Re: draft 1.3 release notes

[fche at redhat dot com (Frank Ch. Eigler)]

David Smith <dsmith@redhat.com> writes:

> [...]
> The systemtap team announces release 1.3.
>
> FIXME - better summary?

#   integrated compile-server client, automatic structure
#   pretty-printing, much faster & better stack backtraces
#   (user+kernel space), interesting new sample scripts,
#   prototype debuginfo-less <sys/sdt.h> userspace markers,
#   kernel versions 2.6.9 through 2.6.35-rc4


> = Where to get it
>
>   http://sourceware.org/systemtap/ - our project page
>   http://sourceware.org/systemtap/ftp/releases/systemtap-1.3.tar.gz
>   http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/packageinfo?packageID=615
>   git tag release-1.3 (commit FIXME)

It would be nice to include the number of commits since the last release.


>   o 'stap --server ...' is equivalent to 'stap-client ...'
>   o 'stap --server-status' is equivalent to 'stap-find-servers'
>   o 'stap --server-status=online' is equivalent to 'stap-find-servers --all'
>   o stap-client and its related tools will soon be deprecated.
>   o the nss-devel and avahi-devel packages are required for building stap with
>     the integrated client (checked during configuration).
>   o nss and avahi are required to run the integrated client.

(Note renamed options.)


> [...]
> = Systemtap tapset changes
>
> FIXME - anything else?

As the release wiki page suggests, the git log should be searched for
anything new.

> = New script examples
>
> - profiling/errno.stp      Show which processes and system calls
>                            return errors most frequently
> - io/deviceseeks.stp       Histograms of seek behavior for each device
> - process/noptrace.stp     Disable ptrace(2) from hierarchies of processes
> - general/sizeof.stp       Print the size of a C type
> - profiling/linetimes.stp  Show time spent on each line if a function
> - process/cycle_thief.stp  Track IRQs and other processes stealing
>                            cycles from a task

OK.

> = Contributors for this release
> [...]
> = Bugs fixed for this release
> [...]

(These and some other sections will need a last-minute refresh just as
the tags are being made.)

> FIXME also list CVEs? RHBZs?

Relevant RHBZs are generally duplicated to our bugzilla server,
and there have been no CVE's against us lately.


> = Test results on various systems
>
> - After running "sudo make installcheck" from the test suite, on a
>   suitably equipped machine (kernel debugging data and other stuff
>   installed), you should see 1000-1100 passes and a small handful of
>   failures.  Those enjoying utrace in their kernels should see several
>   hundred more passes.

The utrace numbers are more like 1400-1600 passes.  We should add a
utrace-less figure too: 800 or so for a recent RHEL4 run.

- FChE