Jesper Juhl | 8b7ecb1 | 2007-07-15 23:40:51 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 1 | Linux Kernel patch submission checklist |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 2 | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| 3 | |
Andrew Morton | e54695a | 2006-07-10 04:45:42 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 4 | Here are some basic things that developers should do if they want to see their |
| 5 | kernel patch submissions accepted more quickly. |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 6 | |
Andrew Morton | e54695a | 2006-07-10 04:45:42 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 7 | These are all above and beyond the documentation that is provided in |
| 8 | Documentation/SubmittingPatches and elsewhere regarding submitting Linux |
| 9 | kernel patches. |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 10 | |
| 11 | |
Andrew Morton | e54695a | 2006-07-10 04:45:42 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 12 | 1: Builds cleanly with applicable or modified CONFIG options =y, =m, and |
| 13 | =n. No gcc warnings/errors, no linker warnings/errors. |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 14 | |
Andrew Morton | e54695a | 2006-07-10 04:45:42 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 15 | 2: Passes allnoconfig, allmodconfig |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 16 | |
Andrew Morton | e54695a | 2006-07-10 04:45:42 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 17 | 3: Builds on multiple CPU architectures by using local cross-compile tools |
| 18 | or something like PLM at OSDL. |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 19 | |
Andrew Morton | e54695a | 2006-07-10 04:45:42 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 20 | 4: ppc64 is a good architecture for cross-compilation checking because it |
| 21 | tends to use `unsigned long' for 64-bit quantities. |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 22 | |
J. Bruce Fields | df24d9a | 2008-02-13 15:03:20 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 23 | 5: Check your patch for general style as detailed in |
| 24 | Documentation/CodingStyle. Check for trivial violations with the |
| 25 | patch style checker prior to submission (scripts/checkpatch.pl). |
| 26 | You should be able to justify all violations that remain in |
| 27 | your patch. |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 28 | |
Andrew Morton | e54695a | 2006-07-10 04:45:42 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 29 | 6: Any new or modified CONFIG options don't muck up the config menu. |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 30 | |
Andrew Morton | e54695a | 2006-07-10 04:45:42 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 31 | 7: All new Kconfig options have help text. |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 32 | |
Andrew Morton | e54695a | 2006-07-10 04:45:42 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 33 | 8: Has been carefully reviewed with respect to relevant Kconfig |
| 34 | combinations. This is very hard to get right with testing -- brainpower |
| 35 | pays off here. |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 36 | |
Andrew Morton | e54695a | 2006-07-10 04:45:42 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 37 | 9: Check cleanly with sparse. |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 38 | |
Andrew Morton | e54695a | 2006-07-10 04:45:42 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 39 | 10: Use 'make checkstack' and 'make namespacecheck' and fix any problems |
| 40 | that they find. Note: checkstack does not point out problems explicitly, |
| 41 | but any one function that uses more than 512 bytes on the stack is a |
| 42 | candidate for change. |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 43 | |
Andrew Morton | e54695a | 2006-07-10 04:45:42 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 44 | 11: Include kernel-doc to document global kernel APIs. (Not required for |
| 45 | static functions, but OK there also.) Use 'make htmldocs' or 'make |
| 46 | mandocs' to check the kernel-doc and fix any issues. |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 47 | |
Andrew Morton | e54695a | 2006-07-10 04:45:42 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 48 | 12: Has been tested with CONFIG_PREEMPT, CONFIG_DEBUG_PREEMPT, |
| 49 | CONFIG_DEBUG_SLAB, CONFIG_DEBUG_PAGEALLOC, CONFIG_DEBUG_MUTEXES, |
| 50 | CONFIG_DEBUG_SPINLOCK, CONFIG_DEBUG_SPINLOCK_SLEEP all simultaneously |
| 51 | enabled. |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 52 | |
Andrew Morton | e54695a | 2006-07-10 04:45:42 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 53 | 13: Has been build- and runtime tested with and without CONFIG_SMP and |
| 54 | CONFIG_PREEMPT. |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 55 | |
Andrew Morton | e54695a | 2006-07-10 04:45:42 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 56 | 14: If the patch affects IO/Disk, etc: has been tested with and without |
| 57 | CONFIG_LBD. |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 58 | |
Andrew Morton | e54695a | 2006-07-10 04:45:42 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 59 | 15: All codepaths have been exercised with all lockdep features enabled. |
Randy Dunlap | 915a56d | 2006-06-23 02:05:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 60 | |
Andrew Morton | e54695a | 2006-07-10 04:45:42 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 61 | 16: All new /proc entries are documented under Documentation/ |
| 62 | |
| 63 | 17: All new kernel boot parameters are documented in |
| 64 | Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt. |
| 65 | |
| 66 | 18: All new module parameters are documented with MODULE_PARM_DESC() |
Randy Dunlap | 1a036cdd | 2006-09-29 02:01:26 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 67 | |
| 68 | 19: All new userspace interfaces are documented in Documentation/ABI/. |
| 69 | See Documentation/ABI/README for more information. |
Michael Kerrisk | 1d992ce | 2008-10-03 15:23:44 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 70 | Patches that change userspace interfaces should be CCed to |
| 71 | linux-api@vger.kernel.org. |
Andrew Morton | ce584f9 | 2006-09-30 23:27:39 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 72 | |
| 73 | 20: Check that it all passes `make headers_check'. |
Andrew Morton | 0dd4e5b | 2006-12-10 02:18:56 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 74 | |
| 75 | 21: Has been checked with injection of at least slab and page-allocation |
James Bowes | 80abe55 | 2007-10-20 03:13:09 +0200 | [diff] [blame] | 76 | failures. See Documentation/fault-injection/. |
Andrew Morton | 0dd4e5b | 2006-12-10 02:18:56 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 77 | |
| 78 | If the new code is substantial, addition of subsystem-specific fault |
| 79 | injection might be appropriate. |
Andrew Morton | a517b9f | 2007-01-22 20:40:36 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 80 | |
Andrew Morton | 9809169 | 2007-05-10 22:22:49 -0700 | [diff] [blame] | 81 | 22: Newly-added code has been compiled with `gcc -W' (use "make |
| 82 | EXTRA_CFLAGS=-W"). This will generate lots of noise, but is good for |
| 83 | finding bugs like "warning: comparison between signed and unsigned". |
Randy Dunlap | 244474b | 2007-02-28 20:12:35 -0800 | [diff] [blame] | 84 | |
| 85 | 23: Tested after it has been merged into the -mm patchset to make sure |
| 86 | that it still works with all of the other queued patches and various |
| 87 | changes in the VM, VFS, and other subsystems. |