ReleaseEngineering/How To/Generate partial updates

Intro

This document is about generating partial updates from older releases, eg N-2 to N, on request from Release Management. We generate N-1 to N updates in the release automation, but more than that is a manual process until bug 575317 makes some progress.

Assumptions:

• The automated updates builder has already run, and you're re-using the slave for the copy of the utilities and scripts you need
• the request is for the release channel

Config files

Patcher config

To get setup

• Grab a copy of the release config, mozRelease-branch-patcher2.cfg, from your own CVS checkout or from mxr
• Rename it to mozRelease-branch-patcher2-XXXXXX.cfg, where XXXXXX is the bug number for the request
• Verify that the file is up to date by checking the values of from and to in <current-update>, and the right buildN in the completemarurl of the <releases> block for the release being created

To modify the config

• in the <current-update> block
  • change the from version
  • in the <partial> block change the from version in the paths
• remove all the past-update lines just below <current-update> block
• remove the unneeded blocks from <release>
• if only some platforms are needed (eg windows), remove the other platforms from the <platforms> and <exceptions blocks

Attach the file to the bug, request review. You'll download it again later.

Update verify configs

To get setup

• Grab a copy of the configs, either from your tools checkout or directly from hg.m.o (windows, mac)
• rename to mozRelease-firefox-win32-XXXXXX.cfg, where XXXXX is the bug number for the request

To modify the config:

• remove all the lines for versions older and newer than the one you need to test