When will CentOS 5.6 be out?

[AlanBartlett]

On the [url=http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-devel/2011-March/007059.html]CentOS-devel mailing list[/url], [b]Karanbir[/b] has posted --

[quote]
There are some deep linking issues with the updates. I thought we had
the final tree for 5.6 in place last night, but there are 2 issues that
Ned [1] pointed out which I hope to get done shortly - in the next few hours
and have the tree's over into QA. Once that is done, the updates can
churn though.
[/quote]
[1] Forum moderator [b]NedSlider[/b].

[AlanBartlett]

From my latest discussion with [b]Karanbir[/b], I have the following two quotations for you.

[quote]
So as things stand right now :

- 5.6's final builds are running ( this is the distro build ).
- All packages are finalised.
- Updates from 5.6 are starting to build now.
[/quote]
Please read the word [i]distro[/i] as [i]ISO image[/i], above.

[quote]
What I want to do is:

- Get 5.6/ to [the] public mirrors, starting from Monday.
- Release 5.6/ by next Wednesday.
[/quote]
So, all being well in this last phase, you could be updating to [i]CentOS 5.6[/i] a week today. Personally, I shall be waiting a few more days once 5.6 has gone GA -- just to allow the load on the mirror sites to subside.

As before, this proposed time scale could be subject to change . . . ;-)

[AlanBartlett]

Here follows the synopsis of my latest discussion with [b]Karanbir[/b] in the early hours of this morning (UTC, Tuesday March 22, 2011):

The 32-bit tree has been with the QA team for some time, all issues that were discovered have been resolved and that tree is considered to be viable. The 64-bit tree is currently being built (using the knowledge gained from the 32-bit build) and will be passed to QA as soon as it is ready.

Once QA have the 64-bit tree, both the 32- & 64-bit versions will be transferred to the internal master-mirror -- the logic being that if QA find a 64-bit specific issue, it can be resolved and just the relevant packages updated by [i]rsync[/i].

A soon as all boxes are ticked with respect to the tree, then the ISO image can be prepared. This, in turn, will be passed to QA. Once that has been verified, the ISO images will be transferred to the internal master-mirror.

With everything in place internally, the last waiting phase begins as the public mirror sites start to receive the trees and ISO images.

Finally the "switch will be flicked" (or, if your prefer, the "button will be pressed") and an announcement will then be made on the [i]CentOS-announce[/i] mailing list.

[AlanBartlett]

I understand that both trees (32- & 64-bit) and the ISO images have now been declared "golden" by QA. [b]Karabir[/b] is presently working every feasible hour to produce the subsequent updates and also build the [i]CentOSPlus[/i] kernels. At the same time, [b]Patrice[/b] is working on the [i]LiveCD / LiveDVD[/i] media . . .

Once all is complete, the "long wait" begins as the data trickles out to the mirror sites.

Being so close to the "finishing post", I am unable to make a sensible "[i]guestimate[/i]" of D-day.

So please keep watch on the [url=http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-announce]CentOS announce[/url] mailing list.

[AlanBartlett]

I have just had my weekly discussion with [b]Karanbir[/b] and here is a paragraph relevant to this thread --

[quote]
[b]5.6 is going out to the external mirrors at the moment, I am going to have
torrents ready for later today and then maybe release announcement sometime
tomorrow.[/b]
[/quote]

[AlanBartlett]

The [url=http://www.karan.org/status_5.6.html]latest[/url] from [b]Karanbir[/b] reads as follows --

[quote]
[b]Couple of things that should answer most questions that people are asking about the 5.6 Release status:

* TimeLine: Stuff is syncing around, it could be upto another day before you see packages, tree and isos on your local mirrors.
* Updates: Yes, it includes all updates released into the distro and most updates from that point on ( exceptions: java packages, subversion and openoffice.org ). These 3 package updates will come through in the next 24 hrs, but due to the churn in the mirrors, might be a few more hours before they are publicly visible on a mirror near you.
* LiveCD: Yes, the LiveCD's for i386 and x86_64 are also included
* Plus Kernels: Yes, the plus kernels are included in the release with no delay.
* Torrents: Torrents will be published as soon as the release is announced. This is to work around the situation where people will download the torrent and use yum to hit mirrors that are not completely updated as yet. Causing non-trivial issues ( as they end up installing 5.5 pkgs that then need to be updated again ). So once the bit-flip happens, we use the mirror status monitors to workout the state-of-external-mirrors, once there is a reasonable number in sync, we will release torrents, publish md5sum and sha sum's for the isos and announce the release.
* Update Announcements: There will be individual announcements for all updates released since EL5.6 was released upstream. There will be no announcements for packages rolled into the distro. So in a nutshell: it will be the same as its always been for CentOS-5.
* Will you need to change anything on your machine to get 5.6 ? : No, once its released and publicly available everywhere a regular 'yum update' will move your machine from centos-5.x to 5.6

Please keep in mind that till the release is announced ( keep an eye on http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-announce, things can still change.

