Foreman 3.18 branching process

ogajduse · December 12, 2025, 1:28pm

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Roles

Ensure headline features planned for the release have been merged or push them off to the next release.
Translations:
- Setup Transifex CLI if not already installed: Follow the Transifex CLI documentation for installation and authentication setup
- Update locales in foreman develop: make -C locale tx-update
- Coordinate with plugin authors to extract i18n strings:
  - Ask plugin authors to start extracting i18n strings and pushing the changes into develop/master git branches so Transifex can pick it up (send a message in the Matrix channel)
- Work with Transifex for translation status and announcements:
  - Export translation statistics from Transifex (click on Report) and save as foreman_foreman.languages.csv. See this help article on how to generate the report for all languages.
  - Post string freeze announcement to foreman-dev using [string_freeze_announcement](https://github.com/theforeman/theforeman-rel-eng/blob/master/string_freeze_announcement) foreman_foreman.languages.csv BRANCHING_DATE RC1_DATE RC2_DATE PLANNING_URL to encourage 100% translations before release
  - Send a project-level announcement on Transifex about the string freeze using [transifex_announcement](https://github.com/theforeman/theforeman-rel-eng/blob/master/transifex_announcement) GA_DATE SCHEDULE_URL PLANNING_URL
- Track translation work in project management:
  - Create Redmine issue for locale updates: Template link

Announce start of stabilization week to discourse development category.
Request new Hammer CLI release from maintainers if needed.
Prepare the manual for the new version:
- Update installer options section of nightly manual using the get-params script
- Copy website manual content from nightly to 3.18 and update version numbers mentioned in it.
  - cp -r manuals/nightly manuals/3.18
  - cp -r _includes/manuals/nightly _includes/manuals/3.18
  - sed -i 's/nightly/3.18/i' manuals/3.18/*.md
  - sed -i '/previous_version/ s/: .\+/: "3.18"/' manuals/nightly/index.md
  - sed -i '/- nightly/a \ \ - "3.18"' _config.yml
- Clean up deprecation and upgrade warnings from nightly manual for in both foreman.adoc and katello.adoc.
Add new languages that are at a reasonable completion on Transifex to develop

Create new GPG key for release. See GPG_Keys if needed.
- generate_gpg
- export_gpg_private to back up
- sign_gpg
- upload_gpg
Publish the key
- Use export_gpg_public to show the GPG key and update the website’s security.md and create a file in static/keys
- Use upload_yum_gpg to create releases/3.18/RPM-GPG-KEY-foreman on yum.theforeman.org
- Make sure the settings file contains the right OSES list. It should match what is in the nightly settings file
- Commit the settings file to the theforeman-rel-eng repository
Create new settings files for client, ensure it has the rights OSES list and commit it too.
Open a PR with the result of jenkins-jobs branching: ./branch-foreman 3.18 KATELLO_VERSION
Open PR to remove any jobs that are related to end of life versions
Open PR to add 3.18 to Forklift versions config. Once the PR is merged, upgrade pipelines will fail, so do not merge it before packaging has been branched.

Branch RPM packaging
- Create a rpm/3.18 branch in foreman-packaging based on rpm/develop: git checkout rpm/develop && git pull && git checkout -b rpm/3.18
- Update foreman_version in package_manifest.yaml on the rpm/3.18 branch: sed -i '/foreman_version:/ s/nightly/3.18/' package_manifest.yaml
- Update katello_version in package_manifest.yaml on the rpm/3.18 branch: sed -i '/katello_version:/ s/nightly/KATELLO_VERSION_HERE/' package_manifest.yaml
- Create release repositories in Copr by forking nightly repositories obal copr-project copr_projects on the rpm/3.18 branch
- Push the rpm/3.18 branch
Branch Debian packaging
- Clone Debian nightly repos to 3.18 using copy/freight instructions
- Create a deb/3.18 branch in foreman-packaging based on deb/develop

Create 3.18-stable branches using branch_project
Push 3.18-stable branches using branch_push
Branch foreman-documentation git repository and update website for new release by following the README instructions
Ask Hammer maintainer to branch hammer-cli and hammer-cli-foreman

The next step should only be done after all branching, including packaging, has completed.

Bump versions to 3.19-develop using develop_branch_bump
Push version bumps to 3.19-develop using develop_branch_push
Create Redmine version 3.19.0 and make sure it is shared with subprojects in foreman
Ask Hammer maintainer to bump hammer-cli and hammer-cli-foreman

Merge the earlier created jenkins-jobs PR that creates the release pipelines
Update foreman-packaging rpm/develop to ensure nightlies build:
- rpm/develop:
  - Update the build tag: sed -i 's/fm3_18/fm3_19/g' package_manifest.yaml
  - Set to version 3.19.0, reset release to 1: sed -i '/^Version:/ s/[0-9\.]\+$/3.19.0/ ; /^%global release/ s/[0-9]\+$/1/' packages/foreman/foreman{,-{installer,proxy,release,selinux}}/*.spec packages/foreman/rubygem-hammer_cli{,_foreman}/*.spec
  - Create a changelog using obal changelog --message '- Bump version to 3.19-develop' foreman{,-{installer,proxy,release,selinux}} rubygem-hammer_cli{,_foreman}
  - Commit: git commit -a -m 'Bump version to 3.19-develop'
- deb/develop: scripts/changelog.rb -v 3.19.0-1 -m "Bump changelog to 3.19.0 to match VERSION" debian/*/*/changelog
Prepare build systems for 3.18 release:
- foreman-packaging’s rpm/3.18
  - Update packages/foreman/foreman-release/foreman.gpg, mock/*.cfg, package_manifest.yaml and repoclosure/*.conf
- foreman-packaging’s deb/3.18
  - Update debian/*/foreman-release/theforeman-archive-keyring.asc from https://deb.theforeman.org/foreman.asc, you will only see changes if the key was recently updated.
Trigger the foreman-packaging-rpm-3.18 job once, so that GitHub hooks are properly set up.
Trigger the foreman-packaging-deb-3.18 job once, so that GitHub hooks are properly set up.

Create the 3.18.0-rc release procedure in Development/Releases: PROJECT=foreman VERSION=3.18 ./procedure_release 2026-02-10 '@ogajduse' '@ogajduse' | wl-copy
Create a Foreman 3.19 Schedule and Planning post on Development/Releases using schedule: ./schedule 2026-02-11 (make sure there are no conflicts with other important dates)
Ask on Discourse Developers to remove Foreman deprecations for the next release in develop

This was based on the wiki procedure and sometimes has a bit more info.