...

Create a RSA GPG key of length 4096, upload it to the public server, and add it to the KEYS file (do this process once for each release lead):

• https:

...

• /

...

• /

...

• dist.apache.org/repos/dist/

...

• release/incubator/mxnet/KEYS

See more detailed instructions on creating the key here: https://www.apache.org/dev/openpgp.html#generate-key. Instructions for updating the KEYS file can be found here: https://github.com/apache/incubator-mxnet/blob/master/KEYS#L9-L13. at the beginning of the KEYS file. Note that you must use apache email instead of personal email for the key.  The following instructions shows how to update the key using svn.

# checkout the apache mxnet repo
svn co https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/devrelease/incubator/mxnet apache-mxnet
cd apache-mxnet
# update the KEYS file ...
# commit the update
svn commit -m “update keys file for xxx ” --username your_username --password your_passwd

...

• The release candidate should contain all planned features, bug fixes, and code changes above. The release candidate commit should have passed the merge build, pip builds
• Docs should also be manually built locally & checked for correctness. TODO: how to retrieve the commit hash.
• Checkout the commit into a new branch "v#.#.x" and push it (It might be a good idea to do this in advance and freeze the branch)
• Update NEWS and README. Examples can be followed here: NEWS.md and README.md. Note that this assumes the existence of the tag of next release, which is not created yet. Therefore, the update only happens on the release branch (not the master branch) so broken links are not visible to users.

Manual Docs Build

The build_all_versions.sh must also be updated with the correct tag

...

• Docs should also be manually built locally & checked for correctness.
  • build and host the website locally to check the correctness.
  • More reference here: Host a MXNet Website Preview. Contact MXNet engineering team for access if needed

Step 1.7. Test the release branch

...

git clone git@github.com:apache/incubator-mxnet.git apache-mxnet-src-0.12.0.rc0-incubating
git checkout v0.12.0
git submodule update --init --recursive
git checkout 0.12.0.rc0
rm -rf R-package/*
rm -rf R-package
rm -rf .DS_Store
rm -rf CODEOWNERS
find . -name ".git*" -print0 | xargs -0 rm -rf
brew install gnu-tar 
gtar -czvf apache-mxnet-src-0.12.0.rc0-incubating.tar.gz apache-mxnet-src-0.12.0.rc0-incubating

...

svn co https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/mxnet && cd mxnet/#.#.#.rc0
brew install gpg coreutils
wget https://downloads.apache.org/incubator/mxnet/KEYS
gpg --import ../KEYS

gpg --verify ./apache-mxnet-src-0.11.0.rc3-incubating.tar.gz.asc
gsha512sum --check  ./apache-mxnet-src-0.11.0.rc1-incubating.tar.gz.sha512 

...

In ASF, votes are open "at least" 72hrs (3 days). If you don't get enough number of binding votes within that time, you cannot close the voting deadline. You need to extend it.
Send out a notice to vote with the template below. 

Make sure the dev community is aware of any ASF votes and results so they can be active in the ongoing voting process.

Send out a notice to vote with the template below.
To get the fingerprint of your keys, run `gpg2 --list-keys --fingerprint`

...

Send out an email on general@ in the same voting thread which you sent in previous step to summarize the result.

3. Finalizing and posting a release

3.1. Marking & Publishing the Official release

Once the release candidate passes the vote, we draft the official release on GitHub and rename the release candidate as the official release.

