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1 62 marcus.erl
 
2
        How to Get Your Change Into the Linux Kernel
3
                or
4
        Care And Operation Of Your Linus Torvalds
5
 
6
 
7
 
8
For a person or company who wishes to submit a change to the Linux
9
kernel, the process can sometimes be daunting if you're not familiar
10
with "the system."  This text is a collection of suggestions which
11
can greatly increase the chances of your change being accepted.
12
 
13
Read Documentation/SubmitChecklist for a list of items to check
14
before submitting code.  If you are submitting a driver, also read
15
Documentation/SubmittingDrivers.
16
 
17
 
18
 
19
--------------------------------------------
20
SECTION 1 - CREATING AND SENDING YOUR CHANGE
21
--------------------------------------------
22
 
23
 
24
 
25
1) "diff -up"
26
------------
27
 
28
Use "diff -up" or "diff -uprN" to create patches.
29
 
30
All changes to the Linux kernel occur in the form of patches, as
31
generated by diff(1).  When creating your patch, make sure to create it
32
in "unified diff" format, as supplied by the '-u' argument to diff(1).
33
Also, please use the '-p' argument which shows which C function each
34
change is in - that makes the resultant diff a lot easier to read.
35
Patches should be based in the root kernel source directory,
36
not in any lower subdirectory.
37
 
38
To create a patch for a single file, it is often sufficient to do:
39
 
40
        SRCTREE= linux-2.6
41
        MYFILE=  drivers/net/mydriver.c
42
 
43
        cd $SRCTREE
44
        cp $MYFILE $MYFILE.orig
45
        vi $MYFILE      # make your change
46
        cd ..
47
        diff -up $SRCTREE/$MYFILE{.orig,} > /tmp/patch
48
 
49
To create a patch for multiple files, you should unpack a "vanilla",
50
or unmodified kernel source tree, and generate a diff against your
51
own source tree.  For example:
52
 
53
        MYSRC= /devel/linux-2.6
54
 
55
        tar xvfz linux-2.6.12.tar.gz
56
        mv linux-2.6.12 linux-2.6.12-vanilla
57
        diff -uprN -X linux-2.6.12-vanilla/Documentation/dontdiff \
58
                linux-2.6.12-vanilla $MYSRC > /tmp/patch
59
 
60
"dontdiff" is a list of files which are generated by the kernel during
61
the build process, and should be ignored in any diff(1)-generated
62
patch.  The "dontdiff" file is included in the kernel tree in
63
2.6.12 and later.  For earlier kernel versions, you can get it
64
from .
65
 
66
Make sure your patch does not include any extra files which do not
67
belong in a patch submission.  Make sure to review your patch -after-
68
generated it with diff(1), to ensure accuracy.
69
 
70
If your changes produce a lot of deltas, you may want to look into
71
splitting them into individual patches which modify things in
72
logical stages.  This will facilitate easier reviewing by other
73
kernel developers, very important if you want your patch accepted.
74
There are a number of scripts which can aid in this:
75
 
76
Quilt:
77
http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/quilt
78
 
79
Andrew Morton's patch scripts:
80
http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/
81
Instead of these scripts, quilt is the recommended patch management
82
tool (see above).
83
 
84
 
85
 
86
2) Describe your changes.
87
 
88
Describe the technical detail of the change(s) your patch includes.
89
 
90
Be as specific as possible.  The WORST descriptions possible include
91
things like "update driver X", "bug fix for driver X", or "this patch
92
includes updates for subsystem X.  Please apply."
93
 
94
If your description starts to get long, that's a sign that you probably
95
need to split up your patch.  See #3, next.
96
 
97
 
98
 
99
3) Separate your changes.
100
 
101
Separate _logical changes_ into a single patch file.
102
 
103
For example, if your changes include both bug fixes and performance
104
enhancements for a single driver, separate those changes into two
105
or more patches.  If your changes include an API update, and a new
106
driver which uses that new API, separate those into two patches.
107
 
108
On the other hand, if you make a single change to numerous files,
109
group those changes into a single patch.  Thus a single logical change
110
is contained within a single patch.
111
 
