This is template of the Webmaster's TODO list, which might not be authoritative or complete. To create a new release TODO list, add it to the list below and replace the @codename-1@ @codename@ @codename+1@ @codename+2@ etc placeholders, ensuring that you preserve the case of the placeholders in the values; replace "@Codename@" with "Bullseye" not bullseye".
The following things need to be done for a release:
- [ ] Stop cron jobs (often, lessoften) and kill any running job related to the website (or wait until it's finished)
- [ ] Update banner: foreground picture, choose a background colour, change debhome.css (see commit 697d79d6e7143b99a4856868ab6310d68402f18d for reference)
- [ ] Take into account possible localized banners (e.g. Swedish)
- [ ] Update calamares screenshot in english/Pics
- [ ] english/template/debian/release_info.wml - update tags, if needed (respect the format):
- current_release_codename current_release_date_codename current_release_newsurl_codename current-cd-release define-tag current_release define-tag current_release_date
- [ ] english/template/debian/release_images.wml - if any images are dropped we may need to update this (e.g. i386 was dropped for stable-live-images for bookworm, netinst multi-arch too). Warning: you may need to update the text description in the files in CD/ and distrib/ folders and subfolders to reflect these changes too
- [ ] english/releases/index.wml- Update the section "Index of releases"
- [ ] english/releases/@codename@/errata.wml - add a line, if needed, to point to the URL of the announcement for the point release.
- [ ] english/releases/@codename@/index.wml - insert release dates
- [ ] english/releases/@codename@/release.data - add tags reusing the already defined ones in release_info (see commit 97aa0f64b0405d91aa499a24bf21b1076c5acf1e for reference)
- [ ] english/releases/@codename@/debian.installer/index.wml - Have a look at english/devel/debian-installer/index for recent updates for the case it's needed to update some other things
- [ ] english/releases/@codename-1@/index.wml (remove if-stable- logic, use @codename-2@ as reference) and translations
- [ ] english/releases/@codename-1@/errata.wml add a line, if needed, to point to the URL of the announcement for the point release.
- [ ]english/releases/@codename-1@/release.data (use english/releases/@codename-2@/release.data as reference. Warning: trixie has no multiarch nor i386)
- [ ] english/releases/@codename-1@/debian-installer/index.wml (remove some logic, use @codename-2@ as reference).
- Ping the Cloud team to update english/distrib/index.wml (links to cloud images; they are available some days after the release)
- [ ] packages.debian.org: check whether one or more previous releases got archived by the ftp team, and drop accordingly before adding new suites, to keep disk space requirements reasonable (picconi + pkgmirror-csail)
[ ] packages.debian.org: update mapping of codenames to stable|testing|unstable for search interface (default to @codename@). See https://salsa.debian.org/webmaster-team/packages/-/compare/6bdfeb02f5...bde18c3458 for an example + plus deploy on picconi).
If possible, update translations too.
Commit the changes (in your local copy) and rebuild locally to see if everything is ok. You can also build on www-master using sudo -u debwww NOMIRROR=1 NOSUBDIRS=1 /srv/www.debian.org/update-part folder/subfolder to make builds of sections and subsections (all languages) without pushing to mirrors. Some examples
sudo -u debwww NOMIRROR=1 /srv/www.debian.org/update-part releases/trixie - builds the releases/trixie folder and subfolders, without pushing to mirrors
sudo -u debwww NOMIRROR=1 NOSUBDIRS=1 /srv/www.debian.org/update-part index - builds the homepage and files in the top folder (no subfolders) without pushing to mirrors
sudo -u debwww NOSUBDIRS=1 /srv/www.debian.org/update-part News/2023 - builds the News/2023 folder (all languages) and pushes to mirror (Warning: it pushes *everything* to mirrors, not only the News/2023 folder)
Changes without pushing to mirrors can be seen online in https://www-staging.debian.org/
- [ ] Reenable cron jobs (often, lessoften)
IMPORTANT: Please coordinate with press@ and release team (#debian-publicity and #debian-release) because some of the tasks overlaps between teams. Have a look at the release team checklist and the publicity team checklist too.