Simplified development workflow for GlusterFS

This page gives a simplified model of the development workflow used by the GlusterFS project. This will give the steps required to get a patch accepted into the GlusterFS source.

Visit Development Work Flow a more detailed description of the workflow.

Initial preperation

The GlusterFS development workflow revolves around Git, Gerrit and Jenkins.

Using these tools requires some initial preparation.

Dev system setup

You should install and setup Git on your development system. Use your distribution specific package manger to install git. After installation configure git. At the minimum, set a git user email. To set the email do,

    $ git config --global user.name "Name"
    $ git config --global user.email <email address>

You should also generate an ssh key pair if you haven't already done it. To generate a key pair do,

    $ ssh-keygen

and follow the instructions.

Next, install the build requirements for GlusterFS. Refer Building GlusterFS - Build Requirements for the actual requirements.

Gerrit setup

To contribute to GlusterFS, you should first register on gerrit.

After registration, you will need to select a username, set a preferred email and upload the ssh public key in gerrit. You can do this from the gerrit settings page. Make sure that you set the preferred email to the email you configured for git.

Get the source

Git clone the GlusterFS source using

    <ssh://><username>@review.gluster.org/glusterfs.git

(replace with your gerrit username).

    $ git clone (ssh://)<username> @review.gluster.org/glusterfs.git

This will clone the GlusterFS source into a subdirectory named glusterfs with the master branch checked out.

It is essential that you use this link to clone, or else you will not be able to submit patches to gerrit for review.

Actual development

The commands in this section are to be run inside the glusterfs source directory.

Create a development branch

It is recommended to use separate local development branches for each change you want to contribute to GlusterFS. To create a development branch, first checkout the upstream branch you want to work on and update it. More details on the upstream branching model for GlusterFS can be found at

Development Work Flow - Branching_policy. For example if you want to develop on the master branch,

    $ git checkout master
    $ git pull

Now, create a new branch from master and switch to the new branch. It is recommended to have descriptive branch names. Do,

    $ git branch <descriptive-branch-name>
    $ git checkout <descriptive-branch-name>

or,

    $ git checkout -b <descriptive-branch-name>

to do both in one command.

Hack

Once you've switched to the development branch, you can perform the actual code changes. Build and test to see if your changes work.

Tests

Unless your changes are very minor and trivial, you should also add a test for your change. Tests are used to ensure that the changes you did are not broken inadvertently. More details on tests can be found at

Development Workflow - Test cases and Development Workflow - Regression tests and test cases

Regression test

Once your change is working, run the regression test suite to make sure you haven't broken anything. The regression test suite requires a working GlusterFS installation and needs to be run as root. To run the regression test suite, do

    # make install
    # ./run-tests.sh

Commit your changes

If you haven't broken anything, you can now commit your changes. First identify the files that you modified/added/deleted using git-status and stage these files.

    $ git status
    $ git add <list of modified files>

Now, commit these changes using

    $ git commit -s

Provide a meaningful commit message. The commit message policy is described at

Development Work Flow - Commit policy.

It is essential that you commit with the '-s' option, which will sign-off the commit with your configured email, as gerrit is configured to reject patches which are not signed-off.

Submit for review

To submit your change for review, run the rfc.sh script,

    $ ./rfc.sh

The script will ask you to enter a bugzilla bug id. Every change submitted to GlusterFS needs a bugzilla entry to be accepted. If you do not already have a bug id, file a new bug at Red Hat Bugzilla. If the patch is submitted for review, the rfc.sh script will return the gerrit url for the review request.

More details on the rfc.sh script are available at Development Work Flow - rfc.sh.

Review process

Your change will now be reviewed by the GlusterFS maintainers and component owners on gerrit. You can follow and take part in the review process on the change at the review url. The review process involves several steps.

To know component owners , you can check the "MAINTAINERS" file in root of glusterfs code directory

Automated verification

Every change submitted to gerrit triggers an initial automated verification on jenkins. The automated verification ensures that your change doesn't break the build and has an associated bug-id.

More details can be found at

Development Work Flow - Auto verification.

Formal review

Once the auto verification is successful, the component owners will perform a formal review. If they are okay with your change, they will give a positive review. If not they will give a negative review and add comments on the reasons.

More information regarding the review qualifiers and disqualifiers is available at

Development Work Flow - Submission Qualifiers and Development Work Flow - Submission Disqualifiers.

If your change gets a negative review, you will need to address the comments and resubmit your change.

Resubmission

Switch to your development branch and make new changes to address the review comments. Build and test to see if the new changes are working.

Stage your changes and commit your new changes using,

    $ git commit --amend

'--amend' is required to ensure that you update your original commit and not create a new commit.

Now you can resubmit the updated commit for review using the rfc.sh script.

The formal review process could take a long time. To increase chances for a speedy review, you can add the component owners as reviewers on the gerrit review page. This will ensure they notice the change. The list of component owners can be found in the MAINTAINERS file present in the GlusterFS source

Verification

After a component owner has given a positive review, a maintainer will run the regression test suite on your change to verify that your change works and hasn't broken anything. This verification is done with the help of jenkins.

If the verification fails, you will need to make necessary changes and resubmit an updated commit for review.

Acceptance

After successful verification, a maintainer will merge/cherry-pick (as necessary) your change into the upstream GlusterFS source. Your change will now be available in the upstream git repo for everyone to use.