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 git history 156 157 - verify that the version number of dbus-specification.xml is 158 changed if it needs to be; if changes have been made, update the 159 release date in that file 160 161 - update the AUTHORS file with "make update-authors" if necessary 162 163 - the version number should have major.minor.micro, even 164 if micro is 0, i.e. "1.0.0" and "1.2.0" not "1.0"/"1.2"; the micro 165 version should be even for releases, and odd for intermediate snapshots 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.ac (so the micro version is odd), 180 and commit 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. Similarly, bump the version number of 183 dbus-specification.xml and set the release date to "(not finalized)". 184 185 - merge the branch you've released to the chronologically-later 186 branch (usually "master"). You'll probably have to fix a merge 187 conflict in configure.ac (the version number). 188 189 - push your changes and the tag to the central repository with 190 git push origin master dbus-X.Y dbus-X.Y.Z 191 192 - scp your tarball to freedesktop.org server and copy it to 193 dbus.freedesktop.org:/srv/dbus.freedesktop.org/www/releases/dbus/dbus-X.Y.Z.tar.gz. 194 This should be possible if you're in group "dbus" 195 196 - Update the online documentation with `make -C doc maintainer-upload-docs`. 197 198 - update the wiki page http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/dbus by 199 adding the new release under the Download heading. Then, cut the 200 link and changelog for the previous that was there. 201 202 - update the wiki page 203 http://www.freedesktop.org/Software/DbusReleaseArchive pasting the 204 previous release. Note that bullet points for each of the changelog 205 items must be indented three more spaces to conform to the 206 formatting of the other releases there. 207 208 - post to dbus (a] lists.freedesktop.org announcing the release. 209 210 211 Making a ".0" stable release 212 === 213 214 We create a branch for each stable release. The branch name should be 215 dbus-X.Y which is a branch that has releases versioned X.Y.Z; 216 changes on a stable branch should be limited to significant bug fixes. 217 218 Because we won't make minor changes like keeping up with the latest 219 deprecations on a stable branch, stable branches should turn off the 220 gcc warning for deprecated declarations (e.g. see commit 4ebb275ab7). 221 222 Be extra-careful not to merge master (or any branch based on master) into a 223 stable branch. 224 225 To branch: 226 git branch dbus-X.Y 227 and upload the branch tag to the server: 228 git push origin dbus-X.Y 229 230 To develop in this branch: 231 git checkout dbus-X.Y 232 233 Environment variables 234 === 235 236 These are the environment variables that are used by the D-Bus client library 237 238 DBUS_VERBOSE=1 239 Turns on printing verbose messages. This only works if D-Bus has been 240 compiled with --enable-verbose-mode 241 242 DBUS_MALLOC_FAIL_NTH=n 243 Can be set to a number, causing every nth call to dbus_alloc or 244 dbus_realloc to fail. This only works if D-Bus has been compiled with 245 --enable-tests. 246 247 DBUS_MALLOC_FAIL_GREATER_THAN=n 248 Can be set to a number, causing every call to dbus_alloc or 249 dbus_realloc to fail if the number of bytes to be allocated is greater 250 than the specified number. This only works if D-Bus has been compiled with 251 --enable-tests. 252 253 DBUS_TEST_MALLOC_FAILURES=n 254 Many of the D-Bus tests will run over and over, once for each malloc 255 involved in the test. Each run will fail a different malloc, plus some 256 number of mallocs following that malloc (because a fair number of bugs 257 only happen if two or more mallocs fail in a row, e.g. error recovery 258 that itself involves malloc). This env variable sets the number of 259 mallocs to fail. 260 Here's why you care: If set to 0, then the malloc checking is skipped, 261 which makes the test suite a heck of a lot faster. Just run with this 262 env variable unset before you commit. 263 264 Tests 265 === 266 267 These are the test programs that are built if dbus is compiled using 268 --enable-tests. 269 270 dbus/dbus-test 271 This is the main unit test program that tests all aspects of the D-Bus 272 client library. 273 274 dbus/bus-test 275 This it the unit test program for the message bus. 276 277 test/break-loader 278 A test that tries to break the message loader by passing it randomly 279 created invalid messages. 280 281 test/name-test/* 282 This is a suite of programs which are run with a temporary session bus. 283 If your test involves multiple processes communicating, your best bet 284 is to add a test in here. 285 286 "make check" runs all the deterministic test programs (i.e. not break-loader). 287 288 "make lcov-check" is available if you configure with --enable-compiler-coverage 289 and gives a complete report on test suite coverage. 290 291 Patches 292 === 293 294 Please file them at http://bugzilla.freedesktop.org under component 295 dbus, and also post to the mailing list for discussion. The commit 296 rules are: 297 298 - for fixes that don't affect API or protocol, they can be committed 299 if any one qualified reviewer other than patch author 300 reviews and approves 301 302 - for fixes that do affect API or protocol, two people 303 in the reviewer group have to review and approve the commit, and 304 posting to the list is definitely mandatory 305 306 - if there's a live unresolved controversy about a change, 307 don't commit it while the argument is still raging. 308 309 - at their discretion, members of the reviewer group may also commit 310 branches/patches under these conditions: 311 312 - the branch does not add or change API, ABI or wire-protocol 313 314 - the branch solves a known problem and is covered by the regression tests 315 316 - there are no objections from the rest of the review group within 317 a week of the patches being attached to Bugzilla 318 319 - the committer gets a positive review on Bugzilla from someone they 320 consider qualified to review the change (e.g. a colleague with D-Bus 321 experience; not necessarily a member of the reviewer group) 322 323 - regardless of reviews, to commit a patch: 324 - make check must pass 325 - the test suite must be extended to cover the new code 326 as much as reasonably feasible (see Tests above) 327 - the patch has to follow the portability, security, and 328 style guidelines 329 - the patch should as much as reasonable do one thing, 330 not many unrelated changes 331 No reviewer should approve a patch without these attributes, and 332 failure on these points is grounds for reverting the patch. 333 334 The reviewer group that can approve patches: 335 336 Havoc Pennington <hp (a] pobox.net> 337 Michael Meeks <michael.meeks (a] novell.com> 338 Alexander Larsson <alexl (a] redhat.com> 339 Zack Rusin <zack (a] kde.org> 340 Joe Shaw <joe (a] assbarn.com> 341 Mikael Hallendal <micke (a] imendio.com> 342 Richard Hult <richard (a] imendio.com> 343 Owen Fraser-Green <owen (a] discobabe.net> 344 Olivier Andrieu <oliv__a (a] users.sourceforge.net> 345 Colin Walters <walters (a] verbum.org> 346 Thiago Macieira <thiago (a] kde.org> 347 John Palmieri <johnp (a] redhat.com> 348 Scott James Remnant <scott (a] netsplit.com> 349 Will Thompson <will.thompson (a] collabora.co.uk> 350 Simon McVittie <simon.mcvittie (a] collabora.co.uk> 351 David Zeuthen <davidz (a] redhat.com> 352
