VTK Release Procedures

Tagging and Creating a Branch

This example uses VTK-5-4 in the text. Adjust accordingly for whatever release you are doing...

When creating a new branch for a VTK release:

• Eliminate write access to VTK and VTKData CVS HEAD for everyone except yourself

• Make a "branch point" non-branch tag first:

 cd ../VTK
 cvs tag VTK-5-4-bp
 cd ../VTKData
 cvs tag VTK-5-4-bp

• Verify that nobody else has made commits since the tag began:

 cd ../VTK
 cvs -n up -dAP
 cd ../VTKData
 cvs -n up -dAP

• Create the branch:

 cd ../VTK
 cvs tag -b VTK-5-4
 cd ../VTKData
 cvs tag -b VTK-5-4

• Update version number in branch and CVS HEAD (toplevel CMakeLists.txt)

Dashboards

• Duplicate all the existing dashboard scripts running against the previous branch and edit them to run against the new branch.
• Go to each dashboard machine and edit its crontab or scheduled tasks to run the new scripts
• Make sure there is a source and data tree for each script in its new location (a subdirectory named for the branch)
• On CDash, make a new group for Nightly branch submissions
• Once all machines are submitting on the new branch, and the previous branch has no more submissions, delete the CDash group for the previous branch

Build/Upload the Release

• Use BuildRC to build release candidates on the designated build machines (one for each major platform)

Make a new master CD

• Develop script to pull pieces from web and put them in the expected locations for the CD image

Update Wiki

• Update the VTK_5.4_Release_Planning page (or the equivalent for this release) to reflect the actual dates when things happened...