112
If one patch depends on another patch in order for a change to be
113
complete, that is OK.  Simply note "this patch depends on patch X"
114
in your patch description.
115
 
116
If you cannot condense your patch set into a smaller set of patches,
117
then only post say 15 or so at a time and wait for review and integration.
118
 
119
 
120
 
121
4) Style check your changes.
122
 
123
Check your patch for basic style violations, details of which can be
124
found in Documentation/CodingStyle.  Failure to do so simply wastes
125
the reviewers time and will get your patch rejected, probably
126
without even being read.
127
 
128
At a minimum you should check your patches with the patch style
129
checker prior to submission (scripts/checkpatch.pl).  You should
130
be able to justify all violations that remain in your patch.
131
 
132
 
133
 
134
5) Select e-mail destination.
135
 
136
Look through the MAINTAINERS file and the source code, and determine
137
if your change applies to a specific subsystem of the kernel, with
138
an assigned maintainer.  If so, e-mail that person.
139
 
140
If no maintainer is listed, or the maintainer does not respond, send
141
your patch to the primary Linux kernel developer's mailing list,
142
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org.  Most kernel developers monitor this
143
e-mail list, and can comment on your changes.
144
 
145
 
146
Do not send more than 15 patches at once to the vger mailing lists!!!
147
 
148
 
149
Linus Torvalds is the final arbiter of all changes accepted into the
150
Linux kernel.  His e-mail address is .
151
He gets a lot of e-mail, so typically you should do your best to -avoid-
152
sending him e-mail.
153
 
154
Patches which are bug fixes, are "obvious" changes, or similarly
155
require little discussion should be sent or CC'd to Linus.  Patches
156
which require discussion or do not have a clear advantage should
157
usually be sent first to linux-kernel.  Only after the patch is
158
discussed should the patch then be submitted to Linus.
159
 
160
 
161
 
162
6) Select your CC (e-mail carbon copy) list.
163
 
164
Unless you have a reason NOT to do so, CC linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org.
165
 
166
Other kernel developers besides Linus need to be aware of your change,
167
so that they may comment on it and offer code review and suggestions.
168
linux-kernel is the primary Linux kernel developer mailing list.
169
Other mailing lists are available for specific subsystems, such as
170
USB, framebuffer devices, the VFS, the SCSI subsystem, etc.  See the
171
MAINTAINERS file for a mailing list that relates specifically to
172
your change.
173
 
174
Majordomo lists of VGER.KERNEL.ORG at:
175
        
176
 
177
If changes affect userland-kernel interfaces, please send
178
the MAN-PAGES maintainer (as listed in the MAINTAINERS file)
179
a man-pages patch, or at least a notification of the change,
180
so that some information makes its way into the manual pages.
181
 
182
Even if the maintainer did not respond in step #4, make sure to ALWAYS
183
copy the maintainer when you change their code.
184
 
185
For small patches you may want to CC the Trivial Patch Monkey
186
trivial@kernel.org managed by Adrian Bunk; which collects "trivial"
187
patches. Trivial patches must qualify for one of the following rules:
188
 Spelling fixes in documentation
189
 Spelling fixes which could break grep(1)
190
 Warning fixes (cluttering with useless warnings is bad)
191
 Compilation fixes (only if they are actually correct)
192
 Runtime fixes (only if they actually fix things)
193
 Removing use of deprecated functions/macros (eg. check_region)
194
 Contact detail and documentation fixes
195
 Non-portable code replaced by portable code (even in arch-specific,
196
 since people copy, as long as it's trivial)
197
 Any fix by the author/maintainer of the file (ie. patch monkey
198
 in re-transmission mode)
199
URL: 
200
 
201
 
202
 
203
7) No MIME, no links, no compression, no attachments.  Just plain text.
204
 
205
Linus and other kernel developers need to be able to read and comment
206
on the changes you are submitting.  It is important for a kernel
207
developer to be able to "quote" your changes, using standard e-mail
208
tools, so that they may comment on specific portions of your code.
209
 
210
For this reason, all patches should be submitting e-mail "inline".
211
WARNING:  Be wary of your editor's word-wrap corrupting your patch,
212
if you choose to cut-n-paste your patch.
213
 
