admin/make-tarball.txt

   1 Instructions to create pretest or release tarballs.
   2 -- originally written by Gerd Moellmann, amended by Francesco Potortì
   3    with the initial help of Eli Zaretskii
   4
   5 For each step, check for possible errors.
   6
   7 0.  Decide on versions of automake and autoconf, and ensure you will
   8     have them available for the duration of the release process.
   9
  10 1.  `bzr update' (for a bound branch), or `bzr pull'.
  11      bzr status # check for locally modified files
  12
  13 2.  Bootstrap to make 100% sure all elc files are up-to-date, and to
  14     make sure that the later tagged version will bootstrap, should it be
  15     necessary to check it out.
  16
  17 3.  Regenerate the etc/AUTHORS file:
  18     M-: (require 'authors) RET, M-x authors RET, save the *Authors* buffer.
  19     If there are errors that relate to syntactically incorrect
  20     ChangeLog entries, consider fixing them and repeating.
  21
  22 4.  Set the version number (M-x load-file RET admin/admin.el RET, then
  23     M-x set-version RET).  For a release, add released ChangeLog
  24     entries (M-x add-release-logs RET).
  25
  26     For a pretest, start at version .90.  After .99, use .990 (so that
  27     it sorts).
  28
  29     If needed, increment the value of the variable
  30     `customize-changed-options-previous-release' in cus-edit.el to
  31     refer to a newer release of Emacs.  (This is probably needed only
  32     when preparing a major Emacs release, or branching for it.)
  33
  34 5.   autoreconf -i -I m4 --force
  35      make bootstrap
  36
  37 6.  Commit etc/AUTHORS, all the files changed by M-x set-version, and
  38     lisp/cus-edit.el (if modified).
  39     Copy lisp/loaddefs.el to lisp/ldefs-boot.el and commit lisp/ldefs-boot.el.
  40     For a release, also commit the ChangeLog files in all directories.
  41
  42 7.   make-dist --snapshot.  Check the contents of the new tar with
  43     admin/diff-tar-files against an older tar file.  Some old pretest
  44     tarballs may be found at <ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest>;
  45     old release tarballs are at <ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs/>.
  46
  47     If this is the first pretest of a major release, just comparing
  48     with the previous release may overlook many new files.  You can try
  49     something like `find . | sort' in a clean bzr tree, and compare the
  50     results against the new tar contents.
  51
  52 8.   tar -zxf emacs-NEW.tar.gz; cd emacs-NEW
  53      ./configure && make && make -n install
  54     Use `script' or M-x compile to save the compilation log in
  55     compile-NEW.log and compare it against an old one.  The easiest way
  56     to do that is to visit the old log in Emacs, change the version
  57     number of the old Emacs to __, do the same with the new log and do
  58     M-x ediff.  Especially check that Info files aren't built.
  59
  60 9.  cd EMACS_ROOT_DIR; bzr tag TAG
  61     TAG is emacs-XX.Y.ZZ for a pretest, emacs-XX.Y for a release.
  62
  63     Shortly before the release, cut the version branch also, and open
  64     a Savannah support request asking for commits to the new branch to
  65     be sent to the emacs-diffs mailing list (by default, the list
  66     normally only gets commits to the trunk).
  67
  68 10. Now you should upload the files to the GNU ftp server.  In order to
  69     do that, you must be registered as an Emacs maintainer and have your
  70     GPG key acknowledged by the ftp people.  For instructions, see
  71     http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Automated-Upload-Registration.html
  72     You can use the gnulib script "gnupload" to upload each FILE, like this:
  73      gnupload --to alpha.gnu.org:emacs/pretest FILE (for a pretest)
  74      gnupload --to ftp.gnu.org:emacs FILE           (for a release)
  75
  76     Instead of using gnupload, for each FILE, create a detached GPG
  77     binary signature and a clearsigned directive file like this:
  78      gpg -b FILE
  79      echo directory: emacs/pretest > FILE.directive      (for a pretest)
  80      echo directory: emacs > FILE.directive              (for a release)
  81      gpg --clearsign FILE.directive
  82     Upload by anonymous ftp to ftp://ftp-upload.gnu.org/ the files FILE,
  83     FILE.sig, FILE.directive.asc.
  84     For a release, place the files in the /incoming/ftp directory.
  85     For a pretest, place the files in /incoming/alpha instead, so that
  86     they appear on ftp://alpha.gnu.org/.
  87
  88     For a release, upload xz and bz2 tarfiles as well; this can save a lot
  89     of bandwidth.
  90
  91 11. After five minutes, verify that the files are visible at
  92     ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/ for a pretest, at
  93     ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/ for a release.
  94
  95 12. For a pretest, announce it on emacs-devel and info-gnu-emacs@gnu.org.
  96     For a release, also announce it on info-gnu@gnu.org.  (Probably
  97     bcc the info- addresses to make it less likely that people will
  98     followup on those lists.)
  99
 100 13. For a release, update the Emacs homepage in the web repository.
 101     Also add the new NEWS file as NEWS.xx.y.