Epic: Zebra Release Candidate

[mpguerra]

This epic tracks the required tasks for the Zebra release candidate.

Release Candidate Goals

1. This version of Zebra is a fully-validating node that:
   a. implements all the (relevant) consensus rules (that we’re aware of),
   b. actively contributes to the Zcash network by relaying transactions and blocks, and
   c. can act as a backend for lightwalletd.
2. Zebra will not have an adverse impact on the Zcash network as a whole or on other nodes (i.e. zcashd nodes)
3. Zebra has no known significant security issues (e.g. RCEs, DoS bugs)
4. We are comfortable with Zebra being audited, and for the results of that audit to be published
5. Zebra's performance:
   a. Improves the network through fast propagation
   b. Connects to approximately ¼ of the nodes on the network by default
   c. Is not significantly slower than zcashd

Required Release Candidate Tasks

Process

• Decide on supported platforms and test in CI #4448
• Work out how to release Zebra binaries #1963
  • Create a DevOps release process document
• Replace old release criteria with stable release candidate criteria in docs #4778
• Process doc and roster for triaging CI failures, dependabot security alerts, and user bug reports

Breaking Changes

• Run zebrad start by default #1621
• Triage breaking changes into before RC, during RCs, and not yet (see Epic: Breaking Changes before the Stable Release #3488)
• Decide if we need to do any of the changes in Zebra should follow OS directory conventions better #1894

Testing

• Add GetMempoolTx and GetMempoolStream gRPC tests #4350
• Make tests wait until lightwalletd full sync goes all the way to the tip #4894
• Test that every old zebrad.toml config still works #4684

Severe Performance Issues

• Tracking: Commit blocks to state using a separate task #4937

Usability

• Reduce the frequency of Zebra performance logs #4932

Release Binaries

• Decide if we want to keep crates on beta versions, and just update the zebrad version?
• Update release checklist PR template for the release candidate series #4954
  • Add “how to merge PRs during a merge freeze” to the release checklist
• Tag Zebra 1.0.0-rc.0 stable release candidate #3050
  • Package binaries for first release candidate

Out of Scope

These tasks were suggested for the release candidate, but they are out of scope:

Ready to Work On

These tasks can happen soon, if we want:

Audits

• Documentation: link to Zebra architecture blog posts in zebrad overview for devs in the book #2740
• Consensus Rule Audit
• Code Security Audit

Release Announcement

Release

• Get docker binaries hosted on a verified source without rate-limits
• Decide if we want to publish a zebrad Rust crate
• Document how to use released Zebra binaries #4953
• Zebra stable release binaries should be linked from ZFND website #1615

User Documentation

• Prepare issue and response templates for user issues #5120
• Document where users can get support #5121

Comms

• Work out how we want to explain the "release candidate" status
  • Can be used as a lightwalletd backend or Zcash node
  • Has extensive tests
  • Hasn't been audited yet
• Do a blog post
  • Mention existing users like ZecWallet Lite, how wallet users can use Zebra, and how people can run a Zebra node
• Post to the forums
• Chat to light wallet developers
• Announce Release on Socials / Website

Security

• Create encryption keys amongst [email protected]  #1638
• Write a draft security triage RFC #2001
• Remove duplicated zcash_proofs #3831
• Stop using private IP addresses by default #3117

Versioning

• Allow different zebra-network apps to use different user agents #2375
• Implement https://github.com/obi1kenobi/cargo-semver-check before the second release candidate?

External Contributors

• Make PRs from external user repositories pass or skip CI jobs #4529

Documentation

• Make it easy for users to discover how to configure Zebra #2972
• Update the README and book indexes with new Tiers, Supported Platforms and Release Process
• docs(release): Tier policies summary in the Supported platforms docs might be confusing #4818

User Problem Diagnostics

• Include git metadata in docker logs and Google Cloud panic reports #2564
• Log git metadata and platform info when zebrad starts up #3111
• Make file locations appear in zebrad error messages #4956

Developer Diagnostics

• Make long-running test names match workflow names #4955
• Activate Sentry for Zebra
  • Make sentry work in for long-running main merge and release tagging Zebra nodes
  • Optional: activate sentry for GitHub runners and Google Cloud docker
  • Only use sentry for Foundation nodes - don't activate it for release binaries
  • Get all developers access to Sentry
  • Add Sentry to the CI triage doc/roster
• Disable code timers unless a specific zebrad feature is activated #5253

Usability

• Open the database in a blocking tokio thread #4821
• Zebra falsely estimates that it's close to the tip when the network connection goes down #4649

Missing Dependency Upgrades

We might want to:

• Upgrade these dependencies, if the upgrade is simple, and
• Re-enable dependabot upgrades by re-opening the ignored PR

Here are the missing upgrades as of 6 September 2022:

• aes v0.7.5 -> v0.8.1
• bellman v0.13.0 -> v0.13.1
• color-eyre v0.6.1 -> v0.6.2
• gumdrop v0.7 -> v0.8.1
• metrics-exporter-prometheus v0.9.0 -> v0.11.0
• metrics v0.18.1 -> v0.20.1
• pin-project v0.4.29 -> v1.0.12
• proptest v0.10.1 -> v1.0.0
• rand v0.7 -> v0.8.5
• secp256k1 v0.21.3 -> v0.24.0
• sha2 v0.9.9 -> v0.10.5
• tracing-subscriber v0.3.11 -> v0.3.15
• tracing v0.1.31 -> v0.1.36
• uint v0.9.1 -> v0.9.3

The list was created using cargo upgrade --workspace 2>&1 1>/dev/null | sort -u.

After a few Release Candidates

We might need more release experience before doing these things:

Handling Features and Releases

• Decide if we want to use a stable branch, short-term feature branches, Rust feature flags
• Decide if we want temporary pre-release branches while we're doing the release PRs
• Decide if we want nightly or beta releases

Process

• Update ticket and PR templates to make them easier to use

After Audits

• Triage and fix bugs from Audits
• Document how we review consensus rule changes after audits #3186

Releases

• Work out which parts of the release process we want to automate
• Make zebra-network into a release candidate (needs cargo-semver-checks)
• Publish zebrad or other crates on crates.io

CI Reliability

• ci: Wait for lightwalletd image rebuild if it has changed #4612
• Fix timeout not being enforced by sync_until #4591
• Add zcash-lightwalletd / Build images to required jobs #4882

Completed

Testing

• Re-enable beta Rust tests on Ubuntu #4929
• Test that every old zebrad.toml config still works #4684
• Deploy long-running Zebra nodes after each tagged release #4562
• Deploy Zebra and lightwalletd on mainnet, and use it with light wallets

CI Reliability

• Limit the number of concurrent Google Cloud jobs #4857
• Truncate branch name when used in Google Cloud names #4295

Usability

• Switch zebrad to a non-blocking tracing logger #4834

External Contributors

• Truncate branch name when used in Google Cloud names #4295

[teor2345]

This is now done, just need to tag the release.

[mpguerra]

Reopening with the changes to the dependencies audit