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Linux Kernel patch submission checklist

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Here are some basic things that developers should do if they want to see their

kernel patch submissions accepted more quickly.

These are all above and beyond the documentation that is provided in

Documentation/SubmittingPatches and elsewhere regarding submitting Linux

kernel patches.

1: Builds cleanly with applicable or modified CONFIG options =y, =m, and

   =n.  No gcc warnings/errors, no linker warnings/errors.

2: Passes allnoconfig, allmodconfig

3: Builds on multiple CPU architectures by using local cross-compile tools

   or something like PLM at OSDL.

4: ppc64 is a good architecture for cross-compilation checking because it

   tends to use `unsigned long' for 64-bit quantities.

5: Matches kernel coding style(!)

6: Any new or modified CONFIG options don't muck up the config menu.

7: All new Kconfig options have help text.

8: Has been carefully reviewed with respect to relevant Kconfig

   combinations.  This is very hard to get right with testing -- brainpower

   pays off here.

9: Check cleanly with sparse.

10: Use 'make checkstack' and 'make namespacecheck' and fix any problems

    that they find.  Note: checkstack does not point out problems explicitly,

    but any one function that uses more than 512 bytes on the stack is a

    candidate for change.

11: Include kernel-doc to document global kernel APIs.  (Not required for

    static functions, but OK there also.) Use 'make htmldocs' or 'make

    mandocs' to check the kernel-doc and fix any issues.

12: Has been tested with CONFIG_PREEMPT, CONFIG_DEBUG_PREEMPT,

    CONFIG_DEBUG_SLAB, CONFIG_DEBUG_PAGEALLOC, CONFIG_DEBUG_MUTEXES,

    CONFIG_DEBUG_SPINLOCK, CONFIG_DEBUG_SPINLOCK_SLEEP all simultaneously

    enabled.

13: Has been build- and runtime tested with and without CONFIG_SMP and

    CONFIG_PREEMPT.

14: If the patch affects IO/Disk, etc: has been tested with and without

    CONFIG_LBD.

15: All codepaths have been exercised with all lockdep features enabled.

16: All new /proc entries are documented under Documentation/

17: All new kernel boot parameters are documented in

    Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt.

18: All new module parameters are documented with MODULE_PARM_DESC()

19: All new userspace interfaces are documented in Documentation/ABI/.

    See Documentation/ABI/README for more information.

20: Check that it all passes `make headers_check'.

21: Has been checked with injection of at least slab and page-allocation

    failures.  See Documentation/fault-injection/.

    If the new code is substantial, addition of subsystem-specific fault

    injection might be appropriate.

22: Newly-added code has been compiled with `gcc -W' (use "make

    EXTRA_CFLAGS=-W").  This will generate lots of noise, but is good for

    finding bugs like "warning: comparison between signed and unsigned".

23: Tested after it has been merged into the -mm patchset to make sure

    that it still works with all of the other queued patches and various

    changes in the VM, VFS, and other subsystems.

24: Avoid whitespace damage such as indenting with spaces or whitespace

    at the end of lines.  You can test this by feeding the patch to

    "git apply --check --whitespace=error-all"

25: Check your patch for general style as detailed in

    Documentation/CodingStyle.  Check for trivial violations with the

    patch style checker prior to submission (scripts/checkpatch.pl).

    You should be able to justify all violations that remain in

    your patch.