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author | 2023-02-21 18:24:12 -0800 | |
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committer | 2023-02-21 18:24:12 -0800 | |
commit | 5b7c4cabbb65f5c469464da6c5f614cbd7f730f2 (patch) | |
tree | cc5c2d0a898769fd59549594fedb3ee6f84e59a0 /Documentation/doc-guide/contributing.rst | |
download | linux-5b7c4cabbb65f5c469464da6c5f614cbd7f730f2.tar.gz linux-5b7c4cabbb65f5c469464da6c5f614cbd7f730f2.zip |
Merge tag 'net-next-6.3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net-nextgrafted
Pull networking updates from Jakub Kicinski:
"Core:
- Add dedicated kmem_cache for typical/small skb->head, avoid having
to access struct page at kfree time, and improve memory use.
- Introduce sysctl to set default RPS configuration for new netdevs.
- Define Netlink protocol specification format which can be used to
describe messages used by each family and auto-generate parsers.
Add tools for generating kernel data structures and uAPI headers.
- Expose all net/core sysctls inside netns.
- Remove 4s sleep in netpoll if carrier is instantly detected on
boot.
- Add configurable limit of MDB entries per port, and port-vlan.
- Continue populating drop reasons throughout the stack.
- Retire a handful of legacy Qdiscs and classifiers.
Protocols:
- Support IPv4 big TCP (TSO frames larger than 64kB).
- Add IP_LOCAL_PORT_RANGE socket option, to control local port range
on socket by socket basis.
- Track and report in procfs number of MPTCP sockets used.
- Support mixing IPv4 and IPv6 flows in the in-kernel MPTCP path
manager.
- IPv6: don't check net.ipv6.route.max_size and rely on garbage
collection to free memory (similarly to IPv4).
- Support Penultimate Segment Pop (PSP) flavor in SRv6 (RFC8986).
- ICMP: add per-rate limit counters.
- Add support for user scanning requests in ieee802154.
- Remove static WEP support.
- Support minimal Wi-Fi 7 Extremely High Throughput (EHT) rate
reporting.
- WiFi 7 EHT channel puncturing support (client & AP).
BPF:
- Add a rbtree data structure following the "next-gen data structure"
precedent set by recently added linked list, that is, by using
kfunc + kptr instead of adding a new BPF map type.
- Expose XDP hints via kfuncs with initial support for RX hash and
timestamp metadata.
- Add BPF_F_NO_TUNNEL_KEY extension to bpf_skb_set_tunnel_key to
better support decap on GRE tunnel devices not operating in collect
metadata.
- Improve x86 JIT's codegen for PROBE_MEM runtime error checks.
- Remove the need for trace_printk_lock for bpf_trace_printk and
bpf_trace_vprintk helpers.
- Extend libbpf's bpf_tracing.h support for tracing arguments of
kprobes/uprobes and syscall as a special case.
- Significantly reduce the search time for module symbols by
livepatch and BPF.
- Enable cpumasks to be used as kptrs, which is useful for tracing
programs tracking which tasks end up running on which CPUs in
different time intervals.
- Add support for BPF trampoline on s390x and riscv64.
- Add capability to export the XDP features supported by the NIC.
- Add __bpf_kfunc tag for marking kernel functions as kfuncs.
- Add cgroup.memory=nobpf kernel parameter option to disable BPF
memory accounting for container environments.
Netfilter:
- Remove the CLUSTERIP target. It has been marked as obsolete for
years, and we still have WARN splats wrt races of the out-of-band
/proc interface installed by this target.
- Add 'destroy' commands to nf_tables. They are identical to the
existing 'delete' commands, but do not return an error if the
referenced object (set, chain, rule...) did not exist.
Driver API:
- Improve cpumask_local_spread() locality to help NICs set the right
IRQ affinity on AMD platforms.
- Separate C22 and C45 MDIO bus transactions more clearly.
- Introduce new DCB table to control DSCP rewrite on egress.
- Support configuration of Physical Layer Collision Avoidance (PLCA)
Reconciliation Sublayer (RS) (802.3cg-2019). Modern version of
shared medium Ethernet.
- Support for MAC Merge layer (IEEE 802.3-2018 clause 99). Allowing
preemption of low priority frames by high priority frames.
- Add support for controlling MACSec offload using netlink SET.
