Mass Branching SOP

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Each new release we branch all active packages for the new release.



Mass branching in the pkgdb is the first step. It should be done near the time that the cvs branches are created so as not to confuse packagers. However, it does not cause an outage so it should be done ahead of time.

Mass branching is performed by a cvsadmin either from the command line or by pushing a button on a web page. The web page method is to browse to login, and then click the "Branch All" button.

The command line method is to run pkgdb-client --mass-branch -b F-10

Whichever method you choose, the command will start the mass branch process on the server and then return with a message that the branching is in progress.

When the branching is finished, you will receive an email that tells you of any unbranched packages as well as all the packages that were branched.

If something fails spectacularly, it is safe to try mass branching again at a later time. If only a few cleanups a re needed it might be better to do that with the regular branch commands.

Note: At present there seems to be a bug in the mass branching code so that the branching seems to work but the changes aren't saved in database. I think this occurs when the server handles other requests while the packagedb is processing a mass branch. Performing the mass branch on bapp1 which is not handling other requests while the mass branch is occurring is one way to work around this. It's likely a bug in how forking in the mass branch code is interacting with the database connections. I'll look into fixing this before the next release.


The following work is performed on cvs1

Disable logins to cvs

  1. sudo crontab -u toshio -e
  2. Comment out the cron job
  3. CVSROOT=/cvs/pkgs cvs co CVSROOT
  4. cp CVSROOT/admin/avail CVSROOT/admin/avail.bak
  5. edit CVSROOT/admin/avail and comment out everything below the cvsadmins acl:
    unavail | | rpms
    avail | @cvsadmin | rpms
    ## Fedora SPARC team
    #avail | @fedora-sparc | rpms
    ## Fedora IA64 team
    #avail | @fedora-ia64 | rpms
    ## Fedora S390 team
    #avail | @fedora-s390 | rpms
    #avail | dwmw2,@provenpackager | rpms/0xFFFF
  6. cvs commit your changes

Disable logging

  1. CVSROOT=/cvs/pkgs cvs co CVSROOT
  2. edit CVSROOT/loginfo and comment out all of the lines
  3. <cvs commit the change to the repository

Create the branch directory

Similarly to /cvs/pkgs/devel, the branch directory /cvs/pkgs/F-10 will automatically be populated with symlinks to /cvs/pkgs/rpms/*/F-10. This should be automatically handled by the mkbranch script in CVSROOT/admin/mkbranch.

mkdir /cvs/pkgs/F-10
chmod g+w /cvs/pkgs/F-10

Make cvs branches

Run to put the files and directories on the cvs server. The --branch-for option was designed with this use case in mind::

./ --branch-for=F-10

If for some reason that doesn't work, you can try this alternative:

cat pkglist.txt|./ -c -

where pkglist.txt is a list of all the packages to branch.

Now turn everything back on.

Update branches file in common

The branches file in cvs/pkgs/common/branches dictates where builds go from cvs branches. This needs to be updated once the branching is done.

Regen ACLs

As a final step, refresh the acls file with all the new F-10 branches:

sudo -u toshio /usr/local/bin/

Getting a List of Unbranched Packages

Note: All further information on this page should be obsolete. After F10 successfully branches, remove it.

There are three things that list packages in releases. Each plays a part in this.

Koji keeps track of which packages should be branched and which are blocked. To get a list for say the F9 packages which are valid to branch:

koji list-pkgs --quiet --tag dist-f9 |awk '{print $1}' |sort > f9-branchlist

The pkgdb keeps a list of packages in branches. This can be found by running this sql query:

ssh db2
sudo -u postgres psql pkgdb
select from package as p where not in (select from
package as p , packagelisting as pl, collection as c
where = pl.collectionid and = pl.packageid and = 'Fedora' and c.version = '9')
order by \g /var/tmp/not-in-f9

To get the final list of what needs branches, compare the koji output and if an entry from the koji output exists in the pkgdb output, it needs a branch.

Notes on Optimization

  • If we can give a new flag to pkgdb's API to turn off mail on a per request basis we don't have to turn off pkgdb in order to branch.
  • Try doing parallel pkgdb-client calls.
  • If we could enhance the mail notification script for cvs to detect mass branching then we wouldn't need to close cvs during mass branching requests. (Currently, the rate for this is 3 pkgs/minute purely for the cvs portion (pkgdb information is cached at this point.))