Step 3.1.1: Draft official release on GitHub

Go to the GitHub repo’s “releases” tab

Click “Draft a new release”

Provide the release tag in the form of “<major>.<minor>.<patch>”

Select the commit by clicking Target: branch > the passing release candidate tag

Copy and paste NEWS change into the description box

Step 3.1.2: Rename and publish the source package

First upload to dev and then move to releases as follows:

#create a directory under releases - https://httpd.apache.org/dev/release.html

This process needs to change -> http://www.apache.org/dev/release-download-pages.html

# Step 1: Download and Untar
tar -zxvf apache-mxnet-src-0.11.0.rc3-incubating.tar.gz

# Step 2: rename (remove the rc) and tar again
mv apache-mxnet-src-0.11.0.rc3-incubating apache-mxnet-src-0.11.0-incubating
gtar -czvf apache-mxnet-src-0.11.0-incubating.tar.gz apache-mxnet-src-0.11.0-incubating

# Step 3: Resign now
 
# Step 4: First upload here - 
svn mv https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/mxnet/0.11.0/
 
# Step 5: Move from dev to release
svn mv https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/mxnet/0.11.0/ https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/mxnet/ --message "0.11.0 release moving from dev to release repo"

 
# Wait 24hours for the src mirroring. The final download page for the announce email is somewhere here (example 0.11.0) - https://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/incubator/mxnet/0.11.0-incubating/

Step 3.1.3: Download the nightly pip build, rename, and publish:(by Sheng)

Step 3.1.4: Build, test, and publish the Docker images: (by Meghna)

This was done as follows in 0.11.0. In the future use the automated pipeline - 

Update the tag in the tool.sh file or select the correct tag in the Jenkins Job

Select the correct Repo name  = mxnet

Trigger the Job with IS_PUBLISH=false

Login to the slave and test each image for correct version by checking logs and/or Readme. 

Manually upload the 20 images that are built. 

Make sure to update the latest and previous docker images

...

 Send out a notice with the vote results with the template below.

To: general@incubator.apache.org
Subject: [RESULTS][VOTE] Release Apache MXNet (incubating) version $release.rc#

Dear Community,

The voting for releasing Apache MXNet (incubating) $release.rc# has passed with # +1 votes (# binding) and no 0 or -1 votes.
+1 votes:
* ###### / binding
* ############

Vote thread can be found at:
https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/##############

Thanks everyone for taking the time to review and vote for the release!
We will continue the rest of release process and send out the announcement email in the coming days.

Thanks,
$RM

3. Finalizing and posting a release

3.1. Marking & Publishing the Official release

Once the release candidate passes the vote, we draft the official release on GitHub and rename the release candidate as the official release.

Step 3.1.1: Draft official release on GitHub

Go to the GitHub repo’s “releases” tab

Click “Draft a new release”

Provide the release tag in the form of “<major>.<minor>.<patch>”

Select the commit by clicking Target: branch > the passing release candidate tag

Copy and paste NEWS change into the description box

Step 3.1.2: Rename and publish the source package

First upload to dev and then move to releases as follows:

#create a directory under releases - https://httpd.apache.org/dev/release.html

This process needs to change -> http://www.apache.org/dev/release-download-pages.html

# Step 1: Download and Untar
tar -zxvf apache-mxnet-src-0.11.0.rc3-incubating.tar.gz

# Step 2: rename (remove the rc) and tar again
mv apache-mxnet-src-0.11.0.rc3-incubating apache-mxnet-src-0.11.0-incubating
gtar -czvf apache-mxnet-src-0.11.0-incubating.tar.gz apache-mxnet-src-0.11.0-incubating

# Step 3: Resign now
 
# Step 4: First upload here - 
svn mv https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/mxnet/0.11.0/
 
# Step 5: Move from dev to release
svn mv https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/incubator/mxnet/0.11.0/ https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/release/incubator/mxnet/ --message "0.11.0 release moving from dev to release repo"

 
# Wait 24hours for the src mirroring. The final download page for the announce email is somewhere here (example 0.11.0) - https://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/incubator/mxnet/0.11.0-incubating/

Step 3.1.3: Build, test, and publish pip wheels and python docker images

For linux, we can trigger a release pipeline that builds, tests and publishes the pip wheels and python docker images for us with just a few steps:

1. Go to https://jenkins.mxnet-ci.com/job/restricted-mxnet-cd/job/mxnet-stable-release-pipeline/ and make sure you have write access to the Jenkins system.
2. Click "Configure" and update the "Branch specifier" to point to the GitHub branch/tag and click "Save" (The GitHub repository URL is set to apache/incubator-mxnet, if you are releasing using a fork, update this URL too)
   1. For branch, use <branchName>
   2. For tag, use refs/tags/<tagName>
3. Click "Build with Parameters" from the left pane, modify the following fields as needed and click on "Build"
   1. MXNET_VARIANTS : Make sure all supported cu* flavors are present
   2. RELEASE_BUILD" : Keep the box Unchecked
   3. CD_RELEASE_JOB_NAME : Do not modify this field
   4. VERSION : Mention the MXNet release tag here e.g. 1.8.0, 2.0.0 (This tag is only used in naming python docker images.)
4. This triggers the release pipelines for different cpu and cu* flavors which can be found here https://jenkins.mxnet-ci.com/job/restricted-mxnet-cd/job/mxnet-stable-release-job/ . You can click on "Open Blue Ocean" from the left pane to check pipeline status. There are 3 pipelines that get trigerred:
   1. First pipeline builds the libmxnet binaries for different flavors. Only after this pipeline completes (takes around 2.5 hours), the other two pipelines are triggered, that run in parallel.
   2. Second pipeline "python/pypi" publishes the pip wheels to https://dist.mxnet.io/python/.
      
   3. Third pipeline "python/docker" publishes the python docker images to https://gallery.ecr.aws/w6z5f7h2/mxnet/python.
5. If any job in any of the three pipelines fails, go through the corresponding logs and either
   1. Re-trigger the pipeline in case it's a flaky failure or
      
   2. Root cause and fix the issue and then re-trigger the pipeline.
6. Once all pipelines are green, Python wheels and Python docker images for all variants are published to their respective targets. Now we need to move these released artifacts to their final locations so that they are available to users:
   1. Python wheels (for this release) from https://dist.mxnet.io/python/ go to PyPI.
      1. Identify the wheels by the version number, date created, and variant string
      2. Download the above wheels, give them another test if needed, and upload them to PyPI
      3. For more info regarding publishing pip wheels to Pypi, please contact zhasheng@apache.org
   2. Python docker images (for this release) from https://gallery.ecr.aws/w6z5f7h2/mxnet/python go to dockerhub.
      
      1. Identify the docker images by the version number, date created, and variant string
      2. Pull each docker image to local (docker pull public.ecr.aws/w6z5f7h2/mxnet/python:<tag>)
      3. Tag downloaded images (docker tag …)
      4. Login to dockerhub (docker login ...)
         
      5. Push images (docker push …)

For mac, the following automated script can be used to build the wheel.(MacOS machine is required to generate wheels for mac)

#!/bin/bash

# Install brew
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

# Install developement tools
brew install nasm
brew install automake
brew install libtool
brew install ninja
brew install pkg-config
python -m pip install contextvars
python -m pip install numpy
python -m pip install requests

# Clone MXNet
cd $HOME
git clone -b v1.x --single-branch https://github.com/apache/incubator-mxnet.git # Use release tag instead
cd $HOME/incubator-mxnet/
git submodule update --init --recursive

# Set ENV variables and build statically
export IS_RELEASE=True
export mxnet_variant=cpu
echo $(git rev-parse HEAD) >> python/mxnet/COMMIT_HASH
mkdir -p $HOME/pip_build/mxnet-build
cp -r * $HOME/pip_build/mxnet-build
export CODE_DIR=$(pwd)
cd $HOME/pip_build/mxnet-build
CMAKE_STATICBUILD=1 ./tools/staticbuild/build.sh $mxnet_variant pip

# Package wheel
cd $HOME/pip_build
cp -r mxnet-build/tools/pip/* .
python setup.py bdist_wheel

# Copy wheel to $HOME/pip_build
cp $HOME/pip_build/dist/mxnet* $HOME/pip_build

Wheels are publish manually to pypi.

