Binaries

Preparation

• Announce release intent on #minikube
• Pause merge requests so that they are not accidentally left out of the ISO or release notes
• Two minikube repos checked out locally:
  • Your personal fork
  • Upstream

Update the Kubernetes version

• Run make update-kubernetes-version from your local upstream repo copy
• If any files are updated, create and merge a PR before moving forward

Build a new ISO

• All non-patch releases require a new ISO to be built.
• Patch releases (vx.x.1+) require a new ISO if the deploy/iso directory has seen changes since the previous release.

See ISO release instructions

Release new kicbase image

Run the kic-release job in Jenkins, which will automatically create a PR which must be merged (make sure to enter the correct version and repos).

Update Release Notes

Run the following script from your local upstream repo copy to generate updated release notes:

make release-notes

Paste the output into CHANGELOG.md, sorting changes by importance to an end-user. If there are >8 changes, split them into Improvements and Bug fixes

• The changelog should only contain user facing change. This means removing PR’s for:
  • Documentation
  • Low-risk refactors
  • Test-only changes
• Remove bots from the contributor list
• Remove duplicated similar names from the contributor list

You may merge this PR at any time, or combine it with a Makefile update PR.

Update Makefile

Update the version numbers in Makefile:

• VERSION_MAJOR, VERSION_MINOR, VERSION_BUILD

Tag the Release

sh hack/tag_release.sh 1.<minor>.<patch>

Build the Release

This step uses the git tag to publish new binaries to GCS and create a GitHub release:

• Navigate to the minikube “Release” jenkins job
• Ensure that you are logged in (top right)
• Click “▶️ Build with Parameters” (left)
• VERSION_MAJOR, VERSION_MINOR, and VERSION_BUILD should reflect the values in your Makefile
• For ISO_SHA256_AMD64, run: gsutil cat gs://minikube/iso/minikube-v<version>-amd64.iso.sha256
• For ISO_SHA256_ARM64, run: gsutil cat gs://minikube/iso/minikube-v<version>-arm64.iso.sha256
• Click Build

Check the release logs

After job completion, click “Console Output” to verify that the release completed without errors. This is typically where one will see brew automation fail, for instance.

Note: If you are releasing a beta, you are done when you get here.

Merge the releases.json change

The release script updates https://storage.googleapis.com/minikube/releases.json - which is used by the minikube binary to check for updates, and is live immediately.

minikube-bot will also send out a PR to merge this into the tree. Please merge this PR to keep GCS and GitHub in sync.

Package managers which include minikube

These are downstream packages that are being maintained by others and how to upgrade them to make sure they have the latest versions

WARNING: The Brew cask automation is error-prone. please ensure that a PR was created.

Verification

Verify release checksums by running make check-release

Update docs

If there are major changes, please send a PR to update https://kubernetes.io/docs/setup/learning-environment/minikube/

Update SECURITY-INSIGHTS.yml

Make appropriate changes to SECURITY-INSIGHTS.yml. Check OPENSSF Security Insights Specification for reference.

Announce

Please mention the new release https://github.com/kubernetes/minikube/blob/master/README.md

Other places:

• #minikube on Slack
• minikube-dev, minikube-users mailing list
• Twitter (this is now automated with the @minikube_dev account)