linux/Documentation/SubmitChecklist
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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: Builds cleanly with applicable or modified CONFIG options =y, =m, and
  13   =n.  No gcc warnings/errors, no linker warnings/errors.
  14
  152: Passes allnoconfig, allmodconfig
  16
  173: Builds on multiple CPU architectures by using local cross-compile tools
  18   or something like PLM at OSDL.
  19
  204: ppc64 is a good architecture for cross-compilation checking because it
  21   tends to use `unsigned long' for 64-bit quantities.
  22
  235: 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
  296: Any new or modified CONFIG options don't muck up the config menu.
  30
  317: All new Kconfig options have help text.
  32
  338: 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
  379: Check cleanly with sparse.
  38
  3910: 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
  4411: 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
  4812: 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
  5313: Has been build- and runtime tested with and without CONFIG_SMP and
  54    CONFIG_PREEMPT.
  55
  5614: If the patch affects IO/Disk, etc: has been tested with and without
  57    CONFIG_LBDAF.
  58
  5915: All codepaths have been exercised with all lockdep features enabled.
  60
  6116: All new /proc entries are documented under Documentation/
  62
  6317: All new kernel boot parameters are documented in
  64    Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt.
  65
  6618: All new module parameters are documented with MODULE_PARM_DESC()
  67
  6819: 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@vger.kernel.org.
  72
  7320: Check that it all passes `make headers_check'.
  74
  7521: 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
  8122: 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
  8523: 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
  8924: 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