- Rework devlink instance refcounts to allow registration and
de-registration under the instance lock. Split the code into
multiple files, drop some of the unnecessarily granular locks and
factor out common parts of netlink operation handling.
- Add TX frame aggregation parameters (for USB drivers).
- Add a new attr TCA_EXT_WARN_MSG to report TC (offload) warning
messages with notifications for debug.
- Allow offloading of UDP NEW connections via act_ct.
- Add support for per action HW stats in TC.
- Support hardware miss to TC action (continue processing in SW from
a specific point in the action chain).
- Warn if old Wireless Extension user space interface is used with
modern cfg80211/mac80211 drivers. Do not support Wireless
Extensions for Wi-Fi 7 devices at all. Everyone should switch to
using nl80211 interface instead.
- Improve the CAN bit timing configuration. Use extack to return
error messages directly to user space, update the SJW handling,
including the definition of a new default value that will benefit
CAN-FD controllers, by increasing their oscillator tolerance.
New hardware / drivers:
- Ethernet:
- nVidia BlueField-3 support (control traffic driver)
- Ethernet support for imx93 SoCs
- Motorcomm yt8531 gigabit Ethernet PHY
- onsemi NCN26000 10BASE-T1S PHY (with support for PLCA)
- Microchip LAN8841 PHY (incl. cable diagnostics and PTP)
- Amlogic gxl MDIO mux
- WiFi:
- RealTek RTL8188EU (rtl8xxxu)
- Qualcomm Wi-Fi 7 devices (ath12k)
- CAN:
- Renesas R-Car V4H
Drivers:
- Bluetooth:
- Set Per Platform Antenna Gain (PPAG) for Intel controllers.
- Ethernet NICs:
- Intel (1G, igc):
- support TSN / Qbv / packet scheduling features of i226 model
- Intel (100G, ice):
- use GNSS subsystem instead of TTY
- multi-buffer XDP support
- extend support for GPIO pins to E823 devices
- nVidia/Mellanox:
- update the shared buffer configuration on PFC commands
- implement PTP adjphase function for HW offset control
- TC support for Geneve and GRE with VF tunnel offload
- more efficient crypto key management method
- multi-port eswitch support
- Netronome/Corigine:
- add DCB IEEE support
- support IPsec offloading for NFP3800
- Freescale/NXP (enetc):
- support XDP_REDIRECT for XDP non-linear buffers
- improve reconfig, avoid link flap and waiting for idle
- support MAC Merge layer
- Other NICs:
- sfc/ef100: add basic devlink support for ef100
- ionic: rx_push mode operation (writing descriptors via MMIO)
- bnxt: use the auxiliary bus abstraction for RDMA
- r8169: disable ASPM and reset bus in case of tx timeout
- cpsw: support QSGMII mode for J721e CPSW9G
- cpts: support pulse-per-second output
- ngbe: add an mdio bus driver
- usbnet: optimize usbnet_bh() by avoiding unnecessary queuing
- r8152: handle devices with FW with NCM support
- amd-xgbe: support 10Mbps, 2.5GbE speeds and rx-adaptation
- virtio-net: support multi buffer XDP
- virtio/vsock: replace virtio_vsock_pkt with sk_buff
- tsnep: XDP support
- Ethernet high-speed switches:
- nVidia/Mellanox (mlxsw):
- add support for latency TLV (in FW control messages)
- Microchip (sparx5):
- separate explicit and implicit traffic forwarding rules, make
the implicit rules always active
- add support for egress DSCP rewrite
- IS0 VCAP support (Ingress Classification)
- IS2 VCAP filters (protos, L3 addrs, L4 ports, flags, ToS
etc.)
- ES2 VCAP support (Egress Access Control)
- support for Per-Stream Filtering and Policing (802.1Q,
8.6.5.1)
- Ethernet embedded switches:
- Marvell (mv88e6xxx):
- add MAB (port auth) offload support
- enable PTP receive for mv88e6390
- NXP (ocelot):
- support MAC Merge layer
- support for the the vsc7512 internal copper phys
- Microchip:
- lan9303: convert to PHYLINK
- lan966x: support TC flower filter statistics
- lan937x: PTP support for KSZ9563/KSZ8563 and LAN937x
- lan937x: support Credit Based Shaper configuration
- ksz9477: support Energy Efficient Ethernet
- other:
- qca8k: convert to regmap read/write API, use bulk operations
- rswitch: Improve TX timestamp accuracy
- Intel WiFi (iwlwifi):
- EHT (Wi-Fi 7) rate reporting
- STEP equalizer support: transfer some STEP (connection to radio
on platforms with integrated wifi) related parameters from the
BIOS to the firmware.
