1.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 2 3.. _researcher_guidelines: 4 5Researcher Guidelines 6+++++++++++++++++++++ 7 8The Linux kernel community welcomes transparent research on the Linux 9kernel, the activities involved in producing it, and any other byproducts 10of its development. Linux benefits greatly from this kind of research, and 11most aspects of Linux are driven by research in one form or another. 12 13The community greatly appreciates if researchers can share preliminary 14findings before making their results public, especially if such research 15involves security. Getting involved early helps both improve the quality 16of research and ability for Linux to improve from it. In any case, 17sharing open access copies of the published research with the community 18is recommended. 19 20This document seeks to clarify what the Linux kernel community considers 21acceptable and non-acceptable practices when conducting such research. At 22the very least, such research and related activities should follow 23standard research ethics rules. For more background on research ethics 24generally, ethics in technology, and research of developer communities 25in particular, see: 26 27* `History of Research Ethics <https://www.unlv.edu/research/ORI-HSR/history-ethics>`_ 28* `IEEE Ethics <https://www.ieee.org/about/ethics/index.html>`_ 29* `Developer and Researcher Views on the Ethics of Experiments on Open-Source Projects <https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.13217.pdf>`_ 30 31The Linux kernel community expects that everyone interacting with the 32project is participating in good faith to make Linux better. Research on 33any publicly-available artifact (including, but not limited to source 34code) produced by the Linux kernel community is welcome, though research 35on developers must be distinctly opt-in. 36 37Passive research that is based entirely on publicly available sources, 38including posts to public mailing lists and commits to public 39repositories, is clearly permissible. Though, as with any research, 40standard ethics must still be followed. 41 42Active research on developer behavior, however, must be done with the 43explicit agreement of, and full disclosure to, the individual developers 44involved. Developers cannot be interacted with/experimented on without 45consent; this, too, is standard research ethics. 46 47To help clarify: sending patches to developers *is* interacting 48with them, but they have already consented to receiving *good faith 49contributions*. Sending intentionally flawed/vulnerable patches or 50contributing misleading information to discussions is not consented 51to. Such communication can be damaging to the developer (e.g. draining 52time, effort, and morale) and damaging to the project by eroding 53the entire developer community's trust in the contributor (and the 54contributor's organization as a whole), undermining efforts to provide 55constructive feedback to contributors, and putting end users at risk of 56software flaws. 57 58Participation in the development of Linux itself by researchers, as 59with anyone, is welcomed and encouraged. Research into Linux code is 60a common practice, especially when it comes to developing or running 61analysis tools that produce actionable results. 62 63When engaging with the developer community, sending a patch has 64traditionally been the best way to make an impact. Linux already has 65plenty of known bugs -- what's much more helpful is having vetted fixes. 66Before contributing, carefully read the appropriate documentation: 67 68* Documentation/process/development-process.rst 69* Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst 70* Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-issues.rst 71* Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst 72 73Then send a patch (including a commit log with all the details listed 74below) and follow up on any feedback from other developers. 75 76When sending patches produced from research, the commit logs should 77contain at least the following details, so that developers have 78appropriate context for understanding the contribution. Answer: 79 80* What is the specific problem that has been found? 81* How could the problem be reached on a running system? 82* What effect would encountering the problem have on the system? 83* How was the problem found? Specifically include details about any 84 testing, static or dynamic analysis programs, and any other tools or 85 methods used to perform the work. 86* Which version of Linux was the problem found on? Using the most recent 87 release or a recent linux-next branch is strongly preferred (see 88 Documentation/process/howto.rst). 89* What was changed to fix the problem, and why it is believed to be correct? 90* How was the change build tested and run-time tested? 91* What prior commit does this change fix? This should go in a "Fixes:" 92 tag as the documentation describes. 93* Who else has reviewed this patch? This should go in appropriate 94 "Reviewed-by:" tags; see below. 95 96For example:: 97 98 From: Author <author@email> 99 Subject: [PATCH] drivers/foo_bar: Add missing kfree() 100 101 The error path in foo_bar driver does not correctly free the allocated 102 struct foo_bar_info. This can happen if the attached foo_bar device 103 rejects the initialization packets sent during foo_bar_probe(). This 104 would result in a 64 byte slab memory leak once per device attach, 105 wasting memory resources over time. 106 107 This flaw was found using an experimental static analysis tool we are 108 developing, LeakMagic[1], which reported the following warning when 109 analyzing the v5.15 kernel release: 110 111 path/to/foo_bar.c:187: missing kfree() call? 112 113 Add the missing kfree() to the error path. No other references to 114 this memory exist outside the probe function, so this is the only 115 place it can be freed. 116 117 x86_64 and arm64 defconfig builds with CONFIG_FOO_BAR=y using GCC 118 11.2 show no new warnings, and LeakMagic no longer warns about this 119 code path. As we don't have a FooBar device to test with, no runtime 120 testing was able to be performed. 121 122 [1] https://url/to/leakmagic/details 123 124 Reported-by: Researcher <researcher@email> 125 Fixes: aaaabbbbccccdddd ("Introduce support for FooBar") 126 Signed-off-by: Author <author@email> 127 Reviewed-by: Reviewer <reviewer@email> 128 129If you are a first time contributor it is recommended that the patch 130itself be vetted by others privately before being posted to public lists. 131(This is required if you have been explicitly told your patches need 132more careful internal review.) These people are expected to have their 133"Reviewed-by" tag included in the resulting patch. Finding another 134developer familiar with Linux contribution, especially within your own 135organization, and having them help with reviews before sending them to 136the public mailing lists tends to significantly improve the quality of the 137resulting patches, and there by reduces the burden on other developers. 138 139If no one can be found to internally review patches and you need 140help finding such a person, or if you have any other questions 141related to this document and the developer community's expectations, 142please reach out to the private Technical Advisory Board mailing list: 143<tech-board@lists.linux-foundation.org>. 144