214
Do not attach the patch as a MIME attachment, compressed or not.
215
Many popular e-mail applications will not always transmit a MIME
216
attachment as plain text, making it impossible to comment on your
217
code.  A MIME attachment also takes Linus a bit more time to process,
218
decreasing the likelihood of your MIME-attached change being accepted.
219
 
220
Exception:  If your mailer is mangling patches then someone may ask
221
you to re-send them using MIME.
222
 
223
 
224
WARNING: Some mailers like Mozilla send your messages with
225
---- message header ----
226
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
227
---- message header ----
228
The problem is that "format=flowed" makes some of the mailers
229
on receiving side to replace TABs with spaces and do similar
230
changes. Thus the patches from you can look corrupted.
231
 
232
To fix this just make your mozilla defaults/pref/mailnews.js file to look like:
233
pref("mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed", false); // RFC 2646=======
234
pref("mailnews.display.disable_format_flowed_support", true);
235
 
236
 
237
 
238
8) E-mail size.
239
 
240
When sending patches to Linus, always follow step #7.
241
 
242
Large changes are not appropriate for mailing lists, and some
243
maintainers.  If your patch, uncompressed, exceeds 40 kB in size,
244
it is preferred that you store your patch on an Internet-accessible
245
server, and provide instead a URL (link) pointing to your patch.
246
 
247
 
248
 
249
9) Name your kernel version.
250
 
251
It is important to note, either in the subject line or in the patch
252
description, the kernel version to which this patch applies.
253
 
254
If the patch does not apply cleanly to the latest kernel version,
255
Linus will not apply it.
256
 
257
 
258
 
259
10) Don't get discouraged.  Re-submit.
260
 
261
After you have submitted your change, be patient and wait.  If Linus
262
likes your change and applies it, it will appear in the next version
263
of the kernel that he releases.
264
 
265
However, if your change doesn't appear in the next version of the
266
kernel, there could be any number of reasons.  It's YOUR job to
267
narrow down those reasons, correct what was wrong, and submit your
268
updated change.
269
 
270
It is quite common for Linus to "drop" your patch without comment.
271
That's the nature of the system.  If he drops your patch, it could be
272
due to
273
* Your patch did not apply cleanly to the latest kernel version.
274
* Your patch was not sufficiently discussed on linux-kernel.
275
* A style issue (see section 2).
276
* An e-mail formatting issue (re-read this section).
277
* A technical problem with your change.
278
* He gets tons of e-mail, and yours got lost in the shuffle.
279
* You are being annoying.
280
 
281
When in doubt, solicit comments on linux-kernel mailing list.
282
 
283
 
284
 
285
11) Include PATCH in the subject
286
 
287
Due to high e-mail traffic to Linus, and to linux-kernel, it is common
288
convention to prefix your subject line with [PATCH].  This lets Linus
289
and other kernel developers more easily distinguish patches from other
290
e-mail discussions.
291
 
292
 
293
 
294
12) Sign your work
295
 
296
To improve tracking of who did what, especially with patches that can
297
percolate to their final resting place in the kernel through several
298
layers of maintainers, we've introduced a "sign-off" procedure on
299
patches that are being emailed around.
300
 
301
The sign-off is a simple line at the end of the explanation for the
302
patch, which certifies that you wrote it or otherwise have the right to
303
pass it on as a open-source patch.  The rules are pretty simple: if you
304
can certify the below:
305
 
306
        Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1
307
 
308
        By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:
309
 
310
        (a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I
311
            have the right to submit it under the open source license
312
            indicated in the file; or
313
 
314
        (b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best
315
            of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source
316
            license and I have the right under that license to submit that
317
            work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part
318
            by me, under the same open source license (unless I am
319
            permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated
320
            in the file; or
321
 
322
        (c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other
323
            person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified
324
            it.
325
 
326
        (d) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution
327
            are public and that a record of the contribution (including all
328
            personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is
329
            maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with
330
            this project or the open source license(s) involved.
331
 
