8.5 Release

• Render SVGs inline: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2667

• Load new diff comments to the correct location: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2497

• Markdown in Broadcast Messages: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2695

• LDAP logins can now enable 2FA (previously EE-only): https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2688

• Mark difference on file renames: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2652

• quick project switch dropdown https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/4212

Added blog post label

Added 1 commit:

• d70518f5 - Add note about .atom projects migration

Added note about https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/3699 - Feel free to change the wording, etc...

/cc @JobV @DouweM

• New design for issue and merge request right sidebar: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2645

Added release label

Added 2 commits:

• 03947a25 - Add a section about Mattermost.
• efb830f1 - Add a section about updates in the omnibus-gitlab package.

cc @JobV

cc @JobV

RE: Upgrade barometer: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2768#note_3637603

Proposed tweaks to text:

Mattermost 2.0

Mattermost 2.0 ships with GitLab 8.5 and includes localization support, Spanish-language translation, and API support for GitLab single-sign-on in iOS and Android apps.

Mattermost can now also skip 1 major build version. This means GitLab Mattermost upgrades from GitLab 8.3 to 8.5 without needing to upgrade to 8.4.

The new 2.0 iOS app for Mattermost with GitLab SSO requires Mattermost server 2.0 and higher due to a breaking change in mobile API incompatible with Mattermost 1.x.

### Mattermost 2.0 

[Mattermost 2.0](LINK to final blog post that goes live Feb 16) ships with GitLab 8.5 and includes localization support, Spanish-language translation, and API support for GitLab single-sign-on in iOS and Android apps. 

Mattermost can now also skip 1 major build version. This means GitLab Mattermost upgrades from GitLab 8.3 to 8.5 without needing to upgrade to 8.4. 

The new 2.0 iOS app for Mattermost with GitLab SSO requires Mattermost server 2.0 and higher due to a breaking change in mobile API incompatible with Mattermost 1.x.

Link updated below. Sorry, in the back of a car right now traveling today and don't have access to back tick. URL is http://www.mattermost.org/open-source-localizable-slack-alternative-mattermost-2-0/

Mattermost 2.0

Mattermost 2.0 ships with GitLab 8.5 and includes localization support, Spanish-language translation, and API support for GitLab single-sign-on in iOS and Android apps.

Mattermost can now also skip 1 major build version. This means GitLab Mattermost upgrades from GitLab 8.3 to 8.5 without needing to upgrade to 8.4.

The new 2.0 iOS app for Mattermost with GitLab SSO requires Mattermost server 2.0 and higher due to a breaking change in mobile API incompatible with Mattermost 1.x.

Users upgrading to 8.5 have to keep in mind that we're now using Ruby 2.2 instead of Ruby 2.1, this might require some extra work in terms of restarting Unicorn workers (only if they run into any problems). We didn't keep this in mind when deploying GitLab.com which lead to some downtime.

Omnibus users will have to run gitlab-ctl restart unicorn to properly restart Unicorns. Users running from source (assuming they're also upgrading their Ruby) have to run [sudo] service restart gitlab.

If you use omnibus and the skip-auto-migrations file then you might need to run gitlab-ctl restart unicorn after installing the 8.5 package.

Performance notes

• Broadcast messages are cached, reducing the impact they have on page loading times (https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2633)
• Performance of Repository#empty? and Repository#has_visible_content? has been improved and their output is cached, reducing project specific page (issues, project dashboard, etc) loading times by about 3 to 3.5 times. This was changed in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab_git/merge_requests/62 followed by https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2752
• Caches for branch commit ahead/behind statistics are only flushed when needed. For example, when pushing to a non default branch only the statistics for said branch are flushed, previously the statistics for all branches would be flushed. This was changed in merge request https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2769
• Performance of retrieving the issues that should be closed by a merge request has been improved in merge request https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2625
• Performance of Atom feeds has been greatly improved in merge request https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2613, leading to a reduction of up to roughly 10 seconds per page load (depending on the amount of events involved)

Graphs

Timings for display individual issues:

Timings for the dashboard (the "Your Projects" tab):

Timings overall (vertical arrow indicates the time we deployed 8.5.0 RC1):

Also MergeRequest#closes_issues no longer shows up in Grafana meaning that so far it has been performing faster than the method call threshold (10 milliseconds), previously it could take a few seconds at worst. That or I somehow broke things monitoring wise (which seems unlikely since everything else is still working).

And here's a graph showing the overall response timings (per 30 minutes) in the past 3 days, the vertical arrow indicates the 8.5.0 RC1 deploy:

Before the deploy the 95th percentile sat around 2.3 seconds, after the deploy it's sitting around 1.4 seconds. The 99th percentile went down from around 5.5 seconds to 3.9 seconds.

