1 The guidelines in this file are the ideals; it's better to send a 2 not-fully-following-guidelines patch than no patch at all, though. We 3 can always polish it up. 4 5 Mailing list 6 === 7 8 The D-Bus mailing list is dbus (a] lists.freedesktop.org; discussion 9 of patches, etc. should go there. 10 11 Security 12 === 13 14 Most of D-Bus is security sensitive. Guidelines related to that: 15 16 - avoid memcpy(), sprintf(), strlen(), snprintf, strlcat(), 17 strstr(), strtok(), or any of this stuff. Use DBusString. 18 If DBusString doesn't have the feature you need, add it 19 to DBusString. 20 21 There are some exceptions, for example 22 if your strings are just used to index a hash table 23 and you don't do any parsing/modification of them, perhaps 24 DBusString is wasteful and wouldn't help much. But definitely 25 if you're doing any parsing, reallocation, etc. use DBusString. 26 27 - do not include system headers outside of dbus-memory.c, 28 dbus-sysdeps.c, and other places where they are already 29 included. This gives us one place to audit all external 30 dependencies on features in libc, etc. 31 32 - do not use libc features that are "complicated" 33 and may contain security holes. For example, you probably shouldn't 34 try to use regcomp() to compile an untrusted regular expression. 35 Regular expressions are just too complicated, and there are many 36 different libc's out there. 37 38 - we need to design the message bus daemon (and any similar features) 39 to use limited privileges, run in a chroot jail, and so on. 40 41 http://vsftpd.beasts.org/ has other good security suggestions. 42 43 Coding Style 44 === 45 46 - The C library uses GNU coding conventions, with GLib-like 47 extensions (e.g. lining up function arguments). The 48 Qt wrapper uses KDE coding conventions. 49 50 - Write docs for all non-static functions and structs and so on. try 51 "doxygen Doxyfile" prior to commit and be sure there are no 52 warnings printed. 53 54 - All external interfaces (network protocols, file formats, etc.) 55 should have documented specifications sufficient to allow an 56 alternative implementation to be written. Our implementation should 57 be strict about specification compliance (should not for example 58 heuristically parse a file and accept not-well-formed 59 data). Avoiding heuristics is also important for security reasons; 60 if it looks funny, ignore it (or exit, or disconnect). 61 62 Development 63 === 64 65 D-Bus uses Git as its version control system. The main repository is 66 hosted at git.freedesktop.org/dbus/dbus. To clone D-Bus, execute the 67 following command: 68 69 git clone git://git.freedesktop.org/dbus/dbus 70 OR 71 git clone git.freedesktop.org:dbus/dbus 72 73 The latter form is the one that allows pushing, but it also requires 74 an SSH account on the server. The former form allows anonymous 75 checkouts. 76 77 D-Bus development happens in two branches in parallel: the current 78 stable branch, with an even minor number (like 1.0, 1.2 and 1.4), and 79 the next development branch, with the next odd number. 80 81 The stable branch is named after the version number itself (dbus-1.2, 82 dbus-1.4), whereas the development branch is simply known as "master". 83 84 When making a change to D-Bus, do the following: 85 86 - check out the earliest branch of D-Bus that makes sense to have 87 your change in. If it's a bugfix, it's normally the current stable 88 branch; if it's a feature, it's normally the "master" branch. If 89 you have an important security fix, you may want to apply to older 90 branches too. 91 92 - for large changes: 93 if you're developing a new, large feature, it's recommended 94 to create a new branch and do your development there. Publish 95 your branch at a suitable place and ask others to help you 96 develop and test it. Once your feature is considered finalised, 97 you may merge it into the "master" branch. 98 99 - for small changes: 100 . make your change to the source code 101 . execute tests to guarantee that you're not introducing a 102 regression. For that, execute: make check 103 (if possible, add a new test to check the fix you're 104 introducing) 105 . commit your change using "git commit" 106 in the commit message, write a short sentence describing what 107 you did in the first line. Then write a longer description in 108 the next paragraph(s). 