Traditionally, updates for the stable release and long term stable release Cloud Images have been on an ad-hoc basis; reasons for releasing new images were generally restricted to security, critical bugs, and stale images. This ad-hoc update cycle meant that updated images were only released every three months or so, and for older releases, as often as six months.

While quality has always been a concern and top priority, during this cycle, Canonical has worked to vastly improve the QA infrastructure to support our Cloud Images. For example, when a new kernel is released, the daily build for that image is now put through the complete QA process. This change in process has allowed us to identify and automatically evaluate whether or not an image is a good candidate for update release.


As such, we are pleased to announce in the next few weeks, we will be turning on automated updates for Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS, 11.10, 12.04 LTS, and 12.10. This means that approximately every three to four weeks, a new, freshened image will be released. The release cadence will follow the kernel SRU process.

The first updated image to be released under this process was 10.04 LTS[1].

There are a variety of ways to find the released Cloud Images. The two easiest ways are to go the AMI Finder[2] or use http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/<SUITE>/release. For example, http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/lucid/release would bring you to the last AMI's for Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS.

Due to this change, we will discontinuing the email notifications of updated images to the various email lists for updated images. At UDS-R in Copenhagen[3], we discussed email notifications and the decision was reached to discontinue them. Replacing email notification is the RSS feed[4] and release notes (example from 10.04 LTS)[5].

As Cloud Image suites are migrated to automated releases, we will follow up on this announcement.

Finally, for 12.04 LTS and later, this change will introduce lock-step update releases with Windows Azure. As Windows Azure moves towards GA, we have been working to have the same releases for the Ubuntu Server Cloud Images on both EC2 and Windows Azure.

As always, your feedback is most appreciated. Please feel free to follow on either this post or to email concerns direct to me.

[1] http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/lucid/release-20130124/
[2] http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/locator/ec2/
[3] http://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/servercloud-r-cloudtesting
[4] http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/rss/
[5] http://cloud-images.ubuntu.com/releases/lucid/release-20130124/unpacked/release_notes.txt

For sometime people have been asking me "when will Cloud Images sport a Twitter account?" Well, wait no longer, because the Ubuntu Cloud Image Builder now has a Twitter Account.

The Cloud Image process will now Tweet when a new image is build and published -- dailies, new release updates and new versions being releases. For right we're only Tweeting EC2 information, but once Windows Azure goes GA, we'll start Tweeting that too.

So in the meantime, you can follow our faithful Cloud Builder as it tweets merrily its build progress at @UbuCloudImages. But I'll have to warn you, the Cloud Builder won't response to tweets, so we're not snubbing you if there is no response.

Here are the minutes of the meeting. They can also be found online
with the irc logs here.

Meeting Actions

• ACTION SpamapS – Add “verify SRU fixes” to the [ServerTeam/GettingInvolved] wiki page.

Other Topics

• Reviewing the action for ALL to check for verification-needed bugs, the list has remained managable and the process seems mostly to be working.
• Natty Development – Alpha2 is close, some WI’s may need to be postponed but nothing specific yet.
• Kernel Team (smb) – EC2 t1.micro and i386 fixes for natty kernel are pending – should be in next kernel
• SpamapS suggested adding an “Upcoming Events” section to the agenda for Ubuntu Server interested people to talk about and coordinate events they’ll be attending.
• QA Team (hggdh), Community Team (kim0), and Documentation Team (sommer) representatives were all absent.

Agree on next meeting date and time

Next meeting will be on Tuesday, February 1 at 16:00 UTC in #ubuntu-meeting.

Here are the minutes of the meeting. They can also be found online
with the irc logs here.

Meeting Actions

• ACTION SpamapS – Add “verify SRU fixes” to the [ServerTeam/GettingInvolved] wiki page.

Other Topics

• Reviewing the action for ALL to check for verification-needed bugs, the list has remained managable and the process seems mostly to be working.
• Natty Development – Alpha2 is close, some WI’s may need to be postponed but nothing specific yet.
• Kernel Team (smb) – EC2 t1.micro and i386 fixes for natty kernel are pending – should be in next kernel
• SpamapS suggested adding an “Upcoming Events” section to the agenda for Ubuntu Server interested people to talk about and coordinate events they’ll be attending.
• QA Team (hggdh), Community Team (kim0), and Documentation Team (sommer) representatives were all absent.

Agree on next meeting date and time

Next meeting will be on Tuesday, February 1 at 16:00 UTC in #ubuntu-meeting.

Here are the minutes of the meeting. They can also be found online
with the irc logs here.

Meeting Actions

• ACTION: mathiaz to send out a call for ideas on ubuntu to the puppet community (carry over)

• ACTION: ALL to mark maverick assigned specs as “Implemented” or Deferred

• ACTION: jjohansen to look into virtual kernel bug status (658461)

• ACTION: jjohansen to look into t1.micro java lockup bug (634487)

Review ACTION points from previous meeting

• ACTION: mathiaz to send out a call for ideas on ubuntu to the puppet community
  • mathiaz was unable to attend, action point carried over to next week
• ACTION: smoser to get skaet info on how to publish EC2 images
  • DONE ec2 images were published along with the rest of 10.10
• ACTION: Everyone to celebrate the 10.10.10 release in their own unique ways
  • DONE emphatically

Postmortem for Maverick (ttx)

• Close your specs

  • ACTION: ALL to mark maverick assigned specs as “Implemented” or Deferred

• SRUs (658227, 600174)

  • Everyone should keep a close eye on high priority bug candidates for SRU to maverick.