332
then you just add a line saying
333
 
334
        Signed-off-by: Random J Developer 
335
 
336
using your real name (sorry, no pseudonyms or anonymous contributions.)
337
 
338
Some people also put extra tags at the end.  They'll just be ignored for
339
now, but you can do this to mark internal company procedures or just
340
point out some special detail about the sign-off.
341
 
342
 
343
13) When to use Acked-by:
344
 
345
The Signed-off-by: tag indicates that the signer was involved in the
346
development of the patch, or that he/she was in the patch's delivery path.
347
 
348
If a person was not directly involved in the preparation or handling of a
349
patch but wishes to signify and record their approval of it then they can
350
arrange to have an Acked-by: line added to the patch's changelog.
351
 
352
Acked-by: is often used by the maintainer of the affected code when that
353
maintainer neither contributed to nor forwarded the patch.
354
 
355
Acked-by: is not as formal as Signed-off-by:.  It is a record that the acker
356
has at least reviewed the patch and has indicated acceptance.  Hence patch
357
mergers will sometimes manually convert an acker's "yep, looks good to me"
358
into an Acked-by:.
359
 
360
Acked-by: does not necessarily indicate acknowledgement of the entire patch.
361
For example, if a patch affects multiple subsystems and has an Acked-by: from
362
one subsystem maintainer then this usually indicates acknowledgement of just
363
the part which affects that maintainer's code.  Judgement should be used here.
364
 When in doubt people should refer to the original discussion in the mailing
365
list archives.
366
 
367
 
368
14) The canonical patch format
369
 
370
The canonical patch subject line is:
371
 
372
    Subject: [PATCH 001/123] subsystem: summary phrase
373
 
374
The canonical patch message body contains the following:
375
 
376
  - A "from" line specifying the patch author.
377
 
378
  - An empty line.
379
 
380
  - The body of the explanation, which will be copied to the
381
    permanent changelog to describe this patch.
382
 
383
  - The "Signed-off-by:" lines, described above, which will
384
    also go in the changelog.
385
 
386
  - A marker line containing simply "---".
387
 
388
  - Any additional comments not suitable for the changelog.
389
 
390
  - The actual patch (diff output).
391
 
392
The Subject line format makes it very easy to sort the emails
393
alphabetically by subject line - pretty much any email reader will
394
support that - since because the sequence number is zero-padded,
395
the numerical and alphabetic sort is the same.
396
 
397
The "subsystem" in the email's Subject should identify which
398
area or subsystem of the kernel is being patched.
399
 
400
The "summary phrase" in the email's Subject should concisely
401
describe the patch which that email contains.  The "summary
402
phrase" should not be a filename.  Do not use the same "summary
403
phrase" for every patch in a whole patch series (where a "patch
404
series" is an ordered sequence of multiple, related patches).
405
 
406
Bear in mind that the "summary phrase" of your email becomes
407
a globally-unique identifier for that patch.  It propagates
408
all the way into the git changelog.  The "summary phrase" may
409
later be used in developer discussions which refer to the patch.
410
People will want to google for the "summary phrase" to read
411
discussion regarding that patch.
412
 
413
A couple of example Subjects:
414
 
415
    Subject: [patch 2/5] ext2: improve scalability of bitmap searching
416
    Subject: [PATCHv2 001/207] x86: fix eflags tracking
417
 
418
The "from" line must be the very first line in the message body,
419
and has the form:
420
 
421
        From: Original Author 
422
 
423
The "from" line specifies who will be credited as the author of the
424
patch in the permanent changelog.  If the "from" line is missing,
425
then the "From:" line from the email header will be used to determine
426
the patch author in the changelog.
427
 
428
The explanation body will be committed to the permanent source
429
changelog, so should make sense to a competent reader who has long
430
since forgotten the immediate details of the discussion that might
431
have led to this patch.
432
 
433
The "---" marker line serves the essential purpose of marking for patch
434
handling tools where the changelog message ends.
435
 