109 . repeat the previous steps if necessary to have multiple commits 110 111 - extract your patches and send to the D-Bus mailing list for 112 review or post them to the D-Bus Bugzilla, attaching them to a bug 113 report. To extract the patches, execute: 114 git format-patch origin/master 115 116 - once your code has been reviewed, you may push it to the Git 117 server: 118 git push origin my-branch:remote 119 OR 120 git push origin dbus-X.Y 121 OR 122 git push origin master 123 (consult the Git manual to know which command applies) 124 125 - (Optional) if you've not worked on "master", merge your changes to 126 that branch. If you've worked on an earlier branch than the current 127 stable, merge your changes upwards towards the stable branch, then 128 from there into "master". 129 130 . execute: git checkout master 131 . ensure that you have the latest "master" from the server, update 132 if you don't 133 . execute: git merge dbus-X.Y 134 . if you have any conflicts, resolve them, git add the conflicted 135 files and then git commit 136 . push the "master" branch to the server as well 137 138 Executing this merge is recommended, but not necessary for all 139 changes. You should do this step if your bugfix is critical for the 140 development in "master", or if you suspect that conflicts will arise 141 (you're usually the best person to resolve conflicts introduced by 142 your own code), or if it has been too long since the last merge. 143 144 145 Making a release 146 === 147 148 To make a release of D-Bus, do the following: 149 150 - check out a fresh copy from Git 151 152 - verify that the libtool versioning/library soname is 153 changed if it needs to be, or not changed if not 154 155 - update the file NEWS based on the ChangeLog 156 157 - update the AUTHORS file based on the ChangeLog 158 159 - add a ChangeLog entry containing the version number 160 you're releasing ("Released 0.3" or something) 161 so people can see which changes were before and after 162 a given release 163 164 - the version number should have major.minor.micro even 165 if micro is 0, i.e. "1.0.0" and "1.2.0" not "1.0"/"1.2" 166 167 - "make distcheck" (DO NOT just "make dist" - pass the check!) 168 169 - if make distcheck fails, fix it. 170 171 - once distcheck succeeds, "git commit -a". This is the version 172 of the tree that corresponds exactly to the released tarball. 173 174 - tag the tree with "git tag -s -m 'Released X.Y.Z' dbus-X.Y.Z" 175 where X.Y.Z is the version of the release. If you can't sign 176 then simply created an unsigned annotated tag: 177 "git tag -a -m 'Released X.Y.Z' dbus-X.Y.Z". 178 179 - bump the version number up in configure.in, and commit 180 it. Make sure you do this *after* tagging the previous 181 release! The idea is that git has a newer version number 182 than anything released. 183 184 - merge the branch you've released to the chronologically-later 185 branch (usually "master"). You'll probably have to fix a merge 186 conflict in configure.in (the version number). 187 188 - push your changes and the tag to the central repository with 189 git push origin master dbus-X.Y dbus-X.Y.Z 190 191 - scp your tarball to freedesktop.org server and copy it to 192 dbus.freedesktop.org:/srv/dbus.freedesktop.org/www/releases/dbus/dbus-X.Y.Z.tar.gz. 193 This should be possible if you're in group "dbus" 194 195 - update the wiki page http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/dbus by 196 adding the new release under the Download heading. Then, cut the 197 link and changelog for the previous that was there. 198 199 - update the wiki page 200 http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/DbusReleaseArchive pasting the 201 previous release. Note that bullet points for each of the changelog 202 items must be indented three more spaces to conform to the 203 formatting of the other releases there. 204 205 - post to dbus (a] lists.freedesktop.org announcing the release. 206 207 208 After making a ".0" stable release 209 === 210 211 After releasing, when you increment the version number in git, also 212 move the ChangeLog to ChangeLog.pre-X-Y where X-Y is what you just 213 released, e.g. ChangeLog.pre-1-0. Then create and cvs add a new empty 214 ChangeLog. The last entry in ChangeLog.pre-1-0 should be the one about 215 "Released 1.0". 216 217 Add ChangeLog.pre-X-Y to EXTRA_DIST in Makefile.am. 218 219 We create a branch for each stable release; sometimes the branch is 220 not done immediately, instead it's possible to wait until someone has 221 a not-suitable-for-stable change they want to make and then branch to 222 allow committing that change. 