- Qualcomm 802.11ax WiFi (ath11k):
- IPQ5018 support
- Fine Timing Measurement (FTM) responder role support
- channel 177 support
- MediaTek WiFi (mt76):
- per-PHY LED support
- mt7996: EHT (Wi-Fi 7) support
- Wireless Ethernet Dispatch (WED) reset support
- switch to using page pool allocator
- RealTek WiFi (rtw89):
- support new version of Bluetooth co-existance
- Mobile:
- rmnet: support TX aggregation"
* tag 'net-next-6.3' of git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net-next: (1872 commits)
page_pool: add a comment explaining the fragment counter usage
net: ethtool: fix __ethtool_dev_mm_supported() implementation
ethtool: pse-pd: Fix double word in comments
xsk: add linux/vmalloc.h to xsk.c
sefltests: netdevsim: wait for devlink instance after netns removal
selftest: fib_tests: Always cleanup before exit
net/mlx5e: Align IPsec ASO result memory to be as required by hardware
net/mlx5e: TC, Set CT miss to the specific ct action instance
net/mlx5e: Rename CHAIN_TO_REG to MAPPED_OBJ_TO_REG
net/mlx5: Refactor tc miss handling to a single function
net/mlx5: Kconfig: Make tc offload depend on tc skb extension
net/sched: flower: Support hardware miss to tc action
net/sched: flower: Move filter handle initialization earlier
net/sched: cls_api: Support hardware miss to tc action
net/sched: Rename user cookie and act cookie
sfc: fix builds without CONFIG_RTC_LIB
sfc: clean up some inconsistent indentings
net/mlx4_en: Introduce flexible array to silence overflow warning
net: lan966x: Fix possible deadlock inside PTP
net/ulp: Remove redundant ->clone() test in inet_clone_ulp().
...
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/doc-guide/contributing.rst')
-rw-r--r-- | Documentation/doc-guide/contributing.rst | 296 |
1 files changed, 296 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/doc-guide/contributing.rst b/Documentation/doc-guide/contributing.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..d4793826a --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/doc-guide/contributing.rst @@ -0,0 +1,296 @@ +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 + +How to help improve kernel documentation +======================================== + +Documentation is an important part of any software-development project. +Good documentation helps to bring new developers in and helps established +developers work more effectively. Without top-quality documentation, a lot +of time is wasted in reverse-engineering the code and making avoidable +mistakes. + +Unfortunately, the kernel's documentation currently falls far short of what +it needs to be to support a project of this size and importance. + +This guide is for contributors who would like to improve that situation. +Kernel documentation improvements can be made by developers at a variety of +skill levels; they are a relatively easy way to learn the kernel process in +general and find a place in the community. The bulk of what follows is the +documentation maintainer's list of tasks that most urgently need to be +done. + +The documentation TODO list +--------------------------- + +There is an endless list of tasks that need to be carried out to get our +documentation to where it should be. This list contains a number of +important items, but is far from exhaustive; if you see a different way to +improve the documentation, please do not hold back! + +Addressing warnings +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +The documentation build currently spews out an unbelievable number of +warnings. When you have that many, you might as well have none at all; +people ignore them, and they will never notice when their work adds new +ones. For this reason, eliminating warnings is one of the highest-priority +tasks on the documentation TODO list. The task itself is reasonably +straightforward, but it must be approached in the right way to be +successful. + +Warnings issued by a compiler for C code can often be dismissed as false +positives, leading to patches aimed at simply shutting the compiler up. +Warnings from the documentation build almost always point at a real +problem; making those warnings go away requires understanding the problem +and fixing it at its source. For this reason, patches fixing documentation +warnings should probably not say "fix a warning" in the changelog title; +they should indicate the real problem that has been fixed. + +Another important point is that documentation warnings are often created by +problems in kerneldoc comments in C code. While the documentation +maintainer appreciates being copied on fixes for these warnings, the +documentation tree is often not the right one to actually carry those +fixes; they should go to the maintainer of the subsystem in question. + +For example, in a documentation build I grabbed a pair of warnings nearly +at random:: + + ./drivers/devfreq/devfreq.c:1818: warning: bad line: + - Resource-managed devfreq_register_notifier() + ./drivers/devfreq/devfreq.c:1854: warning: bad line: + - Resource-managed devfreq_unregister_notifier() + +(The lines were split for readability). + +A quick look at the source file named above turned up a couple of kerneldoc +comments that look like this:: + + /** + * devm_devfreq_register_notifier() + - Resource-managed