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[[!meta title="Contributing"]]

[[!tag stable_URL]]

So, you are interested in contributing to the GNU Hurd project?  Welcome!
Every single contribution is very much encouraged.

There are various ways to contribute; read up on contributing to...

[[!toc levels=2]]

If you are lurking around here and would like to contribute, but
feel you would do so better under formal mentoring: please
[[contact_us]], or just speak up at one of the [[regular IRC
meetings|IRC#regular_meetings]]!

We also have a list of [[open_issues]] and one for more elaborate [[project
ideas|community/gsoc/project_ideas]] - the latter originally written for the
[[Google Summer of Code|community/gsoc]], but not exclusively.  Even just
investigating open issues, without being able to fix them, can be useful,
because a issue that has been tracked down often becomes obvious to address for
people who know the stuff -- but these people typically don't have the time
that is needed to track down the issues.

---
<a name="hurd_on_mach"></a>
# Improve GNU Hurd Running on GNU Mach

The *[[GNU Hurd|hurd]] running on the [[GNU Mach
microkernel|microkernel/mach/gnumach]]* is what is commonly meant when people
are talking about GNU/Hurd systems.

This system has mostly been designed and implemented
[[in the '90s|history]].  It works and is usable.
For example, these web pages have been rendered on a GNU/Hurd system.

You can try it out for yourself: for getting access, installing
[[Debian_GNU/Hurd|hurd/running/debian]] will probably be the easiest and most
feature-complete solution.  If you don't have spare hardware to use for doing
so, you can also get a
[[shell_account_on_a_public_Hurd_machine|public_hurd_boxen]].  Depending on the
things you're going to work on (and on your internet connection), this may be
an easy way of getting used to Hurd systems.  Installing in a virtual machine
is another possibility, see the page about
[[running_a_Hurd_system|hurd/running]] for the full story.
In particular, running a Debian GNU/Hurd [[QEMU image|hurd/running/QEMU]] may
be a viable alternative.

Then you can either play around and eventually strive to do something
useful or -- if you want -- [[ask_us|contact_us]] to assign something to you, depending
on the skills you have and the resources you intend to invest.

Please spend some time with thinking about the items in this [[questionnaire]].

Before you can significantly contribute to the operating system itself, you'll
need to take some time to learn about the system, for example:
[[microkernels for beginners|microkernel/for_beginners]], [[Mach's
concepts|microkernel/mach/concepts]], [[Hurd's concepts|hurd/concepts]], the
*[[hurd/critique]]*.  Until you can understand and do the basic exercises
listed there, you won't be able to significantly contribute to the Hurd.

You can also have a look at the
[starting guide talk](https://fosdem.org/2015/schedule/event/hurd/).

In terms of building and hacking on software, the easiest way to avoid having to
understand the whole picture from the start is install the Debian distribution,
and patch over the Debian source code. Installing from upstream source is much
more complexe since you would need to know which piece fits where. Building and
installing patched packages is much more simple.

For more reading resources, please see these web pages, for example,
[[Hurd_documentation|hurd/documentation]] and
[[Mach_documentation|microkernel/mach/documentation]] for links to a bunch of
documents.


<a name="smallhacks"></a>
## Small hack entries

Here is a list of small hacks, which can serve as entries into the Hurd code for
people who would like to dive into the code but just lack a "somewhere to begin
with". Make sure to check out the most up-to-date version on
<https://darnassus.sceen.net/~hurd-web/contributing>

