Fedora ELN Branching Events

Fedora Branching

Fedora Branching happens every 6 months, when Fedora Rawhide branches for the next release. All examples used in this portion of the document will be for when Fedora Rawhide is branched for Fedora 41 and Rawhide becomes Fedora 42.

Branching Tasks

  1. Pause the Fedora ELN package rebuilds in ELNBuildSync

    • Set the configuration.control.pause value in the ELNBuildSync distrobaker.yaml to true

  2. Wait for the Fedora ELN Buildroot to regenerate

    $ koji wait-repo eln-build --request

  3. Update configuration.trigger.rpms in distrobaker.yaml to the next Fedora tag (f42)

  4. Resume ELN package rebuilds in ELNBuildSync

  5. Once a new batch has been processed,[1] then update rpm.macro.eln for the eln-build Koji tag with the next available number.[2] For example, if the current value is 141

    $ koji edit-tag eln-build -x rpm.macro.eln=142
It’s not necessary to wait for ongoing builds to complete before updating the macro and trigger. The only reason for the pause is to ensure that nothing else starts before the new trigger is set.

Fedora Branching and a new CentOS Stream

This event occurs at the Fedora Branching event that corresponds to the launch of a new major release of CentOS Stream. Generally, this will be every three years (or six Fedora releases). All examples used in this portion of the document will be for when Fedora Rawhide is branched for Fedora 40, Rawhide becomes Fedora 41 and CentOS Stream 10 is being launched.

Branching Tasks

On the Fedora Side

  1. Pause the Fedora ELN package rebuilds in ELNBuildSync

    • Set the configuration.control.pause value in the ELNBuildSync distrobaker.yaml to true

  2. Wait for any ongoing Fedora ELN builds to complete.

    • Detecting this requires access to the ELNBuildSync logs which are non-public at this time.

  3. Disable the DistroBuildSync from Fedora ELN to CentOS Stream

    • Set enabled: false in the CentOS Stream distrobaker.yaml [3]

  4. Update rpm.macro.eln for the eln-build Koji tag with the next available number.[2] For example, if the current value is 135

    $ koji edit-tag eln-build -x rpm.macro.eln=136

  5. Update rpm.macro.rhel for the eln-build Koji tag with the next major release value.[2] For example, if the current value is 10

    $ koji edit-tag eln-build -x rpm.macro.rhel=11

  6. Wait for the Fedora ELN Buildroot to regenerate

    $ koji wait-repo eln-build --request

  7. Update the fedora-release package

    1. Set rhel_dist_version to the same value as rpm.macro.rhel above.

    2. Rebuild the fedora-release package, coordinating with Fedora Release Engineering

  8. Update kiwibuild_version in https://pagure.io/pungi-fedora/blob/eln/f/fedora/override.conf to the same value as rpm.macro.rhel above

  9. Update configuration.trigger.rpms in distrobaker.yaml to the next Fedora tag (f41)

  10. Resume ELN package rebuilds in ELNBuildSync

  11. Schedule a mass-rebuild of Fedora ELN to pick up any pending RHEL X+1 changes.[4]

1. This timing avoids an accidental mass rebuild from being started due to the mass retagging of rawhide builds with the new tag.
2. Current settings are visible on the eln-build koji page
3. Requires access inside the Red Hat firewall
4. For example, frame pointer enablement is conditionalized as %if 0%{?rhel} >= 11

Want to help? Learn how to contribute to Fedora Docs ›