Kernel/DayToDay

The ever exciting day to day tasks that make the Fedora kernel run

Getting started

If you are new to maintaining the fedora kernel, you will need to make sure the following are set up

• Get a Fedora Account
• Create a Bugzilla Account
• Ask one of the existing Fedora kernel developers to add you to the appropriate permissions list (TODO: Document what these lists are)
• $ fedora-packager-setup to generate a fedora cert

Getting the Fedora kernel sources

$ fedpkg clone kernel

If you haven't gotten the appropriate permissions yet, you can clone anonymously

$ fedpkg clone -a kernel

Add a new patch to the kernel

See this page for details about adding individual patches to the spec file. You also need to make sure you actually apply the patches.

Test it with

$ fedpkg -v prep

to make sure it applies okay. You probably want to make sure it builds as well:

$ fedpkg local

When you are finished, you can do

$ rpmdev-bumpspec -c "Fixed that bug (rhbz 123456)" kernel.spec

to update the kernel.spec.

Push a change

Make sure you add any new files (new patches you are bringing in for the first time etc.)

$ git add fix-this.patch $ git add fix-that.patch

Commit the result with git commit or fedpkg:

$ fedpkg commit -m "Fixed that bug (rhbz 123456)"

Once you've made sure the commit is how you want, you can push

$ git push origin HEAD:<branch name>

If you checked out the source anonymously, you will need to change $PROJECT_DIR/.git/config to use ssh:// instead of git:// e.g.

[remote "origin"]
        url = git://pkgs.fedoraproject.org/kernel
        fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*

Change the git:// to ssh://

Once that is finished, you can do a scratch build

$ fedpkg build --scratch

Stable kernel update

For going from 4.x.y -> 4.x.z

Download the patch from kernel.org (not the incremental version)

Remove the last patch from the sources file e.g.

--- a/sources
+++ b/sources
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 d3fc8316d4d4d04b65cbc2d70799e763  linux-3.19.tar.xz
 15d8d2f97ce056488451a5bfb2944603  perf-man-3.19.tar.gz
-f0f457204a1b286cc2ff04e470b01d64  patch-3.19.5.xz

Use fedpkg to upload the patch file to the cache

$ fedpkg upload patch-x.y.z

fedpkg has now updated the sources file for you in git.

Bump the stable update in kernel.spec

 # Do we have a -stable update to apply?
-%define stable_update 5
+%define stable_update 6

You can now run

$ fedpkg prep

to grab the code and apply patches. You will probably find conflicts and patches that no longer apply. Remove them from the .spec file. Repeat until success.

You can now commit and push like any other commit