* Teach rsync to use `*getxattr` and friends on GNU/Hurd too, to enable the -X option, so as to preserve translator entries.
* Use `thread_set_name` to add `pthread_setname_np` to glibc.
* Avoid GCC trampolines: as discussed in <https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gccint/Trampolines.html> these happen when we pass the address of a nested function to another function. This can be seen by running `readelf -S file.o | grep GNU-stack | grep X`, for instance that happens in libdiskfs/file-exec.c, libdiskfs/io-revoke.c. We can't really use -fno-trampoline, we should instead add `void *data` parameters to iterators such as `ports_class_iterate` or `fshelp_exec_reauth`, so that the nested functions can be made mere static functions that get their information from the `void *data` parameter.
* Implement `pthread_setschedparam` and `sched_setscheduler` in glibc by calling mach's `thread_policy` and `thread_priority`.
* Strengthen httpfs: it should append '/' to URL automatically, it should not fallback index.html itself, etc. probably a lot more small easy issues.
* Create a Wiki page with all presentations about the Hurd.  Many are referenced here in the Wiki, but they are not easy to find.
    ([[!taglink open_issue_documentation]])
* Some translators do not support [[hurd/fsysopts]], i.e. support for the
`file_get_fs_options` and `fsys_set_options` RPCs.
* Extend `device_read`/`device_write` into supporting > 2TiB disk sizes.
* Make `host_get_time` much more precise by using the TSC.
* Make the Hurd [[hurd/console]]'s configuration use [[xkb layout/variant instead of keymap|hurd/console/discussion]].
* Add NX / SMEP / SMAP protection support to GNU Mach.
* Add use of PCID in GNU Mach.
* Fix 64bit instruction set disassembling in GNU Mach's `/i386/i386/db_disasm.c` `db_disasm` function and tables.
* Write a partfs translator, to which one gives a disk image, and
which exposes the partitions of the disk image, using parted, and
the parted-based storeio (`settrans -c foos1 /hurd/storeio -T typed
part:1:file:/home/samy/tmp/foo`). This would be libnetfs-based.
* Write [[virtio drivers for KVM|open_issues/virtio#KVM]].
* Move the [[mount/umount|open_issues/glibc#mount]] logic from
`utils/{,u}mount.c` into [[glibc]].
* Add a tool to trace system calls, by using gnumach's Syscall-Emulation, see <http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/gnumach-doc/Syscall-Emulation.html>
* Improve our [[FUSE library|hurd/libfuse]].
* Fix our [[open_issues/symlink_translator]].
* Add a /dev/rtc device. We can probably just create a userland trivfs-based translator `/hurd/rtc`, by taking devnode as an example, removing the `console_*` parts, and adding instead a `pioctl` part, by adding a `pioctl.defs` file (similar to the existing `rioctl.defs`) to document the expected ioctls, and implement the corresponding RPCs.
* Add gnumach support for EFI memory areas report through GetMemoryMap instead of the BIOS E820.
* Implement `SA_NOCLDWAIT`. It means adding an RPC to proc to implement it, and then making glibc detect when setting `SIG_IGN` on `SIGCLD`, or setting the `SA_NOCLDWAIT` flag, and in that case call into `proc`, similarly to the `S_proc_mod_stopchild` RPC. proc's `S_proc_wait` shall then wait for all children and return `ECHILD`.
* Implement `lsof`. One can get inspiration from `libshouldbeinlibc/portinfo.c` for the details.
* Add `VSTATUS` support to `term`. Essentially in `term/munge.c`, `input_character`, just like the `VINTR`, `VQUIT`, `VSUSP`, collect a few stats from the system, and put them into the output queue.
* Make mig use the `access` function attribute to properly express accesses in arrays, e.g. for `device_read/write_inband`.
* Add a limitation in the number of a process that a given uid can run. That would be in the `proc` translator. That will allow to avoid crashes when an application goes crazy with forking. Setting a hardcoded limitation would thus already be useful.
* Complete BPF program validation in `libbpf`. For instance, for now if `BPF_MOD` or `BPF_XOR` are used in a filter, it is accepted, but the matching always fails. We should pre-refuse any unknown instruction (and of course then implement `BPF_MOD` and `BPF_XOR`)

<a name="porting"></a>
## Porting Packages

Please [[contact_us]] before spending a lot of time on the following porting
tasks: some work may already have been done that you can base your work upon.

For guidelines, please have a look at the dedicated [[porting_page|hurd/porting]].


### Debian GNU/Hurd

Along with the official Debian "jessie" release (but not as an
official Debian release), in April 2015 the [[Debian
GNU/Hurd|hurd/running/debian]] team released [[Debian GNU/Hurd
2015|news/2015-04-29-debian_gnu_hurd_2015]].
There is a goal of getting Debian GNU/Hurd into shape for a technology
preview for integration as a proper Debian release candidate.

The *to do* list is on <http://wiki.debian.org/Debian_GNU/Hurd>.

The following missing packages/missing functionality block a lot of other
packages, and are thus good candidates for porting, in order to increase
archive coverage:

* umount functionality in busybox

Here is a [[list of packages that need porting|hurd/running/debian/porting]].

You can also just [[install_Debian_GNU/Hurd|hurd/running/debian]] and find what
doesn't work or suit you and try to improve that.