devfreq_register_notifier() + * @dev: The devfreq user device. (parent of devfreq) + * @devfreq: The devfreq object. + * @nb: The notifier block to be unregistered. + * @list: DEVFREQ_TRANSITION_NOTIFIER. + */ + +The problem is the missing "*", which confuses the build system's +simplistic idea of what C comment blocks look like. This problem had been +present since that comment was added in 2016 — a full four years. Fixing +it was a matter of adding the missing asterisks. A quick look at the +history for that file showed what the normal format for subject lines is, +and ``scripts/get_maintainer.pl`` told me who should receive it (pass paths to +your patches as arguments to scripts/get_maintainer.pl). The resulting patch +looked like this:: + + [PATCH] PM / devfreq: Fix two malformed kerneldoc comments + + Two kerneldoc comments in devfreq.c fail to adhere to the required format, + resulting in these doc-build warnings: + + ./drivers/devfreq/devfreq.c:1818: warning: bad line: + - Resource-managed devfreq_register_notifier() + ./drivers/devfreq/devfreq.c:1854: warning: bad line: + - Resource-managed devfreq_unregister_notifier() + + Add a couple of missing asterisks and make kerneldoc a little happier. + + Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net> + --- + drivers/devfreq/devfreq.c | 4 ++-- + 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) + + diff --git a/drivers/devfreq/devfreq.c b/drivers/devfreq/devfreq.c + index 57f6944d65a6..00c9b80b3d33 100644 + --- a/drivers/devfreq/devfreq.c + +++ b/drivers/devfreq/devfreq.c + @@ -1814,7 +1814,7 @@ static void devm_devfreq_notifier_release(struct device *dev, void *res) + + /** + * devm_devfreq_register_notifier() + - - Resource-managed devfreq_register_notifier() + + * - Resource-managed devfreq_register_notifier() + * @dev: The devfreq user device. (parent of devfreq) + * @devfreq: The devfreq object. + * @nb: The notifier block to be unregistered. + @@ -1850,7 +1850,7 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(devm_devfreq_register_notifier); + + /** + * devm_devfreq_unregister_notifier() + - - Resource-managed devfreq_unregister_notifier() + + * - Resource-managed devfreq_unregister_notifier() + * @dev: The devfreq user device. (parent of devfreq) + * @devfreq: The devfreq object. + * @nb: The notifier block to be unregistered. + -- + 2.24.1 + +The entire process only took a few minutes. Of course, I then found that +somebody else had fixed it in a separate tree, highlighting another lesson: +always check linux-next to see if a problem has been fixed before you dig +into it. + +Other fixes will take longer, especially those relating to structure +members or function parameters that lack documentation. In such cases, it +is necessary to work out what the role of those members or parameters is +and describe them correctly. Overall, this task gets a little tedious at +times, but it's highly important. If we can actually eliminate warnings +from the documentation build, then we can start expecting developers to +avoid adding new ones. + +Languishing kerneldoc comments +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +Developers are encouraged to write kerneldoc comments for their code, but +many of those comments are never pulled into the docs build. That makes +this information harder to find and, for example, makes Sphinx unable to +generate links to that documentation. Adding ``kernel-doc`` directives to +the documentation to bring those comments in can help the community derive +the full value of the work that has gone into creating them. + +The ``scripts/find-unused-docs.sh`` tool can be used to find these +overlooked comments. + +Note that the most value comes from pulling in the documentation for +exported functions and data structures. Many subsystems also have +kerneldoc comments for internal use; those should not be pulled into the +documentation build unless they are placed in a document that is +specifically aimed at developers working within the relevant subsystem. + + +Typo fixes +~~~~~~~~~~ + +Fixing typographical or formatting errors in the documentation is a quick +way to figure out how to create and send patches, and it is a useful +service. I am always willing to accept such patches. That said, once you +have fixed a few, please consider moving on to more advanced tasks, leaving +some typos for the next beginner to address. + +Please note that some things are *not* typos and should not be "fixed": + + - Both American and British English spellings are allowed within the + kernel documentation. There is no need to fix one by replacing it with + the other. + + - The question of whether a period should be followed by one or two spaces + is not to be debated in the context of kernel documentation. Other + areas of rational disagreement, such as the "Oxford comma", are also + off-topic here. + +As with any patch to any project, please consider whether your change is +really making things better. + +Ancient documentation +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +Some kernel documentation is current, maintained, and useful. Some +documentation is ... not. Dusty, old, and inaccurate documentation can +mislead readers and casts doubt on our documentation as