27. Hacking

27.1. Welcome

Welcome dear hacker! I invite you to a tour of pointers to get into the usable configuration management system, cdist.

The first thing to know is probably that cdist is brought to you by people who care about how code looks like and who think twice before merging or implementing a feature: Less features with good usability are far better than the opposite.

27.2. Reporting bugs

If you believe you've found a bug and verified that it is in the latest version, drop a mail to the cdist mailing list, subject prefixed with "[BUG] " or create an issue on github.

27.3. Coding conventions (everywhere)

If something should be improved or needs to be fixed, add the word FIXME nearby, so grepping for FIXME gives all positions that need to be fixed.

Indentation is 4 spaces (welcome to the python world).

27.4. How to submit stuff for inclusion into upstream cdist

If you did some cool changes to cdist, which you think might be of benefit to other cdist users, you're welcome to propose inclusion into upstream.

There are some requirements to ensure your changes don't break other peoples work nor kill the authors brain:

  • All files should contain the usual header (Author, Copying, etc.)

  • Code submission must be done via git

  • Do not add cdist/conf/manifest/init - This file should only be touched in your private branch!

  • Code to be included should be branched of the upstream "master" branch

    • Exception: Bugfixes to a version branch

  • On a merge request, always name the branch I should pull from

  • Always ensure all manpages build. Use ./build man to test.

  • If you developed more than one feature, consider submitting them in separate branches. This way one feature can already be included, even if the other needs to be improved.

As soon as your work meets these requirements, write a mail for inclusion to the mailinglist cdist-configuration-management at googlegroups.com or open a pull request at http://github.com/ungleich/cdist.

27.5. How to submit a new type

For detailed information about types, see cdist type.

Submitting a type works as described above, with the additional requirement that a corresponding manpage named man.rst in ReSTructured text format with the manpage-name "cdist-type__NAME" is included in the type directory AND the manpage builds (make man).

Warning: Submitting "exec" or "run" types that simply echo their parameter in gencode will not be accepted, because they are of no use. Every type can output code and thus such a type introduces redundant functionality that is given by core cdist already.

27.6. Example git workflow

The following workflow works fine for most developers

# get latest upstream master branch
git clone https://github.com/ungleich/cdist.git

# update if already existing
cd cdist; git fetch -v; git merge origin/master

# create a new branch for your feature/bugfix
cd cdist # if you haven't done before
git checkout -b documentation_cleanup

# *hack*
*hack*

# clone the cdist repository on github if you haven't done so

# configure your repo to know about your clone (only once)
git remote add github git@github.com:YOURUSERNAME/cdist.git

# push the new branch to github
git push github documentation_cleanup

# (or everything)
git push --mirror github

# create a pull request at github (use a browser)
# *fixthingsbecausequalityassurancefoundissuesinourpatch*
*hack*

# push code to github again
git push ... # like above

# add comment that everything should be green now (use a browser)

# go back to master branch
git checkout master

# update master branch that includes your changes now
git fetch -v origin
git diff master..origin/master
git merge origin/master

If at any point you want to go back to the original master branch, you can use git stash to stash your changes away:

.. code-block:: sh

# assume you are on documentation_cleanup git stash

# change to master and update to most recent upstream version git checkout master git fetch -v origin git merge origin/master

Similarly when you want to develop another new feature, you go back to the master branch and create another branch based on it:

.. code-block:: sh

# change to master and update to most recent upstream version git checkout master git fetch -v origin git merge origin/master

git checkout -b another_feature

(you can repeat the code above for as many features as you want to develop in parallel)