Or, you can pick one from the [list of failing
packages](http://people.debian.org/~sthibault/hurd-i386/failed_packages.txt).


## TODO List

This is the list of tasks that we *want* to address soon, starting with the most pressing:

* Add amd64 support to gdb, see [Flavio patch pending commit](https://sourceware.org/pipermail/gdb-patches/2024-February/206895.html)
* Fix shell output pipe replacement issue on amd64, see
[discussion](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2023-10/msg00062.html).
  - This means adding an `i386x_float_state` and `i386_XFLOAT_STATE` thread status, that glibc would be able to use along `i386_REGS_SEGS_STATE` and `i386_FLOAT_STATE` in `_hurd_setup_sighandler` and `sigtreturn.c`. The structure would contain the `fp_save_kind`. That'll actually be needed both on `i386` and `x86_64` actually, to fix SSE use against signals in general.
* Compare testsuite results of python on hurd-i386 and hurd-amd64, to fix regressions between the former and the latter.
* Check the [packages build failures differences](https://people.debian.org/~sthibault/hurd-amd64/failed_diff.txt) between hurd-i386 and hurd-amd64: they are failing on hurd-amd64 but are successful on hurd-i386. Possibly it's just a mere missing `s/hurd-i386/hurd-any/` in the debian/ directory, or a new bug that actually also affects hurd-i386 if you rebuild the package there now, but possibly it's a more profound issue in the amd64 port.
* On amd64, fix memcpy (> 16 bytes) from `/dev/mem` (makes hurd-console crash)
* Settle CI for mig+gnumach+hurd+glibc.
* Port `dhcpcd`, see [call for help](https://lists.debian.org/debian-hurd/2023/11/msg00030.html)
* Extensively test (e.g. running testsuites of glibc, perl, curl, rust-mio) and fix the lwip-based TCP/IP stack, to be sure we don't get regressions by switching to it.
* Fix swapping with `rumpdisk`.
* Fix the [GPLv2 vs GPLv3 licence incompatibility between ext2fs and libparted](https://bugs.debian.org/838244):
  * For /hurd/ext2fs, use a different libstoreio that does not include the parted module.
  * For /hurd/ext2fs.static in the bootstrap chain (e.g. to access wd0s1), add a storeio translator before it, and have ext2fs open it, use `file_get_storage_info` and access the underlying device. That wouldn't need any code modification if we were using an initial ramfs exposing that storeio on /dev/wd0s1.
* Prevent duplicate instances of `rumpdisk` from competing for the disk PCI cards (e.g. when a second one gets started from a chroot).
* Fix the memory consumption of `rumpdisk`.
* Add overcommit limitation support to gnumach: limit the virtual size of processes to half of the memory + swap size.
* Integrate `rumpusbdisk` with the rest of the disk translators etc.
* Fix `tmpfs` losing files, see [discussion](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-hurd/2015-02/msg00091.html).
* Port `libasan`/`lsan`/`ubsan`/`libtasn` so we can use these sanitizers (youpi did some of it, pending clean/submit).
* Finish moving `pthread_` symbols from `libpthread` to `libc`, see for instance [some moves](https://sourceware.org/pipermail/libc-alpha/2023-March/146425.html), synchronize with Guy-Fleury Iteriteka.
* Rewrite `pthread_cond_*`, `pthread_rwlock_*`, `pthread_barrier_*` to use `gsync`, like `pthread_mutex_*` do (also see the nptl implementations, possibly just share with them).
* Improve rumpdisk's asynchronism, see end of `hurd/rumpdisk/block-rump.c`.
* Check performance of `rumpdisk` against the in-`gnumach` drivers.
* Make `ext2fs` use xattr by default to store translators (see `use_xattr_translator_records`) after making sure the upgrade path works fine.
* Finish glib's file monitoring (see [merge request draft](https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/glib/-/merge_requests/3626) and [Debian bug](https://bugs.debian.org/1008208))
* Extend `ext2fs` to support 64bit time.
* Fix the `git` testsuite (just a few tests failing, used to pass).
* Fix the `subversion` testsuite (just a few tests failing).
* Fix the `vim` testsuite (just a few tests failing, used to pass).
* Fix building `mesa`.
* Fix building `wayland`.
* Port `python-procps`.
* Implement a `rumpnet`.
* Implement a `rumpfs`.
* Fix `SMP` support.

## Open Issues

There is a list of [[open_issues]].  This list includes everything from bug
reports to open-ended research questions.


