HAProxy branches and life cycle

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The HAProxy project evolves quickly to stay up to date with modern features

found in web environments but also takes a great care of addressing bugs which

may affect deployed versions without forcing such users to upgrade when not

needed. For this reason the project is developed in branches.

A branch is designated as two numbers separated by a dot, for example "1.8".

This numbering is historical. Each new development cycle increases the second

digit by one, and after it reaches '9' it goes back to zero and the first digit

increases by one. It effectively grows as a decimal number increased by 0.1 per

version.

The complete version is made of the branch suffixed with "-dev" followed by a

sequence number during development, then by "." followed by a number when the

development of that branch is finished and the branch enters a maintenance

phase. The first release of a branch starts at ".0". Immediately after ".0" is

issued, the next branch is created as "-dev0" as an exact copy of the previous

branch's ".0" version. Thus we observe the following development sequence:

... 1.9-dev10 -> 1.9-dev11 -> 1.9.0 -> 2.0-dev0 -> 2.0-dev1 ... 2.0 -> ...

Occasionally a series of "-rc" versions may be emitted between the latest -dev

and the release to mark the end of development and start of stabilizing, though

it's mostly a signal send to users that the release is approaching rather than

a change in the cycle as it is always hard to categorize patches.

Very often the terms "branch" and "version" will be used interchangeably with

only the first two digits to designate "the latest version of that branch". So

when someone asks you "Could you please try the same on 1.8", it means "1.8.X"

with X as high as possible, thus for example 1.8.20 if this one is available at

this moment.

During the maintenance phase, a maintenance branch is created for the just

released version. The development version remains in the development branch

called "master", or sometimes "-dev". If branches are represented vertically

and time horizontally, this will look like this:

versions branch

1.9-dev10 1.9-dev11 1.9.0 2.0-dev0 2.0-dev1 2.0-dev2

----+--------+---------+-------+---------+---------+----------> master

\

\ 1.9.1 1.9.2

`-----------+-------------+---------> 1.9

Each released version (e.g. 1.9.0 above) appears once in the master branch so

that it is easy to list history of changes between versions.

Before version 1.4, development and maintenance were inter-mixed in the same

branch, which resulted in latest maintenance branches becoming unstable after

some point. This is why versions 1.3.14 and 1.3.15 became maintenance branches

on their own while the development pursued on 1.3 to stabilize again in the

latest versions.

Starting with version 1.4.0, a rule has been set not to create new features

into a maintenance branch. It was not well respected and still created trouble

with certain 1.4 versions causing regressions and confusing users.

Since 1.5.0 this "no new feature" rule has become strict and maintenance

versions only contain bug fixes that are necessary in this branch. This means

that any version X.Y.Z is necessarily more stable than X.Y.W with W<Z.

For this reason there is absolutely no excuse for not updating a version within

your branch, as your version necessarily contains bugs that are fixed in any

later version in that same branch. Obviously when a branch is just released,

there will be some occasional bugs. And once in a while a fix for a recently

discovered bug may have an undesired side effect called a regression. This must

never happen but this will happen from time to time, especially on recently

released versions. This is often presented as an excuse by some users for not

updating but this is wrong, as the risk staying with an older version is much

higher than the risk of updating. If you fear there could be an issue with an

update because you don't completely trust the version in your branch, it simply

means you're using the wrong branch and need an older one.

When a bug is reported in a branch, developers will systematically ask if the

bug is present in the latest version of this branch (since developers don't

like to work on bugs that were already fixed). It's a good practice to perform

the update yourself and to test again before reporting the bug. Note, as long

as you're using a supported branch, as indicated on the haproxy.org web site,

you don't need to upgrade to another branch to report a bug. However from time

to time it may happen that a developer will ask you if you can try it in order

to help narrow the problem down. But this will never be a requirement, just a

question.

Once a bug is understood, it is tested on the development branch and fixed

there. Then the fix will be applied in turn to older branches, jumping from

one to the other in descending order. For example:

FIX

2.0-dev4 HERE 2.0-dev5 2.0-dev6

-----+-------V-------------+-----------+--------------> master

1.9.4 \ 1.9.5 1.9.6 1.9.7

--+------------o-------+---------+-------------+------> 1.9

1.8.18 \ 1.8.19 1.8.20

-----+-----------o------------+-------------+---------> 1.8

This principle ensures that you will always have a safe upgrade path from an

older branch to a newer: under no circumstances a bug that was already fixed

in an older branch will still be present in a newer one. In the diagram above,

a bug reported for 1.8.18 would be fixed between 2.0-dev4 and 2.0-dev5. The

fix will be backported into 1.9 and from there into 1.8. 1.9.5 will be issued

with the fix before 1.8.19 will be issued. This guarantees that for any version

1.8 having the fix, there always exists a version 1.9 with it as well. So if

you would upgrade to 1.8.19 to benefit from the fix and the next day decide

that for whatever new feature you need to upgrade to 1.9, you'll have 1.9.5

available with the same set of fixes so you will not reintroduce a previously

fixed problem.

In practice, it takes longer to release older versions than newer ones. There

are two reasons to this. One is technical: the fixes often require some

adaptations to be done for older versions. The other reason is stability: in

spite of the great care and the tests, there is always a faint risk that a fix

introduces a regression. By leaving fixes exposed in more recent versions

before appearing in older ones, there is a much smaller probability that such a

regression remains undetected when the next version of the older branch is

issued.

So the rule for the best stability is very simple:

STICK TO THE BRANCH THAT SUITS YOUR NEEDS AND APPLY ALL UPDATES.

