Preview Versions ================ .. raw:: html CloudNativePG candidate releases are pre-release versions made available for testing before the community issues a new generally available (GA) release. These versions are feature-frozen, meaning no new features are added, and are intended for public testing prior to the final release. .. Warning Important]:: CloudNativePG release candidates are **not intended for use in production** systems. They should only be deployed in staging or dedicated testing environments. Purpose of Release Candidates ----------------------------- Release candidates are provided to the community for extensive testing before the official release. While a release candidate aims to be identical to the initial release of a new minor version of CloudNativePG, additional changes may be implemented before the GA release. Mitigating Critical Issues ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The primary purpose of an RC is to catch serious defects and regressions that our automated testing and internal manual checks might miss. **Specifically, community testing is invaluable for validating real-world scenarios, such as:** - **Upgrade Paths:** Testing the process of upgrading an existing CloudNativePG cluster from the previous stable minor version to the RC version. This often uncovers critical compatibility or migration issues, like those that affect PVC ownership, which can only be reliably tested with diverse existing user setups. - **Unique Configurations:** Validating compatibility with specific Kubernetes versions, storage providers, networking setups, or custom PostgreSQL extensions not covered by our standard test matrix. - **Real-world Workloads:** Running the RC with your actual application workload and traffic patterns to expose performance regressions or race conditions. Community Involvement: How to Help ---------------------------------- The stability of each CloudNativePG minor release significantly depends on the community’s efforts to test the upcoming version with their workloads and tools. Identifying bugs and regressions through user testing is crucial in determining when we can finalize the release. Your Call to Action ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ If a Release Candidate is available, we encourage you to perform the following tests in a non-production environment: - **New Deployment Test:** Deploy a new CloudNativePG cluster using the RC version. - **Upgrade Test (Crucial):** **Upgrade an existing cluster** (from the preceding stable minor version) to the RC version, and verify all key operational aspects (scaling, failover, backup/restore) function correctly. - **Basic Operations:** Verify key features like rolling update, backup/restore, instance failover, and connection pooling function as expected. - **Report Issues:** **Immediately report any issues or unexpected behavior** by opening a GitHub issue and clearly marking it with a **``Release Candidate``** tag or label, along with the RC version number (e.g., ``1.28.0-rc1`` ). Usage Advisory -------------- The CloudNativePG Community strongly advises against using preview versions of CloudNativePG in production environments or active development projects. Although CloudNativePG undergoes extensive automated and manual testing, beta releases may contain serious bugs. Features in preview versions may change in ways that are not backwards compatible and could be removed entirely. **By testing the Release Candidate, you are helping to prevent a potentially critical bug from affecting the entire community upon the GA release.** Current Preview Version ----------------------- There are currently no preview versions available. `_ - `Documentation `_ - ->