To create a GPG key, follow the guidelines. The key must be 4096 bit RSA.

Publish your GPG key in a PGP key server, such as MIT Keyserver. Some gpg clients are publishing the keys here. You are welcome to set the server where the keys will be published by following this guide.

Once completed, you need to create a ticket like this and ask a PMC to add your key to KEYS file.

A PMC will include your public key to this file:

Run the following commands to generate and upload release artifacts, to the ASF nexus staging repository and dev distribution location:

You must specify your ASF username to asf_username variable. Next, gpg_key environment variable must be set to a fingerprint of your gpg key. Execute gpg --list-keys or a similar command to get the value. Finally, you must add ASF remote to your cloned repository and git_asf_remote variable needs to be set to point to that. For example, when this command is executed:

then git_asf_remote variable needs to be set to asf. NOTE: This is very important step as tags are pushed to ASF repository and they are synchronized to GitHub automatically.

A reference configuration should look like these examples:

The reference content of these files is:

Empirical testing shows that you also must have the above DEB* environemnt variables exported before proceeding.

Additionally, you must configure $HOME/.m2/settings.xml to contain the credentials used to upload artifacts to staging repository. The credentials are your ASF credentials.

The script will eventually ask you for a username and password to push artifacts to SVN. The default prompt for user will be equal to a username of an account at your machine. If your ASF login is not same as your username locally, just error out the prompt (put there wrong password and confirm), and it will ask you for username again without providing any default value.

The prepare_release.sh is run from the actual cassandra git checkout, on the branch/commit that we wish to tag for the tentative release along with version number to tag.

Follow the prompts.

Once artifacts are built and pushed to the staging area, the script will pause and require you to go to the Staging repositories, where you will find the repository. Select the Cassandra repository and push the "Close" button. Please take a note of the number of that repository like orgapachecassandra-1283 - number is 1283. The script will require the repo number to proceed. It will use this number in the rendered e-mail template sent to the dev list, etc.

If building the deb or rpm packages fail, those steps can be repeated individually using the -d and -r flags, respectively.

Once DEBs and RPMs are also uploaded, do not forget to merge your commit to prepare the release to trunk and push after all artifacts are uploaded finish the process. You will be also reminded to do that by the script itself at the end.

Run the following commands to publish the voted release artifacts:

If successful, take note of the email text output which can be used in the next section "Send Release Announcement". The output will also list the next steps that are required.