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1Linux Kernel patch submission checklist
2~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3
4Here are some basic things that developers should do if they want to see their
5kernel patch submissions accepted more quickly.
6
7These are all above and beyond the documentation that is provided in
8Documentation/SubmittingPatches and elsewhere regarding submitting Linux
9kernel patches.
10
11
121: Builds cleanly with applicable or modified CONFIG options =y, =m, and
13 =n. No gcc warnings/errors, no linker warnings/errors.
14
152: Passes allnoconfig, allmodconfig
16
173: Builds on multiple CPU architectures by using local cross-compile tools
18 or something like PLM at OSDL.
19
204: ppc64 is a good architecture for cross-compilation checking because it
21 tends to use `unsigned long' for 64-bit quantities.
22
235: Matches kernel coding style(!)
24
256: Any new or modified CONFIG options don't muck up the config menu.
26
277: All new Kconfig options have help text.
28
298: Has been carefully reviewed with respect to relevant Kconfig
30 combinations. This is very hard to get right with testing -- brainpower
31 pays off here.
32
339: Check cleanly with sparse.
34
3510: Use 'make checkstack' and 'make namespacecheck' and fix any problems
36 that they find. Note: checkstack does not point out problems explicitly,
37 but any one function that uses more than 512 bytes on the stack is a
38 candidate for change.
39
4011: Include kernel-doc to document global kernel APIs. (Not required for
41 static functions, but OK there also.) Use 'make htmldocs' or 'make
42 mandocs' to check the kernel-doc and fix any issues.
43
4412: Has been tested with CONFIG_PREEMPT, CONFIG_DEBUG_PREEMPT,
45 CONFIG_DEBUG_SLAB, CONFIG_DEBUG_PAGEALLOC, CONFIG_DEBUG_MUTEXES,
46 CONFIG_DEBUG_SPINLOCK, CONFIG_DEBUG_SPINLOCK_SLEEP all simultaneously
47 enabled.
48
4913: Has been build- and runtime tested with and without CONFIG_SMP and
50 CONFIG_PREEMPT.
51
5214: If the patch affects IO/Disk, etc: has been tested with and without
53 CONFIG_LBD.
54
5515: All codepaths have been exercised with all lockdep features enabled.
56
5716: All new /proc entries are documented under Documentation/
58
5917: All new kernel boot parameters are documented in
60 Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt.
61
6218: All new module parameters are documented with MODULE_PARM_DESC()
63
6419: All new userspace interfaces are documented in Documentation/ABI/.
65 See Documentation/ABI/README for more information.
66
6720: Check that it all passes `make headers_check'.
68
6921: Has been checked with injection of at least slab and page-allocation
70 fauilures. See Documentation/fault-injection/.
71
72 If the new code is substantial, addition of subsystem-specific fault
73 injection might be appropriate.
74
7522: Newly-added code has been compiled with `gcc -W' (use "make
76 EXTRA_CFLAGS=-W"). This will generate lots of noise, but is good for
77 finding bugs like "warning: comparison between signed and unsigned".
78
7923: Tested after it has been merged into the -mm patchset to make sure
80 that it still works with all of the other queued patches and various
81 changes in the VM, VFS, and other subsystems.
82
8324: Avoid whitespace damage such as indenting with spaces or whitespace
84 at the end of lines. You can test this by feeding the patch to
85 "git apply --check --whitespace=error-all"
86
8725: Check your patch for general style as detailed in
88 Documentation/CodingStyle. Check for trivial violations with the
89 patch style checker prior to submission (scripts/checkpatch.pl).
90 You should be able to justify all violations that remain in
91 your patch.