How to Release Tor

Here are the steps that the maintainer should take when putting out a new Tor release. It is split in 3 stages and coupled with our Tor CI Release pipeline.

Before we begin, first rule is to make sure:

Our CIs (*nix and Windows) pass for each version to release
Coverity has no new alerts

0. Security Release

To start with, if you are doing a security release, this must be done few days prior to the release:

If this is going to be an important security release, give the packagers advance warning, via tor-packagers@lists.torproject.org.

1. Preliminaries

The following must be done 2 days at the very least prior to the release:

Add the version(s) in the dirauth-conf git repository as the RecommendedVersion and RequiredVersion so they can be approved by the authorities and be in the consensus before the release.
Send a pre-release announcement to tor-project@lists.torproject.org in order to inform every teams in Tor of the upcoming release. This is so we can avoid creating release surprises and sync with other teams.
Ask the network-team to review the changes/ files in all versions we are about to release. This step is encouraged but not mandatory.

2. Tarballs

To build the tarballs to release, we need to launch the CI release pipeline:

https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/tor-ci-release

The versions.yml needs to be modified with the Tor versions you want to release. Once done, git commit and push to trigger the release pipeline.

The first two stages (Preliminary and Patches) will be run automatically. The Build stage needs to be triggered manually once all generated patches have been merged upstream.

Download the generated patches from the Patches stage.

Apply these patches to the main or release branch as appropriate. (Version bumps apply to maint; anything touching the changelog should apply only to main or release.)
For the ChangeLog and ReleaseNotes, you need to write a blurb at the top explaining a bit the release.
Review, modify if needed, and merge them upstream.
Manually trigger the maintained job in the Build stage so the CI can build the tarballs without errors.

Once this is done, each selected developers need to build the tarballs in a reproducible way using:

https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/tor-ci-reproducible

Steps are:

Run ./build.sh which will download everything you need, including the latest tarballs from the release CI, and auto-commit the signatures if the checksum match. You will need to confim the commits.
If all is good, git push origin main your signatures.

Once all signatures from all selected developers have been committed:

Manually trigger the signature job in the Post-process stage of the CI release pipeline.
If it passes, the tarball(s) and signature(s) will be available as artifacts and should be used for the release.
Put them on dist.torproject.org:

Upload the tarball and its sig to the dist website:
```
 `rsync -avP tor-*.gz{,.asc} dist-master.torproject.org:/srv/dist-master.torproject.org/htdocs/`
```
Then, on dist-master.torproject.org, run:
```
 `static-update-component dist.torproject.org`
```
For an alpha or latest stable, open an MR in https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/web/tpo that updates the databags/versions.ini to note the new version.

(NOTE: Due to #17805, there can only be one stable version listed at once. Nonetheless, do not call your version "alpha" if it is stable, or people will get confused.)

(NOTE: It will take a while for the website update scripts to update the website.)

3. Post Process

Once the tarballs have been uploaded and are ready to be announced, we need to do the following:

Tag versions (main branch or release branch as appropriate) using git tag -s tor-0.x.y.z-<status> and then push the tag(s): git push origin tor-0.x.y.z-<status>

(This should be the main or release branch because that is the one from which the tarballs are built. We want our tags to match our tarballs.)
Merge upstream the artifacts from the patches job in the Post-process stage of the CI release pipeline.
Write and post the release announcement for the forum.torproject.net in the News -> Tor Release Announcement category.

If possible, mention in which Tor Browser version (with dates) the release will be in. This usually only applies to the latest stable.
Inform tor-talk@lists.torproject.org with the releasing pointing to the Forum. Append the ChangeLog there. We do this until we can automate such post from the forum directly.

New Stable

Create the maint-x.y.z and release-x.y.z branches and update the ./scripts/git/git-list-tor-branches.sh with the new version.
Add the new version in ./scripts/ci/ci-driver.sh.
Forward port the ChangeLog and ReleaseNotes into main branch. Remove any change logs of stable releases in ReleaseNotes.

Appendix: An alternative means to notify packagers

If for some reason you need to contact a bunch of packagers without using the publicly archived tor-packagers list, you can try these people:

   - {weasel,sysrqb,mikeperry} at torproject dot org
   - {blueness} at gentoo dot org
   - {paul} at invizbox dot io
   - {vincent} at invizbox dot com
   - {lfleischer} at archlinux dot org
   - {Nathan} at freitas dot net
   - {mike} at tig dot as
   - {tails-rm} at boum dot org
   - {simon} at sdeziel.info
   - {yuri} at freebsd.org
   - {mh+tor} at scrit.ch
   - {security} at brave.com

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