---
title: Steps to a Successful Release
category: Contributing
layout: default
SPDX-License-Identifier: LGPL-2.1-or-later
---

# Steps to a Successful Release

1. Add all items to NEWS
2. Update the contributors list in NEWS (`ninja -C build git-contrib`)
3. Update the time and place in NEWS
4. Update hwdb (`ninja -C build update-hwdb`, `ninja -C build update-hwdb-autosuspend`, commit separately).
5. Update syscall numbers (`ninja -C build update-syscall-tables update-syscall-header`).
6. [RC1] Update library numbers in `meson.build`
7. Update version number in `meson.version` (e.g. from `256~devel` to `256~rc1` or from `256~rc3` to `256`). Note that this uses a tilde (\~) instead of a hyphen (-) because tildes sort lower in version comparisons according to the [version format specification](https://uapi-group.org/specifications/specs/version_format_specification/), and we want `255~rc1` to sort lower than `255`.
8. Check dbus docs with `ninja -C build update-dbus-docs`
9. Update translation strings (`ninja -C build systemd-pot`, `ninja -C build systemd-update-po`) - drop the header comments from `systemd.pot` + re-add SPDX before committing. If the only change in a file is the 'POT-Creation-Date' field, then ignore that file.
10. Tag the release: `version="v$(sed 's/~/-/g' meson.version)" && git tag -s "${version}" -m "systemd ${version}"` (tildes are replaced with hyphens, because git doesn't accept the former).
11. Do `ninja -C build`
12. Make sure that the version string and package string match: `build/systemctl --version`
13. [FINAL] Close the github milestone and open a new one (https://github.com/systemd/systemd/milestones)
14. "Draft" a new release on github (https://github.com/systemd/systemd/releases/new), mark "This is a pre-release" if appropriate.
15. Check that announcement to systemd-devel, with a copy&paste from NEWS, was sent. This should happen automatically.
16. Update IRC topic (`/msg chanserv TOPIC #systemd Version NNN released | Online resources https://systemd.io/`)
17. [FINAL] Create an empty -stable branch: `git push systemd origin/main:refs/heads/v${version}-stable`.
18. [FINAL] Build and upload the documentation (on the -stable branch): `ninja -C build doc-sync`
20. [FINAL] Change the Github Pages branch to the newly created branch (https://github.com/systemd/systemd/settings/pages) and set the 'Custom domain' to 'systemd.io'
21. [FINAL] Update version number in `meson.version` to the devel version of the next release (e.g. from `v256` to `v257~devel`)

# Steps to a Successful Stable Release

1. Backport at least the commits from all PRs tagged with `needs-stable-backport` on Github with `git cherry-pick -x`. Any other commits that fix bugs, change documentation, tests, CI or mkosi can generally be backported as well. Since 256 the stable branches live [here](https://github.com/systemd/systemd/). Stable branches for older releases are available [here](https://github.com/systemd/systemd-stable/). Check each commit to see if it makes sense to backport and check the comments on the PR to see if the author indicated that only specific commits should be backported.
2. Update the version number in `meson.version` (e.g. from `256.2` to `256.3`) (only for 256-stable or newer)
3. Tag the release: `version="v$(cat meson.version)" && git tag -s "${version}" -m "systemd-stable ${version}"` (Fill in the version manually on releases older than 256)