436
One good use for the additional comments after the "---" marker is for
437
a diffstat, to show what files have changed, and the number of inserted
438
and deleted lines per file.  A diffstat is especially useful on bigger
439
patches.  Other comments relevant only to the moment or the maintainer,
440
not suitable for the permanent changelog, should also go here.
441
Use diffstat options "-p 1 -w 70" so that filenames are listed from the
442
top of the kernel source tree and don't use too much horizontal space
443
(easily fit in 80 columns, maybe with some indentation).
444
 
445
See more details on the proper patch format in the following
446
references.
447
 
448
 
449
 
450
 
451
-----------------------------------
452
SECTION 2 - HINTS, TIPS, AND TRICKS
453
-----------------------------------
454
 
455
This section lists many of the common "rules" associated with code
456
submitted to the kernel.  There are always exceptions... but you must
457
have a really good reason for doing so.  You could probably call this
458
section Linus Computer Science 101.
459
 
460
 
461
 
462
1) Read Documentation/CodingStyle
463
 
464
Nuff said.  If your code deviates too much from this, it is likely
465
to be rejected without further review, and without comment.
466
 
467
One significant exception is when moving code from one file to
468
another -- in this case you should not modify the moved code at all in
469
the same patch which moves it.  This clearly delineates the act of
470
moving the code and your changes.  This greatly aids review of the
471
actual differences and allows tools to better track the history of
472
the code itself.
473
 
474
Check your patches with the patch style checker prior to submission
475
(scripts/checkpatch.pl).  The style checker should be viewed as
476
a guide not as the final word.  If your code looks better with
477
a violation then its probably best left alone.
478
 
479
The checker reports at three levels:
480
 - ERROR: things that are very likely to be wrong
481
 - WARNING: things requiring careful review
482
 - CHECK: things requiring thought
483
 
484
You should be able to justify all violations that remain in your
485
patch.
486
 
487
 
488
 
489
2) #ifdefs are ugly
490
 
491
Code cluttered with ifdefs is difficult to read and maintain.  Don't do
492
it.  Instead, put your ifdefs in a header, and conditionally define
493
'static inline' functions, or macros, which are used in the code.
494
Let the compiler optimize away the "no-op" case.
495
 
496
Simple example, of poor code:
497
 
498
        dev = alloc_etherdev (sizeof(struct funky_private));
499
        if (!dev)
500
                return -ENODEV;
501
        #ifdef CONFIG_NET_FUNKINESS
502
        init_funky_net(dev);
503
        #endif
504
 
505
Cleaned-up example:
506
 
507
(in header)
508
        #ifndef CONFIG_NET_FUNKINESS
509
        static inline void init_funky_net (struct net_device *d) {}
510
        #endif
511
 
512
(in the code itself)
513
        dev = alloc_etherdev (sizeof(struct funky_private));
514
        if (!dev)
515
                return -ENODEV;
516
        init_funky_net(dev);
517
 
518
 
519
 
520
3) 'static inline' is better than a macro
521
 
522
Static inline functions are greatly preferred over macros.
523
They provide type safety, have no length limitations, no formatting
524
limitations, and under gcc they are as cheap as macros.
525
 
526
Macros should only be used for cases where a static inline is clearly
527
suboptimal [there a few, isolated cases of this in fast paths],
528
or where it is impossible to use a static inline function [such as
529
string-izing].
530
 
531
'static inline' is preferred over 'static __inline__', 'extern inline',
532
and 'extern __inline__'.
533
 
534
 
535
 
536
4) Don't over-design.
537
 
538
Don't try to anticipate nebulous future cases which may or may not
539
be useful:  "Make it as simple as you can, and no simpler."
540
 
541
 
542
 
543
----------------------
544
SECTION 3 - REFERENCES
545
----------------------
546
 
547
Andrew Morton, "The perfect patch" (tpp).
548
  
549
 
550
Jeff Garzik, "Linux kernel patch submission format".
551
  
552
 
553
Greg Kroah-Hartman, "How to piss off a kernel subsystem maintainer".
554
  
555
  
556
  
557
  
558
 
559
NO!!!! No more huge patch bombs to linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org people!
560
  
561
 
562
Kernel Documentation/CodingStyle:
563
  
564
 
565
Linus Torvalds's mail on the canonical patch format:
566
  
567
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