The major value is also an incrementing integer, and has an upper limit of 99. This number is not required to reach its upper limit before the parent value is incremented.

The major value is often the most useful value in the product version number, because it indicates a discrete set of changes in cPanel & WHM.

In addition, we have assigned meanings to odd and even major values:

Odd major values	Even major values
Development releases*	Production releases*
Only available via EDGE & CURRENT tiers**	Available via RELEASE & STABLE tiers**

* For more information about development and production releases, see cPanel & WHM Releases below.
** For more information about tiers, see Release Tiers below.

Minor Value

The minor value is an integer incremented for each unique build of cPanel & WHM.

There is no upper limit to this value. In development versions, this value may even reach 100+ before the major value is incremented to an even value.

Release Tiers

Since its creation, cPanel has released publicly in 4 tiers:

STABLE
RELEASE
CURRENT
EDGE

This scheme allows rapid development and quick availability of new versions of cPanel & WHM. Server owners select a cPanel & WHM tier (sometimes called a "release tree") that reflects the degree to which they value stability or new features and update frequency.

Tier	Description	Publication Frequency
STABLE	Has received considerable public exposure, testing, and verification.	Published least frequently.
RELEASE	Similar to STABLE, but has received slightly less testing. Updated more often than STABLE. New installations default to RELEASE.	Published more frequently than STABLE.
CURRENT	Tested and verified, but may not contain all proposed functionality of a release. Similar to the "release candidate" tier used under other publication schemes.	Published more frequently than RELEASE.
EDGE	Has received only rudimentary testing. Features are subject to further modification. Usually lacks official public documentation.*	Published most frequently (up to several times per week).

* Due to the dynamic nature of EDGE builds, you should only use EDGE for compatibility and functionality testing in a controlled environment. Do not use the EDGE tier on production servers.

cPanel DNSONLY

New versions of cPanel DNSONLY will be released concurrently with new versions of cPanel & WHM and will share the same build tier. Server owners running DNSONLY can update it at the same time they update their cPanel & WHM servers.

Other Releases

Other release versions exist in development tiers. These tiers are reserved for internal cPanel, Inc. usage and testing purposes only. Never use these versions of our software unless you are directed to do so by a cPanel representative.

cPanel & WHM Releases

We release cPanel & WHM simultaneously across several architectures. In addition, different versions may release across several tiers on the same day.

We attempt to avoid scheduling releases on international holidays and weekends (Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon). We do this so that you can ensure your staffing requirements are met.

Development Releases

A development release of cPanel & WHM contains everything in the previous production release, plus one or more changes from new projects associated with the next planned release.

We will only publish development releases in the EDGE and CURRENT tiers. However, we will not immediately publish changes into the CURRENT tier. Any changes that we publish into the CURRENT tier will be isolated to a desired set of functions that have been tested and verified.

Production Releases

A production release of cPanel & WHM includes between 1 and 3 significant sets of changes. We refer to sets of changes as "projects." Each project may include external and internal changes to cPanel & WHM.

Production releases follow this schedule:

We complete development for the production version.
We test the functionality of the version's new features.
We publish the version to the development tiers, and to the EDGE, CURRENT, and RELEASE tiers.
- At this point, maintenance of previous production versions will cease. We will not release any changes to the previous version from this point forward.
After the version enters the RELEASE tier, we assess any immediate maintenance needs.
After we have assessed and corrected all of the existing needs, we release the production version into the STABLE tier.

Production Release Updates

We will update production releases periodically, to maintain them and improve their security.

The initial release of a production-ready version of the product will have a minor value of 0 (for example, 11.26.0). Subsequent builds of the production line will increment the minor version value.

Some builds of a production line of code will be used for testing and verification, and may never be released into production tiers.

Topic revision: r5 - 17 Mar 2011 - 19:14:17 - LindseyLWhite