a whole. Anything +that can be done to address such problems is more than welcome. + +Whenever you are working with a document, please consider whether it is +current, whether it needs updating, or whether it should perhaps be removed +altogether. There are a number of warning signs that you can pay attention +to here: + + - References to 2.x kernels + - Pointers to SourceForge repositories + - Nothing but typo fixes in the history for several years + - Discussion of pre-Git workflows + +The best thing to do, of course, would be to bring the documentation +current, adding whatever information is needed. Such work often requires +the cooperation of developers familiar with the subsystem in question, of +course. Developers are often more than willing to cooperate with people +working to improve the documentation when asked nicely, and when their +answers are listened to and acted upon. + +Some documentation is beyond hope; we occasionally find documents that +refer to code that was removed from the kernel long ago, for example. +There is surprising resistance to removing obsolete documentation, but we +should do that anyway. Extra cruft in our documentation helps nobody. + +In cases where there is perhaps some useful information in a badly outdated +document, and you are unable to update it, the best thing to do may be to +add a warning at the beginning. The following text is recommended:: + + .. warning :: + This document is outdated and in need of attention. Please use + this information with caution, and please consider sending patches + to update it. + +That way, at least our long-suffering readers have been warned that the +document may lead them astray. + +Documentation coherency +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +The old-timers around here will remember the Linux books that showed up on +the shelves in the 1990s. They were simply collections of documentation +files scrounged from various locations on the net. The books have (mostly) +improved since then, but the kernel's documentation is still mostly built +on that model. It is thousands of files, almost each of which was written +in isolation from all of the others. We don't have a coherent body of +kernel documentation; we have thousands of individual documents. + +We have been trying to improve the situation through the creation of +a set of "books" that group documentation for specific readers. These +include: + + - Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst + - Documentation/core-api/index.rst + - Documentation/driver-api/index.rst + - Documentation/userspace-api/index.rst + +As well as this book on documentation itself. + +Moving documents into the appropriate books is an important task and needs +to continue. There are a couple of challenges associated with this work, +though. Moving documentation files creates short-term pain for the people +who work with those files; they are understandably unenthusiastic about +such changes. Usually the case can be made to move a document once; we +really don't want to keep shifting them around, though. + +Even when all documents are in the right place, though, we have only +managed to turn a big pile into a group of smaller piles. The work of +trying to knit all of those documents together into a single whole has not +yet begun. If you have bright ideas on how we could proceed on that front, +we would be more than happy to hear them. + +Stylesheet improvements +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +With the adoption of Sphinx we have much nicer-looking HTML output than we +once did. But it could still use a lot of improvement; Donald Knuth and +Edward Tufte would be unimpressed. That requires tweaking our stylesheets +to create more typographically sound, accessible, and readable output. + +Be warned: if you take on this task you are heading into classic bikeshed +territory. Expect a lot of opinions and discussion for even relatively +obvious changes. That is, alas, the nature of the world we live in. + +Non-LaTeX PDF build +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +This is a decidedly nontrivial task for somebody with a lot of time and +Python skills. The Sphinx toolchain is relatively small and well +contained; it is easy to add to a development system. But building PDF or +EPUB output requires installing LaTeX, which is anything but small or well +contained. That would be a nice thing to eliminate. + +The original hope had been to use the rst2pdf tool (https://rst2pdf.org/) +for PDF generation, but it turned out to not be up to the task. +Development work on rst2pdf seems to have picked up again in recent times, +though, which is a hopeful sign. If a suitably motivated developer were to +work with that project to make rst2pdf work with the kernel documentation +build, the world would be eternally grateful. + +Write more documentation +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + +Naturally, there are massive parts of the kernel that are severely +underdocumented. If you have the knowledge to document a specific kernel +subsystem and the desire to do so, please do not hesitate to do some +writing and contribute the result to the kernel. Untold numbers of kernel +developers and users will thank you. |