[tor-dev] Call for help on testing core tor releases

[isabela at riseup.net]

Hello Tor community!

The Core Tor Team would like to improve our release process by getting
it more tested so bugs are found earlier, so stable releases can get out
faster and without any big bugs.

During Tor's Meeting in Seattle a couple of weeks ago, we discussed this
topic and decided to organize a QA team (with the help of the community)
for core tor.

So we decided to make a call for volunteers to help us with testing our
0.2.9 release so we can catch bugs asap. We are planning on freezing our
alpha release this Monday, October 17th, the test period is from 17-31
of October. [release calendar:
https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/NetworkTeam#Releases
]

But if you can test it on the week of the 17, please do so because the
sooner the better for us to be able to fix the bugs.  Also, please
understand that giving so many things we have on our plates, we will
have to triage and prioritize bugs reported. This means some might be
defer to another release.

Below you can read more about what we are asking from you ;) and what
our goals are. If you think you can help us, please reply to this email
letting us know.

What we are asking volunteers:

  * Validate release signature/checksum

  * Does it build with _no_ Warnings?

  * Does "make test" pass?

  * Does "make test-network-all" pass? (you'll need chutney for this -
chutney does not work on Windows)

  * Does it work as a client? As a relay?  As a hidden service ?

  * Does it work if you drop the binary into (eg) torpbrowser?


We are hoping to find enough people that we can test the releases on as
many OS's as possible.
Some OS-specific notes:

  * on Linux and BSD, Tor requires some dependencies (read INSTALL).

  * on OS X, you'll need to choose a package manager (HomeBrew,
MacPorts, Fink), or install dependencies from source,

  * either way, you will need to tell configure where the dependencies
are located.

  * on Windows, people sometimes have trouble building Tor. Help us
update our build instructions for Windows!


Our goals:

  * We hope to have tor alpha releases tested within a week of it going out

  * We hope to have people testing it on as many OS's as possible

  * Reduce the number of bugs found when we launch a release candidate
and/or stable release

  * We want operating systems and configurations other than the ones we
use in development to get tested BEFORE we declare the release stable.


If you read so far, like the idea but, this is just bad timing for you
to join us and help out with the project. No problem! luckily we will
have more core tor releases in the future :) so that means there will
always be an opportunity to help.

We will keep this list updated as we move forward with this project so
hopefully you can join us latter!

Please let us know if you have any questions about this - and thank you
in advance.

Cheers,

Isabela / on behalf of core tor

ps: email from Nick on 0.2.9 freeze dates if you miss it
https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-dev/2016-October/011513.html