[Pkg-xen-devel] Uploading Xen 4.16 for Debian unstable
Hans van Kranenburg
hans at knorrie.org
Thu Feb 17 18:55:39 GMT 2022
Hi all,
I intend to do the Debian unstable upload of Xen 4.16 shortly, probably
during the upcoming weekend.
Xen 4.16 has been staged in Debian experimental recently. We passed the
NEW queue again because of the new versioned package names. The buildds
responded in a happy manner when building it for the archs that we don't
automatically test beforehand (yet).
The unstable upload will be the same thing as what's in experimental
now, but with the upstream code advanced to the latest update in the
upstream stable-4.16 branch, so, also including the fixes for the recent
XSAs.
Having Xen 4.16 in Debian unstable will mean the moment is there when we
'decouple' (un)stable and are able to start making changes to the
packaging for Debian 12 (Bookworm).
As you might have noticed, while Xen versions in Debian stable and
unstable are still the same, we choose to do work once. So, first do a
Debian unstable update, and then the security update or next stable
point release version will be the same thing with (currently) ~deb11u1
appended. Because of the fact that the upstream Xen Project maintains
stable branch lines, which only contain important bug fixes and security
updates, we're allowed to also follow those in Debian stable. Other
examples for this way of working are e.g. the Linux kernel and
PostgreSQL, where you can see the same thing happening.
Xen 4.14 in Debian 11 (Bullseye) will keep receiving updates (either
through the security channel or using the stable point releases) until
upstream security support ends, which is at Jul 24th, 2023. At that
point, all users really should have completed the work for doing
upgrades to the (at that point) current stable Debian release.
The "Debian Xen Team" is not a scary thing. When you show up with ideas
and when you're actually able to do any kind of work to help and make
the ideas happen, or implement improvements, and participate in, and
contribute to the way we're working together, then you're part of the
team. It's as simple as that.
Currently, we primarily organize ourselves using the #debian-xen IRC
channel on OFTC. Feel free to join and ask things, give feedback, follow
along and think of something that you want to participate in. Be it
helping to solve some weird BTS bug or expressing ideas and helping with
larger changes.
Current Uploaders of src:xen are Ian Jackson (DD, Debian Developer) who
after an awful lot of years of working at the upstream Xen Project
recently switched jobs and keeps being around to help (yay!). I'm a DM,
'Debian Maintainer', which means that Ian can grant me access to do
src:xen uploads myself.
Feel free to respond to this message (reply or reply-list) with your
thoughts and experiences.
Have fun,
Hans van Kranenburg (Knorrie)
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