<a name="insta-dev-env"></a>
## Instant Development Environment

<!--
The idea of a one-stop development environment is not bad (I like that), but
I'd do this differently.  For example, we should add some Git submodules to the
master hurd.git repository (which is currently empty), to branches that are
known to build and interface correctly with current GNU/Hurd system
installations (thus including TLS, etc.), and also add in my cross-gnu scripts
and a simple build machinery so this is usable from GNU/Linux (and other
systems), and so on and so forth.

I'll have to think about it some more.

--[[tschwinge]].  -->

*This is a very brief guide to get your development environment set up. Pester ArneBab @ irc.freenode.net on IRC if something does not work :)*
([[!taglink open_issue_documentation]])


First run the hurd in [[qemu|hurd/running/qemu#index1h2]]

After you have a Hurd vm set up and running:

* `apt update`
* `apt install -y git mercurial emacs vim`
* `apt build-dep -y hurd gnumach`
* `git clone git://git.savannah.gnu.org/hurd/hurd.git`
* `git clone git://git.savannah.gnu.org/hurd/gnumach.git`
* `git clone git://git.savannah.gnu.org/hurd/incubator.git`
* You can connect through ssh with `ssh root@localhost -p 2222`
* Optionally if you connect to the Hurd running on another local
  machine, then you might want to set up the
  [[hurd/terrible-mdns-responder]].
* Get more from the [repo list](https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hurd/).
* Read the docs on these pages.
* Start hacking.
* For shutting down, use `reboot`, then press `c` in grub and issue halt (to avoid filesystem corruption). Adding `--no-reboot` to the qemu line should help, too.

---
<a name="hurd_on_modern_microkernel"></a>
# Design / Research: GNU Hurd on a Modern Microkernel

Developers [[have_identified|hurd/critique]] a number of problem with the *Hurd on
Mach* system.  Problems, that can not easily be fixed by bug-fixing the
existing code base, but which require design changes -- deep going ones
actually.

As such systems (as the desired one) are not in common use, but are -- if at
all -- research projects, this new *Hurd on a modern microkernel* project
itself is more a research project than a *sit down and implement/code/hack*
project.

If you're interested in contributing in this area, knowing the *Hurd on Mach*
system (see [[above|contributing#hurd_on_mach]]) nevertheless is a
prerequisite.  At least have a deep look at the documentation pointers.  Also
read through the [[HurdNG|hurd/ng]] section.

Please send email to the [[mailing lists/l4-hurd]] mailing list for discussing
this post-Mach system design.

---
# Documentation


## Technical Writer

Our hackers (programmers) typically do what their kind always does: they code.
What they don't like too much is documenting their wonderful achievements.  On
the other hand, there are people (you?) who enjoy documenting technical
matters, so don't hesitate to [[contact_us]] if technical documentation shall
be your contribution to GNU Hurd development.

A good start is probably to just start using the Hurd, and play with
the translators. In the process you will probably find that some of the
documentations are missing some details, are outdated, etc. That is were you can
start contributing for instance.

As an advice: do not start yet another documentation from scratch. There are
already a lot of tutorials in the wilds, and they are almost all completely
outdated. Rather contribute to the existing official documentation: this wiki,
the documentation in the Hurd source, the Debian Hurd port pages.

## Web Pages

Please read about [[how_to_contribute_to_these_web_pages|web_pages]].

---
# Final Words -- Difficulties

Please note that doing substantial contributions to a project as big and as
encompassing as the GNU Hurd is not a trivial task.  For working on the GNU
Hurd's inner guts and getting useful work done, you have to plan for a
many-months learning experience which will need sufficient self-motivation.
Working on an advanced operating system kernel isn't something you can do in a
few free minutes -- even less so without any previous [[kernel]] hacking
experience.

Likewise, the Linux kernel maintainers are stating the exactly same
difficulties, which is well presented by Jonathan Corbet in his 2010 Linux
Kernel Summit report for the opening sessions about [*welcoming of
newcomers*](http://lwn.net/Articles/412639/).

But of course, none of this is meant to be dismissive, or to scare you away --
on the contrary: just [[start
using|hurd/running]] the GNU Hurd, and either notice yourself what's not
working as expected, or have a look at one of the [[Open Issues]], and we shall
see if you'll evolve to be the next core Hurd hacker!
You'll *just* have to get excited about it!