And finally : If you dont run a public mirror listed as a centos mirror, please do not rsync from the centos.org machines for the next 3 to 5 days. Use a large pipe mirror near you instead.[/b]
[/quote]

[pschaff]

A cautionary note... Although no official release has been announced some mirrors seem to be open; however, an issue with the GPG signature has been discovered with one x86_64 package that caused a respin of the x86_64 media to be done. There may be some problems with the new media so caution is advised for early adopters. The safe option is to wait for the official release announcement.

Meanwhile there are torrents available per [url=http://twitter.com/centos]CentOS twitter[/url]:

http://bit.ly/fbW4oM
http://bit.ly/fwI4wJ
http://bit.ly/fjcrpn
http://bit.ly/h1snle

It should be safe to seed or download the torrent ISOs as changes in the final images will be minimal, but do not trust the resultant x86_64 images until they are the final official release versions. The i386 ISOs are believed to be OK.

[AlanBartlett]

Here follows [b]Karanbir[/b]'s [url=http://www.karan.org/blog/index.php/2011/04/08/why-we-needed-to-reissue-the-centos-5-6-x86_64-isos]statement[/url] concerning the recent delay to the release --

[quote]
[b][u]What was the issue:[/u]

There was an invalid rpm ( eclipse-ecj ) in the x86_64/os tree. Premature EOF in rpm payload.

[u]Report:[/u]

Early morning on the 7th James Hogarth, BSkyB Entertainment repoted to the QA team that there was an issue with the eclipse-ecj package shipped in the CentOS-5.6/x86_64 os tree. Stephen Walsh and Manuel Wolfshant tracked the issue back to the primary seed machine and confirmed the issue was present in not only the os tree, but also on CD3 and DVD1 of the x86_64 distribution.

[u]Reason for this issue:[/u]

The CentOS distribution is composed on the buildservices, but then transfered over to the distro-build machines where the installer is built. There are automated tests that run at both of these locations. The rpm content tests ( rpm -K ) for md5's as well as gpg key. The distro had passed this test at both locations. The output from the distro-build machines is the actual package tree, the installer code, isos for cd's and dvd. This is transfered using rsync to the staging machine from where we start the release process ( initially to QAMachines when in qa mode; or into the mirror.centos.org network when in release mode ). There are no tests done at the staging machine. Packages are transfered one at a time, rather than as a whole tree ( mostly for legacy reasons ). It seems that the transfer for eclipse-ecj did not completely completely ( driven by the fact that its OK on one side and not on the other )

[u]Impact:[/u]

We had to rebuild the torrents, DVD isos, CD isos and update the CentOS-5.6/x86_64 distribution. There was no impact to CentOS-5.6/i386.

[u]What did we do to fix things:[/u]

To address this issue, we had to issue a new set of ISOs, and since the package content was changing, rebuild metadata. Which in turn needed a complete rebuild of the ISOS ( but not the install tree ). Over the course of the morning, Fabian and Manuel were able to test the new tree, and our automated tests ran through for the ISOs

There was also a lot of rollback work that needed to be done, including handling the torrent tracker, issuing new torrents, making sure the mirror network etc. Much of which is done manually; and the main reason things took almost 18 hrs to resolve.

[u]Steps taken to ensure this problem does not happen again:[/u]

I've now moved a large number of tests to the staging machine as well, including the rpm tests. This adds an additional 3 hours to the process, but its a worthwhile safeguard.

I hope this helps clear up things. Also, md5sum and sha1sum for ISOs as well as torrent files are published along with the torrent files and available on all mirrors. They will also be mentioned in the actual CentOS-5.6 Release Announcement. Everyone should check to make sure they get the right ones.[/b]
[/quote]

[AlanBartlett]

The release of [i]CentOS 5.6[/i] has been [url=http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos-announce/2011-April/017282.html]announced[/url]. :-)