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174 lines
9.4 KiB
Plaintext
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7: ADVANCED TOPICS
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At this point, hopefully, you have a handle on how the development process
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works. There is still more to learn, however! This section will cover a
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number of topics which can be helpful for developers wanting to become a
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regular part of the Linux kernel development process.
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7.1: MANAGING PATCHES WITH GIT
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The use of distributed version control for the kernel began in early 2002,
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when Linus first started playing with the proprietary BitKeeper
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application. While BitKeeper was controversial, the approach to software
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version management it embodied most certainly was not. Distributed version
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control enabled an immediate acceleration of the kernel development
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project. In current times, there are several free alternatives to
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BitKeeper. For better or for worse, the kernel project has settled on git
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as its tool of choice.
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Managing patches with git can make life much easier for the developer,
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especially as the volume of those patches grows. Git also has its rough
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edges and poses certain hazards; it is a young and powerful tool which is
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still being civilized by its developers. This document will not attempt to
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teach the reader how to use git; that would be sufficient material for a
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long document in its own right. Instead, the focus here will be on how git
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fits into the kernel development process in particular. Developers who
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wish to come up to speed with git will find more information at:
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http://git.or.cz/
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http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/user-manual.html
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and on various tutorials found on the web.
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The first order of business is to read the above sites and get a solid
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understanding of how git works before trying to use it to make patches
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available to others. A git-using developer should be able to obtain a copy
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of the mainline repository, explore the revision history, commit changes to
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the tree, use branches, etc. An understanding of git's tools for the
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rewriting of history (such as rebase) is also useful. Git comes with its
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own terminology and concepts; a new user of git should know about refs,
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remote branches, the index, fast-forward merges, pushes and pulls, detached
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heads, etc. It can all be a little intimidating at the outset, but the
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concepts are not that hard to grasp with a bit of study.
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Using git to generate patches for submission by email can be a good
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exercise while coming up to speed.
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When you are ready to start putting up git trees for others to look at, you
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will, of course, need a server that can be pulled from. Setting up such a
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server with git-daemon is relatively straightforward if you have a system
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which is accessible to the Internet. Otherwise, free, public hosting sites
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(Github, for example) are starting to appear on the net. Established
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developers can get an account on kernel.org, but those are not easy to come
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by; see http://kernel.org/faq/ for more information.
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The normal git workflow involves the use of a lot of branches. Each line
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of development can be separated into a separate "topic branch" and
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maintained independently. Branches in git are cheap, there is no reason to
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not make free use of them. And, in any case, you should not do your
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development in any branch which you intend to ask others to pull from.
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Publicly-available branches should be created with care; merge in patches
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from development branches when they are in complete form and ready to go -
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not before.
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Git provides some powerful tools which can allow you to rewrite your
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development history. An inconvenient patch (one which breaks bisection,
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say, or which has some other sort of obvious bug) can be fixed in place or
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made to disappear from the history entirely. A patch series can be
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rewritten as if it had been written on top of today's mainline, even though
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you have been working on it for months. Changes can be transparently
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shifted from one branch to another. And so on. Judicious use of git's
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ability to revise history can help in the creation of clean patch sets with
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fewer problems.
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Excessive use of this capability can lead to other problems, though, beyond
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a simple obsession for the creation of the perfect project history.
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Rewriting history will rewrite the changes contained in that history,
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turning a tested (hopefully) kernel tree into an untested one. But, beyond
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that, developers cannot easily collaborate if they do not have a shared
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view of the project history; if you rewrite history which other developers
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have pulled into their repositories, you will make life much more difficult
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for those developers. So a simple rule of thumb applies here: history
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which has been exported to others should generally be seen as immutable
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thereafter.
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So, once you push a set of changes to your publicly-available server, those
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changes should not be rewritten. Git will attempt to enforce this rule if
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you try to push changes which do not result in a fast-forward merge
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(i.e. changes which do not share the same history). It is possible to
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override this check, and there may be times when it is necessary to rewrite
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an exported tree. Moving changesets between trees to avoid conflicts in
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linux-next is one example. But such actions should be rare. This is one
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of the reasons why development should be done in private branches (which
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can be rewritten if necessary) and only moved into public branches when
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it's in a reasonably advanced state.
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As the mainline (or other tree upon which a set of changes is based)
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advances, it is tempting to merge with that tree to stay on the leading
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edge. For a private branch, rebasing can be an easy way to keep up with
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another tree, but rebasing is not an option once a tree is exported to the
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world. Once that happens, a full merge must be done. Merging occasionally
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makes good sense, but overly frequent merges can clutter the history
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needlessly. Suggested technique in this case is to merge infrequently, and
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generally only at specific release points (such as a mainline -rc
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release). If you are nervous about specific changes, you can always
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perform test merges in a private branch. The git "rerere" tool can be
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useful in such situations; it remembers how merge conflicts were resolved
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so that you don't have to do the same work twice.
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One of the biggest recurring complaints about tools like git is this: the
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mass movement of patches from one repository to another makes it easy to
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slip in ill-advised changes which go into the mainline below the review
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radar. Kernel developers tend to get unhappy when they see that kind of
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thing happening; putting up a git tree with unreviewed or off-topic patches
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can affect your ability to get trees pulled in the future. Quoting Linus:
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You can send me patches, but for me to pull a git patch from you, I
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need to know that you know what you're doing, and I need to be able
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to trust things *without* then having to go and check every
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individual change by hand.
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(http://lwn.net/Articles/224135/).
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To avoid this kind of situation, ensure that all patches within a given
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branch stick closely to the associated topic; a "driver fixes" branch
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should not be making changes to the core memory management code. And, most
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importantly, do not use a git tree to bypass the review process. Post an
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occasional summary of the tree to the relevant list, and, when the time is
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right, request that the tree be included in linux-next.
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If and when others start to send patches for inclusion into your tree,
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don't forget to review them. Also ensure that you maintain the correct
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authorship information; the git "am" tool does its best in this regard, but
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you may have to add a "From:" line to the patch if it has been relayed to
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you via a third party.
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When requesting a pull, be sure to give all the relevant information: where
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your tree is, what branch to pull, and what changes will result from the
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pull. The git request-pull command can be helpful in this regard; it will
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format the request as other developers expect, and will also check to be
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sure that you have remembered to push those changes to the public server.
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7.2: REVIEWING PATCHES
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Some readers will certainly object to putting this section with "advanced
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topics" on the grounds that even beginning kernel developers should be
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reviewing patches. It is certainly true that there is no better way to
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learn how to program in the kernel environment than by looking at code
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posted by others. In addition, reviewers are forever in short supply; by
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looking at code you can make a significant contribution to the process as a
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whole.
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Reviewing code can be an intimidating prospect, especially for a new kernel
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developer who may well feel nervous about questioning code - in public -
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which has been posted by those with more experience. Even code written by
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the most experienced developers can be improved, though. Perhaps the best
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piece of advice for reviewers (all reviewers) is this: phrase review
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comments as questions rather than criticisms. Asking "how does the lock
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get released in this path?" will always work better than stating "the
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locking here is wrong."
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Different developers will review code from different points of view. Some
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are mostly concerned with coding style and whether code lines have trailing
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white space. Others will focus primarily on whether the change implemented
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by the patch as a whole is a good thing for the kernel or not. Yet others
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will check for problematic locking, excessive stack usage, possible
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security issues, duplication of code found elsewhere, adequate
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documentation, adverse effects on performance, user-space ABI changes, etc.
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All types of review, if they lead to better code going into the kernel, are
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welcome and worthwhile.
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