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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: If you use a facility then #include the file that defines/declares
13 that facility. Don't depend on other header files pulling in ones
14 that you use.
15
162: Builds cleanly with applicable or modified CONFIG options =y, =m, and
17 =n. No gcc warnings/errors, no linker warnings/errors.
18
192b: Passes allnoconfig, allmodconfig
20
213: Builds on multiple CPU architectures by using local cross-compile tools
22 or some other build farm.
23
244: ppc64 is a good architecture for cross-compilation checking because it
25 tends to use `unsigned long' for 64-bit quantities.
26
275: Check your patch for general style as detailed in
28 Documentation/CodingStyle. Check for trivial violations with the
29 patch style checker prior to submission (scripts/checkpatch.pl).
30 You should be able to justify all violations that remain in
31 your patch.
32
336: Any new or modified CONFIG options don't muck up the config menu.
34
357: All new Kconfig options have help text.
36
378: Has been carefully reviewed with respect to relevant Kconfig
38 combinations. This is very hard to get right with testing -- brainpower
39 pays off here.
40
419: Check cleanly with sparse.
42
4310: Use 'make checkstack' and 'make namespacecheck' and fix any problems
44 that they find. Note: checkstack does not point out problems explicitly,
45 but any one function that uses more than 512 bytes on the stack is a
46 candidate for change.
47
4811: Include kernel-doc to document global kernel APIs. (Not required for
49 static functions, but OK there also.) Use 'make htmldocs' or 'make
50 mandocs' to check the kernel-doc and fix any issues.
51
5212: Has been tested with CONFIG_PREEMPT, CONFIG_DEBUG_PREEMPT,
53 CONFIG_DEBUG_SLAB, CONFIG_DEBUG_PAGEALLOC, CONFIG_DEBUG_MUTEXES,
54 CONFIG_DEBUG_SPINLOCK, CONFIG_DEBUG_SPINLOCK_SLEEP all simultaneously
55 enabled.
56
5713: Has been build- and runtime tested with and without CONFIG_SMP and
58 CONFIG_PREEMPT.
59
6014: If the patch affects IO/Disk, etc: has been tested with and without
61 CONFIG_LBDAF.
62
6315: All codepaths have been exercised with all lockdep features enabled.
64
6516: All new /proc entries are documented under Documentation/
66
6717: All new kernel boot parameters are documented in
68 Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt.
69
7018: All new module parameters are documented with MODULE_PARM_DESC()
71
7219: All new userspace interfaces are documented in Documentation/ABI/.
73 See Documentation/ABI/README for more information.
74 Patches that change userspace interfaces should be CCed to
75 linux-api@vger.kernel.org.
76
7720: Check that it all passes `make headers_check'.
78
7921: Has been checked with injection of at least slab and page-allocation
80 failures. See Documentation/fault-injection/.
81
82 If the new code is substantial, addition of subsystem-specific fault
83 injection might be appropriate.
84
8522: Newly-added code has been compiled with `gcc -W' (use "make
86 EXTRA_CFLAGS=-W"). This will generate lots of noise, but is good for
87 finding bugs like "warning: comparison between signed and unsigned".
88
8923: Tested after it has been merged into the -mm patchset to make sure
90 that it still works with all of the other queued patches and various
91 changes in the VM, VFS, and other subsystems.
92
9324: All memory barriers {e.g., barrier(), rmb(), wmb()} need a comment in the
94 source code that explains the logic of what they are doing and why.
95
9625: If any ioctl's are added by the patch, then also update
97 Documentation/ioctl/ioctl-number.txt.