This is a specific schedule for the release of FreeBSD 5.4. For more general information about the release engineering process, please see the Release Engineering section of the web site.
General discussions about the release engineering process or quality assurance issues should be sent to the public freebsd-qa mailing list. MFC requests should be sent to re@FreeBSD.org.
| Action | Expected | Actual | Description |
| Reminder announcement | 31 Jan 2005 | 31 Jan 2005 | Release Engineers send announcement email to developers with a rough schedule for the FreeBSD 5.4 release. |
| Announce the Ports Freeze | 24 Feb 2005 | 24 Feb 2005 | Someone from portmgr@ should email freebsd-ports@ to set a date for the week long ports freeze and tagging of the ports tree. |
| 5.4-PRERELEASE | 23 Feb 2005 | 24 Feb 2005 | newvers.sh updated. |
| Code freeze begins | 2 Mar 2005 | 3 Mar 2005 | After this date, all commits to the RELENG_5 branch must be approved by re@FreeBSD.org. Certain highly active documentation committers are exempt from this rule for routine man page / release note updates. Heads-up emails should be sent to the developers, as well as stable@ and qa@ lists. |
5.4-BETA1 |
4 Mar 2005 | 20 Mar 2005 | First public test release build. Note that the release build name is 5.4-BETA1 but newvers.sh RELEASE name remains 5.4-PRERELEASE. This is because the name BETA often confuses the users who are using the STABLE branch. |
| Announce doc/ tree slush | 14 Mar 2005 | 25 Mar 2005 | Notification of the impending doc/ tree slush should be sent to doc@. |
| Ports tree frozen | 21 Mar 2005 | 21 Mar 2005 | Only approved commits will be permitted to the ports/ tree during the freeze. |
| doc/ tree slush | 2 Apr 2005 |
2 Apr 2005 |
Non-essential commits to the en_US.ISO8859-1/ subtree should be delayed from this point until after the doc/ tree tagging, to give translation teams time to synchronize their work. |
| doc/ tree tagged. | 11 Apr 2005 |
12 Apr 2005 | Version number bumps for doc/ subtree. RELEASE_5_4_0 tag for doc/. doc/ slush ends at this time. |
| RELENG_5_4 branch | 31 Mar 2005 | 3 Apr 2005 | The release branch is created. Update newvers.sh and release.ent on various branches involved. |
| Unfreeze the tree | 31 Mar 2005 | 3 Apr 2005 | Announcement to developers explaining that commits to RELENG_5 no longer require approval. Also note the policy for commits to the RELENG_5_4 branch. |
| 5.4-RC1 | 31 Mar 2005 | 3 Apr 2005 | newvers.sh and release.ent updated. |
| Ports tree tagged | 31 Mar 2005 | 2 Apr 2005 | RELEASE_5_4_0 tag for ports/. |
| Ports tree unfrozen | 31 Mar 2005 | 2 Apr 2005 | After the ports/ tree is tagged, the ports/ tree will be re-opened for commits, but commits made after tagging will not go in 5.4-RELEASE. |
| Final package build starts | 31 Mar 2005 | -- | The ports cluster and pointyhat build final packages. |
| First release candidate | 2 Apr 2005 | 5 Apr 2005 | The first release candidate for the each architecture is released. ISO images should be uploaded to ftp-master.FreeBSD.org. A network install directory should be uploaded to ftp-master.FreeBSD.org. The packages/ directory should be a relative symlink, as described in the releng article. When the builds begin send a note to mirror-announce@FreeBSD.org saying a "Normal Release Cycle" is beginning, RC ISOs and install directories will be coming through the next few weeks. |
| Heads up to -stable | 2 Apr 2005 | 5 Apr 2005 | A message should be sent to qa@FreeBSD.org and stable@FreeBSD.org after the first snapshot is uploaded. |
| Second release candidate | 9 Apr 2005 | 9 Apr 2005 | Note: the release date of this candidate depends on the user experience with RC1. |
| Heads up to -stable | 9 Apr 2005 | 11 Apr 2005 | A message should be sent to qa@FreeBSD.org and stable@FreeBSD.org after the second snapshot is uploaded. |
| Third release candidate | 16 Apr 2005 | 16 Apr 2005 | Note: the release date of this candidate depends on the user experience with RC2. |
| Heads up to -stable | 16 Apr 2005 | 18 Apr 2005 | A message should be sent to qa@FreeBSD.org and stable@FreeBSD.org after the third snapshot is uploaded. |
| Fourth release candidate | 30 Apr 2005 | 2 May 2005 | Note: This is the final release candidate. |
| Heads up to -stable | 1 May 2005 | 2 May 2005 | A message should be sent to qa@FreeBSD.org and stable@FreeBSD.org after the fourth snapshot is uploaded. |
| Version numbers bumped. | 6 May 2005 | 6 May 2005 | The files listed here are updated to reflect the fact that this is FreeBSD 5.4. |
| src tree tagged. | 6 May 2005 | 6 May 2005 | RELENG_5_4_0_RELEASE tag for src/. |
| Final builds. | 6 May 2005 | 6 May 2005 | Final builds for all architectures in a pristine environment. |
| Warn mirror-announce@FreeBSD.org | 6 May 2005 | 6 May 2005 | Heads up email to mirror-announce@FreeBSD.org to give admins time to prepare for the load spike to come. The site administrators have frequently requested advance notice for new ISOs. |
| Upload to ftp-master. | 7 May 2005 | -- | Release uploaded to ftp-master.FreeBSD.org (packages should have been done before now, otherwise it chokes the mirror sites and propagation of the release bits takes too long) |
| Update man.cgi on the website. | 9 May 2005 | -- | Make sure the 5.4 manual pages are being displayed by default for the man->web gateway. Also make sure these man pages are pointed to by docs.xml. |
| Announcement | 9 May 2005 | -- | Announcement sent out after a majority of the mirrors have received the bits. |
| Turn over to the secteam | 17 May 2005 | -- | RELENG_5_4 branch is handed over to the FreeBSD Security Officer Team in one or two weeks after the announcement. |