Natty development

• Opening: Syncs and Merges (ttx)
  • Natty will open soon, now is the time to start looking at merges
• Natty specs preparation (jib)

  • Idea pool has plenty – https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam/NattyIdeaPool

  • Create blueprints and move ideas to the UDS session list there if it warrants a session
  • Get session blueprints in by End of Week

Weekly Updates & Questions for the QA Team (hggdh)

• QA and BugSquad are phasing out the ‘regression-potential’ tag, and it should not be used anymore. regression-release, regression-proposed, or regression-updates should be used to signal even potential regressions.

Weekly Updates & Questions for the Kernel Team (jjohansen)

• Phantom load bug fix in lucid has not landed yet but should soon

• ACTION: jjohansen to look into virtual kernel bug status (658461)

• ACTION: jjohansen to look into t1.micro java lockup bug (634487)

Weekly Updates & Questions for the Documentation Team (sommer)

• sommer was not in attendance

Weekly Updates & Questions for the Ubuntu Community Team (kim0)

• Reminder that this is UbuntuOpenWeek

• kim0 has been talking with some community members and getting them fired up about contributing, with 8 potential contributors. He would appreciate volunteers for mentoring them.

Open Discussion

• RoAkSoAx has an HA UEC-CLC setup using cluster stack (pacemaker, heartbeat), he would like to discuss this further at UDS during a cluster stack focused session.

Agree on next meeting date and time

Next meeting will be on Tuesday 2010-10-19 at 1800 UTC – #ubuntu-meeting

Here are the minutes of the meeting. They can also be found online
with the irc logs here.

Meeting Actions

• SpamapS to submit rubygems change proposal as Important bug in Debian and CC ubuntu-devel
• zul to nudge forward upstart script review process
• jjohansen to review bug 493156
• zul to review papercut status of bug 582963

Review ACTION points from previous meeting

• everyone to pick 1 or 2 papercuts for the beta cycle
  • deferred until later point of order
• zul to continue clean up the SRU assigne list by prodding people on status: DONE
• SpamapS to finalize and send ruby gems proposal to ubuntu-devel
  • proposal finalized, action for coming week to submit as bug on debian rubygems package
• ttx to send email about 10.04.1 release process to server team: DONE

Maverick development (jib)

• jiboumans is concerned that we are not 40% complete, which is where we should be in the
  • beta cycle.

  • https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/server-maverick-uec-testing – build 1231 just recently landed and should correct previously reported errors. kirkland is concerned as well and feels many of the items may need to be dropped. jiboumans and kirkland to resolve offline.

  • https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/server-maverick-upstart-conversion – zul says this is mostly stalled on getting the upstart scripts reviewed, and will “nudge” the reviewers.

  • https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/server-maverick-qa-workflow – hggdh to postpone for post-maverick.

• jiboumans reminded everyone that if they are under 40% completion rate, they should look at their assigned specs and contact him if they feel they will not be completed for the beta cycle.

Weekly Updates & Questions for the QA Team (hggdh)

• (hggdh) UEC testing is progressing and build 1231 was pending build on a PPA before testing could commence on it.
• (hggdh) QA is taking a look at bugs that are tagged regression-* and will be pushing server-team related bugs

Weekly Updates & Questions for the Kernel Team (jjohansen)

• https://launchpad.net/bugs/574910 – high load for lucid on ec2 – is mostly phantom load, plan is to close that bug and open more specific bugs to target the issues that have caused so much piling on.

• (Omahn) requested review of bug 493156 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/iotop/+bug/493156

• (jjohansen) pv-ops kernel is still buggy, there is a chance the -ec2 kernel will have to be used instead. smoser doesn’t want to see that happen, but acknowledges that it may be necessary.
• (jjohansen) kernel tema will be making the “pv-on-hvm drivers” available for testing purposes in a PPA

Weekly Updates & Questions for the Community Team (kim0)

• kim0 was unable to attend, so this topic was skipped

Weekly Updates & Questions for the Documentation Team (sommer)

• (sommer) says things are going smoothly, and he will have time to work on some new content this week
• (sommer) String Freeze is Sept 9. sommer has discussed dropping the ubuntu-serverguide package and forwarded that discussion to the ubuntu-server mailing list after the meeting.

Papercuts status (jib)

• Two papercuts were left, and mathiz and zul stepped up to claim/evaluate them

Open Discussion

• (mathiaz) 10.04.1 ISO testing had all server tests completed.
• (andreserl) cluster stack is waiting on a MIR for pacemaker to be approved

Agree on next meeting date and time

Next meeting will be on Tuesday 2010-08-24 at 1800 UTC in #ubuntu-meeting