Copy-pasting from Slack (this gives a better understanding of the impact than just fancy looking graphs):

Little factoid about GitLab.com: in the ~15 hours before the 8.5.0 RC1 deploy (11th at ~14:00 UTC) our timings were as following:

• 95th percentile: 2.026 sec
• 99th percentile: 6.169 sec
• mean: 658.6 ms

Since the deploy (until now) the timings are as following:

• 95th percentile: 1.448 sec (= 1.4x faster)
• 99th percentile: 3.779 sec (= 1.6x faster)
• mean: 462.8 ms (= 1.4x faster)

Added 1 commit:

• e376359f - Add Artem Sidorenko as 8.5 MVP

Hello @all, this is the monthly release post that will go out on the 22nd (Monday), announcing the new GitLab version (8.5). Look through it to see if we can make any changes and feel free to comment with suggestions or questions!

A few more features that are ready for 8.5:

• Runners API: gitlab-org/gitlab-ce!2640
• Make it possible to erase build content (artifacts, trace): gitlab-org/gitlab-ce!2560

A few more features that should be ready for 8.5:

• Labels should be visible in milestone view: gitlab-org/gitlab-ce!2599
• Tasks: gitlab-org/gitlab-ce!2817

Please add an invitation at the end :) Lots of people signed up after seeing this post last time! Helps a lot!

## Join us for a live demo and Q+A

[Sign up to our webcast](http://page.gitlab.com/Feb252016Webcast_LandingPage.html). 
Job van der Voort will give a live through for GitLab 8.5 and he'll talk about GitLab Flow. 
It’s on Thursday, February 25th, 5pm (17:00) UTC; 12pm EST; 9am PST. 
Can't make that time? 
[Register](http://page.gitlab.com/Feb252016Webcast_LandingPage.html) anyway, and we'll send you the recording.

@nearlythere Pro tip: Use triple backticks, also called "fenced code blocks", to format multiple lines as code/pre-formatted text. I've updated your comment so you can see it in action.

We should probably mention that we now support Ruby 2.1 and 2.2 - https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/3340

saving runner api for runner autoscale announcement

Added 448 commits:

• e376359f...74439090 - 446 commits from branch master
• 668a6446 - Merge branch 'master' into release-8-5-0
• 2bdebe33 - blog post skeleton

Added 1 commit:

• 3fa18cc3 - tasks

Added 1 commit:

• b0d6e965 - release post updates

We should add something like:

Note to early adopters: the 8.5.0 release candidates recommended using Ruby 2.2 but we have found some issues https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/13514. We recommend everybody to keep using Ruby 2.1 for now.

@jacobvosmaer thanks I added that exact line

Added 1 commit:

• 7233dff9 - add several things

thanks @jacobvosmaer!

Revert is in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2895

Added 1 commit:

• e10ac86c - more updates to release post

• Add ability to revert changes introduced by Merge Requests or Commits: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/1990 /cc @JobV

• New Emoji! 🤓 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2800

Another performance note: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2859 changes the way the Git core.autocrlf option is set. Previously this would be written (regardless of whether it was already set) on every request. As of now this is only set by the web editor/API before creating/updating files (as this is the only case where it's actually needed).

In the 24 hours leading up to this change being deployed to GitLab.com (around 22:00 UTC on the 19th) the timings were as following:

• 95th percentile: 1.601 sec
• mean: 504 ms

After the deploy up until now the timings are as following:

• 95th percentile: 1.551 sec
• mean: 479 ms

In short, the overall impact isn't that big, but it still has a impact as shown in the following graph:

Added 1 commit:

• 11053839 - Copyedit 8.5 Release post

@DouweM @JobV We need to change "Tasks" to "Todos", right? https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/2817#note_3830889

@rspeicher yep

Added 1 commit:

• 0eecef85 - add some images

Added 1 commit:

• ea864a70 - improve images

Added 1 commit:

• 43559945 - title

Added 2 commits:

• 9ef916fe - Add link to Omnibus relative documentation
• 81804646 - Add more performance notes for the graph junkies

Added 1 commit:

• 0fabafad - todos and top pic

Added 1 commit:

• 64a47fbd - votes screenshot

Added 1 commit:

• 280a4d10 - renaming things

Added 1 commit:

• 72fb85f5 - a missed to-do

Performance/functional improvement:

• 'Raw' file contents from Git repositories are served by gitlab-workhorse now, which prevents timeouts.
• GitLab no longer loads large Git blobs (e.g. binary files) into memory when browsing a Git repository. This prevents timeouts and memory leaks.

Added 1 commit:

• dc4265cb - add revert feature

Added 1 commit:

• fea3cfe8 - Add new Pages features

Added 4 commits:

• 32d0524f - 80 chars!
• daf1d4b8 - Add doc link to revert changes feature
• 301b8196 - Add image to erase builds
• b278bf29 - Add section about new CI API features

Added 1 commit:

• 4080c4fd - remove TODO things. Edit text to make it sound all the same

Added 1 commit:

• 78d5b3fe - update features page

Added 1 commit:

• b8b667bb - Fix little typo

Title changed from WIP: 8.5 Release to 8.5 Release

Reassigned to @rymai

Added 1 commit:

• b59a3f18 - quip about todos

Status changed to merged

mentioned in commit ed47c9d4