Please note that the release tag is usually created on a branch that's forked from v1.x and master. In that case it may lack some of the latest ci/cd fixes on the v1.x and master branch. We might need to manually port back those fixes for the cd pipeline to work.

Step 3.1.4: Verify the resources are uploaded

Check that the resources are present in http://www.apache.org/dist/incubator/mxnet. It may take a while for them to be visible. This will be mirrored throughout the Apache network. There are a few remaining steps.  

...

3

...

.

...

Test multinode and multi gpu (kvstore=1)

3.2. Update the MXNet website

Anchor
update-mxnet-website update-mxnet-website

...

Follow these steps to update website in release branch and create website artifacts.

1. Add the new installation version on the get_start page: Set the new version to be default, and add the dropdown option. See this example
2. Add download links to the install archives. See this example. Make sure to use archive.apache.org for all except the current one.
   • Current: http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.lua?filename=incubator/mxnet/#.#.#/apache-mxnet-src-#.#.#-incubating.tar.gz&action=download
   • Legacy: http://archive.apache.org/dist/incubator/mxnet/
3. Update the pip package table in /python/cpu/pip.md and /python/gpu/pip.md. See this example
4. Update and generate the image file for pip install table.
   • Download pip-packages.sketch from dmlc/web-data repo
   • Use Sketch or other diagram drawing tools to update the sketch file for the new version table (add rows/columns and checkmarks)
   • Save the new pip table as a png file with name pip-packages-{NEW_RELEASE_VERSION}.png
   • Upload the .sketch file and .png file to dmlc/web-data repo. See this example
   • Update pip install table link in pip_snippet.md. See this example
5. Add menu options for general version dropdown. Add the new release version number in _config.ym, _config_beta.tml and _config_prod.yml under '- master'. and _config_prod.yml under '- master'.
6. Update the dropdown versions for python doc. See this example
7. Update the dropdown versions in header.html. See this example
8. [WIP for master]Prepare and deploy the release version website artifacts, this step requires access permissions to CI Jenkins server
   • Log in to Jenkins pipeline restricted-website-update-versions
   • Goto Configure to make sure the Git Repository URL points to https://github.com/apache/incubator-mxnet.git
   • Click Build with Parameters on the left panel
   • Specify COMMIT_ID to the release branch
   • Specify FOLDER_NAME to the release version, e.g. 1.8.0 or 2.0.0
   • Build and make sure the pipeline finish successfully 

Step 3.2.2 Update website in master version

Ensure all the above processes in step 3.2.1 are all completed. Next task is to update master version website.

1. Cherry-pick above changes (step 1-5 6 in 3.2.1) from release branch to master branch and v1.x branch. See this example
2. Set default website version to new release version by updating the RewriteRule in /docs/static_site/src/.htaccess under comment "# Set default website version to current stable". For example: update the version 1.x to the new release version: 
   • RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /versions/1.x/$1 [r=307,L] => RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /versions/{NEW_RELEASE_VERSION}/$1 [r=307,L]
3. Publish website artifact to the main website
   • Manually trigger pipeline restricted-website-build-master to publish the new website artifact. Make sure that the pipeline finishes successfully.
   • The docs new website will be published to http://mxnet.incubator.apache.org/. There can be a delay due to some edge caching with Apache infra.
   • After publishing, check the correctness of the main website

...

Send an email to announce@apache.org, general@incubator.apache.org and dev@mxnet.incubator.apache.org with the subject: [ANNOUNCE] Release Apache MXNet (incubating) version $release and a body along the lines of:

...

Merge the PR you created for the release branch into the master

Add a new PR to update bump up the version to one up/or for next release

• Bump up the version number into v1.x branch if the new version is branched from v1.x. Bump up the version number into master branch if the new version is branched from master. Here is a previous version update PR (https://github.com/apache/incubator-mxnet/pull/19196). Please update this wiki with latest version update PR to stay current.
• make sure no broken/non-existing links are added to the master/v1.x branch. 

...