With other projects, some people developed a culture of backporting only a

selection of fixes into their own maintenance branch. Usually they consider

these fixes are critical, or security-related only. THIS IS TERRIBLY WRONG.

It is already very difficult for the developers who made the initial patch to

figure if and how it must be backported to an older branch, what extra patches

it depends on to be safe, as you can imagine it is impossible for anyone else

to make a safe guess about what to pick.

A VERSION WHICH ONLY CONTAINS A SELECTION OF FIXES IS WAY MORE

DANGEROUS AND LESS STABLE THAN ONE WITHOUT ANY OF THESE FIXES.

Branches up to 1.8 are all designated as "long-term supported" ("LTS" for

short), which means that they are maintained for several years after the

release. These branches were emitted at a pace of one per year since 1.5 in

2014. As of 2019, 1.5 is still supported and widely used, eventhough it very

rarely receives updates. After a few years these LTS branches enter a

"critical fixes only" status, which means that they will rarely receive a fix

but if that a critital issue affects them, a release will be made, with or

without any other fix. Once a version is not supported anymore, it will not

receive any fix at all and it will really be time for you to upgrade to a more

recent branch. Please note that even when an upgrade is needed, a great care is

given to backwards compatibility so that most configs written for version 1.1

still work with little to no modification 16 years later on version 2.0.

Since 1.9, the release pacing has increased to match faster moving feature sets

and a faster stabilization of the technical foundations. The principle is now

the following:

- one release is emitted between October and December, with an odd version

number (such as "1.9"). This version heavily focuses on risky changes that

are considered necessary to develop new features. It can for example bring

nice performance improvements as well as invisible changes that will serve

later ; these versions will only be emitted for developers and highly

skilled users. They will not be maintained for a long time, they will

receive updates for 12 to 18 months only after which they will be marked

End-Of-Life ("EOL" for short). They may receive delicate fixes during their

maintenance cycle so users have to be prepared to see some breakage once in

a while as fixes are stabilizing. THESE VERSIONS MUST ABSOLUTELY NOT BE

PACKAGED BY OPERATING SYSTEM VENDORS.

- one release is emitted between May and June, with an even version number

(such as "2.0"). This version mostly relies on the technical foundations

brought by the previous release and tries hard not to apply risky changes.

Instead it will bring new user-visible features. Such versions will be

long-term supported and may be packaged by operating system vendors.

This development model provides better stability for end users and better

feedback for developers:

- regular users stick to LTS versions which rely on the same foundations

as the previous releases that had 6 months to stabilize. In terms of

stability it really means that the point zero version already accumulated

6 months of fixes and that it is much safer to use even just after it is

released.

- for developers, given that the odd versions are solely used by highly

skilled users, it's easier to get advanced traces and captures, and there

is less pressure during bug reports because there is no doubt the user is

autonomous and knows how to work around the issue or roll back to the last

working version.

Thus the release cycle from 1.8 to 2.2 should look like this:

1.8.0 1.9.0 2.0.0 2.1.0 2.2.0

--+---------------+---------------+--------------+--------------+----> master

\ \ \ \ \

\ \ \ \ `--> 2.2 LTS

\ \ \ `--+--+--+---+---> 2.1

\ \ `----+-----+------+-------+----> 2.0 LTS

\ `--+-+-+--+---+------+--------+-----| EOL 1.9

`---+---+---+-----+-------+-----------+---------------+------> 1.8 LTS

In short the non-LTS odd releases can be seen as technological previews of the

next feature release, and will be terminated much earlier. The plan is to barely

let them overlap with the next non-LTS release, allowing advanced users to

always have the choice between the last two major releases.

With all this in mind, what version should you use ? It's quite simple:

- if you're a first-time HAProxy user, just use the version provided by your

operating system. Just take a look at the "known bugs" section on the

haproxy.org web site to verify that it's not affected by bugs that could

have an impact for you.

- if you don't want or cannot use the version shipped with your operating

system, it is possible that other people (including the package maintainer)

provide alternate versions. This is the case for Debian and Ubuntu for

example, where you can choose your distribution and pick the branch you

need here: https://haproxy.debian.net/

- if you want to build with specific options, apply some patches, you'll

have to build from sources. If you have little experience or are not

certain to devote regular time to perform this task, take an "old" branch

(i.e. 1-2 years old max, for example 1.8 when 2.0 is emitted). You'll avoid

most bugs and will not have to work too often to update your local version.

- if you need a fresh version for application development, or to benefit from

latest improvements, take the most recent version of the most recent branch

and keep it up to date. You may even want to use the Git version or nightly

snapshots.

- if you want to develop on HAProxy, use the master from the Git tree.

- if you want to follow HAProxy's development by doing some tests without

the burden of entering too much into the development process, just use the

-dev versions of the master branch. At some point you'll feel the urge to

switch to the Git version anyway as it will ultimately simplify your work.

- if you're installing it on unmanaged servers with little to no hostile

exposure, or your home router, you should pick the latest version in one

of the oldest supported branches. While it doesn't guarantee that you will

never have to upgrade it, at least as long as you don't use too complex a

setup, it's unlikely that you will need to update it often.

And as a general rule, do not put a non-LTS version on a server unless you are

absolutely certain you are going to keep it up to date yourself and already

plan to replace it once the following LTS version is issued. If you are not

going to manage updates yourself, use pre-packaged versions exclusively and do

not expect someone else to have to deal with the burden of building from

sources.