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Based on kernel version 2.6.33. Page generated on 2010-02-24 15:37 EST.

1	Linux Kernel patch submission checklist
2	~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3	
4	Here are some basic things that developers should do if they want to see their
5	kernel patch submissions accepted more quickly.
6	
7	These are all above and beyond the documentation that is provided in
8	Documentation/SubmittingPatches and elsewhere regarding submitting Linux
9	kernel patches.
10	
11	
12	1: Builds cleanly with applicable or modified CONFIG options =y, =m, and
13	   =n.  No gcc warnings/errors, no linker warnings/errors.
14	
15	2: Passes allnoconfig, allmodconfig
16	
17	3: Builds on multiple CPU architectures by using local cross-compile tools
18	   or some other build farm.
19	
20	4: ppc64 is a good architecture for cross-compilation checking because it
21	   tends to use `unsigned long' for 64-bit quantities.
22	
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.
28	
29	6: Any new or modified CONFIG options don't muck up the config menu.
30	
31	7: All new Kconfig options have help text.
32	
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.
36	
37	9: Check cleanly with sparse.
38	
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.
43	
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.
47	
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.
52	
53	13: Has been build- and runtime tested with and without CONFIG_SMP and
54	    CONFIG_PREEMPT.
55	
56	14: If the patch affects IO/Disk, etc: has been tested with and without
57	    CONFIG_LBDAF.
58	
59	15: All codepaths have been exercised with all lockdep features enabled.
60	
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()
67	
68	19: All new userspace interfaces are documented in Documentation/ABI/.
69	    See Documentation/ABI/README for more information.
70	    Patches that change userspace interfaces should be CCed to
71	    linux-api[AT]vger.kernel.org[DOT]
72	
73	20: Check that it all passes `make headers_check'.
74	
75	21: Has been checked with injection of at least slab and page-allocation
76	    failures.  See Documentation/fault-injection/.
77	
78	    If the new code is substantial, addition of subsystem-specific fault
79	    injection might be appropriate.
80	
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".
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.
88	
89	24: All memory barriers {e.g., barrier(), rmb(), wmb()} need a comment in the
90	    source code that explains the logic of what they are doing and why.
91	
92	25: If any ioctl's are added by the patch, then also update
93	    Documentation/ioctl/ioctl-number.txt.
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