223 224 The branch name should be dbus-X.Y-branch which is a branch that has 225 releases versioned X.Y.Z 226 227 To branch: 228 git branch dbus-X.Y-branch 229 and upload the branch tag to the server: 230 git-push origin dbus-X.Y-branch 231 232 To develop in this branch: 233 git-checkout dbus-X.Y-branch 234 235 Environment variables 236 === 237 238 These are the environment variables that are used by the D-Bus client library 239 240 DBUS_VERBOSE=1 241 Turns on printing verbose messages. This only works if D-Bus has been 242 compiled with --enable-verbose-mode 243 244 DBUS_MALLOC_FAIL_NTH=n 245 Can be set to a number, causing every nth call to dbus_alloc or 246 dbus_realloc to fail. This only works if D-Bus has been compiled with 247 --enable-tests. 248 249 DBUS_MALLOC_FAIL_GREATER_THAN=n 250 Can be set to a number, causing every call to dbus_alloc or 251 dbus_realloc to fail if the number of bytes to be allocated is greater 252 than the specified number. This only works if D-Bus has been compiled with 253 --enable-tests. 254 255 DBUS_TEST_MALLOC_FAILURES=n 256 Many of the D-Bus tests will run over and over, once for each malloc 257 involved in the test. Each run will fail a different malloc, plus some 258 number of mallocs following that malloc (because a fair number of bugs 259 only happen if two or more mallocs fail in a row, e.g. error recovery 260 that itself involves malloc). This env variable sets the number of 261 mallocs to fail. 262 Here's why you care: If set to 0, then the malloc checking is skipped, 263 which makes the test suite a heck of a lot faster. Just run with this 264 env variable unset before you commit. 265 266 Tests 267 === 268 269 These are the test programs that are built if dbus is compiled using 270 --enable-tests. 271 272 dbus/dbus-test 273 This is the main unit test program that tests all aspects of the D-Bus 274 client library. 275 276 dbus/bus-test 277 This it the unit test program for the message bus. 278 279 test/break-loader 280 A test that tries to break the message loader by passing it randomly 281 created invalid messages. 282 283 test/name-test/* 284 This is a suite of programs which are run with a temporary session bus. 285 If your test involves multiple processes communicating, your best bet 286 is to add a test in here. 287 288 "make check" runs all the deterministic test programs (i.e. not break-loader). 289 290 "make check-coverage" is available if you configure with --enable-gcov and 291 gives a complete report on test suite coverage. You can also run 292 "test/decode-gcov foo.c" on any source file to get annotated source, 293 after running make check with a gcov-enabled tree. 294 295 Patches 296 === 297 298 Please file them at http://bugzilla.freedesktop.org under component 299 dbus, and also post to the mailing list for discussion. The commit 300 rules are: 301 302 - for fixes that don't affect API or protocol, they can be committed 303 if any one qualified reviewer other than patch author 304 reviews and approves 305 306 - for fixes that do affect API or protocol, two people 307 in the reviewer group have to review and approve the commit, and 308 posting to the list is definitely mandatory 309 310 - if there's a live unresolved controversy about a change, 311 don't commit it while the argument is still raging. 312 313 - regardless of reviews, to commit a patch: 314 - make check must pass 315 - the test suite must be extended to cover the new code 316 as much as reasonably feasible (see Tests above) 317 - the patch has to follow the portability, security, and 318 style guidelines 319 - the patch should as much as reasonable do one thing, 320 not many unrelated changes 321 No reviewer should approve a patch without these attributes, and 322 failure on these points is grounds for reverting the patch. 323 324 The reviewer group that can approve patches: 325 326 Havoc Pennington <hp (a] pobox.net> 327 Michael Meeks <michael.meeks (a] novell.com> 328 Alexander Larsson <alexl (a] redhat.com> 329 Zack Rusin <zack (a] kde.org> 330 Joe Shaw <joe (a] assbarn.com> 331 Mikael Hallendal <micke (a] imendio.com> 332 Richard Hult <richard (a] imendio.com> 333 Owen Fraser-Green <owen (a] discobabe.net> 334 Olivier Andrieu <oliv__a (a] users.sourceforge.net> 335 Colin Walters <walters (a] verbum.org> 336 Thiago Macieira <thiago (a] kde.org> 337 John Palmieri <johnp (a] redhat.com> 338 Scott James Remnant <scott (a] netsplit.com> 339 Will Thompson <will.thompson (a] collabora.co.uk> 340 Simon McVittie <simon.mcvittie (a] collabora.co.uk> 341 342 343
