Phase3`` and that 180will be the official binary. 181 182* Rename (or link) ``clang+llvm-REL-ARCH-ENV`` to the .install directory 183 184* Tar that into the same name with ``.tar.gz`` extensioan from outside the directory 185 186* Make it available for the release manager to download 187 188.. _bug-reporting: 189 190Bug Reporting Process 191===================== 192 193.. contents:: 194 :local: 195 196If you found regressions or failures when comparing a release candidate with the 197previous release, follow the rules below: 198 199* Critical bugs on compilation should be fixed as soon as possible, possibly before 200 releasing the binary blobs. 201 202* Check-all tests should be fixed before the next release candidate, but can wait 203 until the test-suite run is finished. 204 205* Bugs in the test suite or unimportant check-all tests can be fixed in between 206 release candidates. 207 208* New features or recent big changes, when close to the release, should have done 209 in a way that it's easy to disable. If they misbehave, prefer disabling them than 210 releasing an unstable (but untested) binary package. 211