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Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +02001 ----------------------
2 HAProxy how-to
3 ----------------------
Willy Tarreau15480d72014-06-19 21:10:58 +02004 version 1.6-dev
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +02005 willy tarreau
Willy Tarreau9229f122014-06-19 21:01:06 +02006 2014/06/19
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +01007
8
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +020091) How to build it
10------------------
11
Willy Tarreau15480d72014-06-19 21:10:58 +020012First, please note that this version is a development version, so in general if
13you are not used to build from sources or if you don't have the time to track
14very frequent updates, it is recommended that instead you switch to the stable
15version (1.5) or follow the packaged updates provided by your software vendor
16or Linux distribution. Most of them are taking this task seriously and are
17doing a good job. If for any reason you'd prefer a different version than the
18one packaged for your system, or to get some commercial support, other choices
19are available at :
Willy Tarreau869f3512014-06-19 15:26:32 +020020
21 http://www.haproxy.com/
22
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010023To build haproxy, you will need :
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +020024 - GNU make. Neither Solaris nor OpenBSD's make work with the GNU Makefile.
Willy Tarreau3543cdb2014-05-10 09:12:46 +020025 If you get many syntax errors when running "make", you may want to retry
26 with "gmake" which is the name commonly used for GNU make on BSD systems.
Willy Tarreau869f3512014-06-19 15:26:32 +020027 - GCC between 2.95 and 4.8. Others may work, but not tested.
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010028 - GNU ld
29
30Also, you might want to build with libpcre support, which will provide a very
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +020031efficient regex implementation and will also fix some badness on Solaris' one.
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010032
33To build haproxy, you have to choose your target OS amongst the following ones
34and assign it to the TARGET variable :
35
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020036 - linux22 for Linux 2.2
37 - linux24 for Linux 2.4 and above (default)
38 - linux24e for Linux 2.4 with support for a working epoll (> 0.21)
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020039 - linux26 for Linux 2.6 and above
Willy Tarreau869f3512014-06-19 15:26:32 +020040 - linux2628 for Linux 2.6.28, 3.x, and above (enables splice and tproxy)
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020041 - solaris for Solaris 8 or 10 (others untested)
Willy Tarreau869f3512014-06-19 15:26:32 +020042 - freebsd for FreeBSD 5 to 10 (others untested)
Willy Tarreau8624cab2013-04-02 08:17:43 +020043 - osx for Mac OS/X
Willy Tarreau3b8e9792012-11-22 00:43:09 +010044 - openbsd for OpenBSD 3.1 to 5.2 (others untested)
Willy Tarreau50abe302014-04-02 20:44:43 +020045 - aix51 for AIX 5.1
Willy Tarreau7dec9652012-06-06 16:15:03 +020046 - aix52 for AIX 5.2
Yitzhak Sapir32087312009-06-14 18:27:54 +020047 - cygwin for Cygwin
Willy Tarreau869f3512014-06-19 15:26:32 +020048 - generic for any other OS or version.
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020049 - custom to manually adjust every setting
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010050
51You may also choose your CPU to benefit from some optimizations. This is
52particularly important on UltraSparc machines. For this, you can assign
53one of the following choices to the CPU variable :
54
55 - i686 for intel PentiumPro, Pentium 2 and above, AMD Athlon
56 - i586 for intel Pentium, AMD K6, VIA C3.
57 - ultrasparc : Sun UltraSparc I/II/III/IV processor
Willy Tarreau817dad52014-07-10 20:24:25 +020058 - native : use the build machine's specific processor optimizations. Use with
59 extreme care, and never in virtualized environments (known to break).
60 - generic : any other processor or no CPU-specific optimization. (default)
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010061
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020062Alternatively, you may just set the CPU_CFLAGS value to the optimal GCC options
63for your platform.
64
Willy Tarreauef7341d2009-04-11 19:45:50 +020065You may want to build specific target binaries which do not match your native
66compiler's target. This is particularly true on 64-bit systems when you want
67to build a 32-bit binary. Use the ARCH variable for this purpose. Right now
Willy Tarreaua5899aa2010-11-28 07:41:00 +010068it only knows about a few x86 variants (i386,i486,i586,i686,x86_64), two
69generic ones (32,64) and sets -m32/-m64 as well as -march=<arch> accordingly.
Willy Tarreauef7341d2009-04-11 19:45:50 +020070
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010071If your system supports PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions), then you
72really should build with libpcre which is between 2 and 10 times faster than
73other libc implementations. Regex are used for header processing (deletion,
74rewriting, allow, deny). The only inconvenient of libpcre is that it is not
75yet widely spread, so if you build for other systems, you might get into
76trouble if they don't have the dynamic library. In this situation, you should
77statically link libpcre into haproxy so that it will not be necessary to
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020078install it on target systems. Available build options for PCRE are :
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010079
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020080 - USE_PCRE=1 to use libpcre, in whatever form is available on your system
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010081 (shared or static)
82
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020083 - USE_STATIC_PCRE=1 to use a static version of libpcre even if the dynamic
84 one is available. This will enhance portability.
85
Willy Tarreau663148c2012-12-12 00:38:22 +010086 - with no option, use your OS libc's standard regex implementation (default).
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020087 Warning! group references on Solaris seem broken. Use static-pcre whenever
88 possible.
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010089
Willy Tarreau64bc40b2011-03-23 20:00:53 +010090Recent systems can resolve IPv6 host names using getaddrinfo(). This primitive
91is not present in all libcs and does not work in all of them either. Support in
92glibc was broken before 2.3. Some embedded libs may not properly work either,
93thus, support is disabled by default, meaning that some host names which only
94resolve as IPv6 addresses will not resolve and configs might emit an error
95during parsing. If you know that your OS libc has reliable support for
96getaddrinfo(), you can add USE_GETADDRINFO=1 on the make command line to enable
97it. This is the recommended option for most Linux distro packagers since it's
98working fine on all recent mainstream distros. It is automatically enabled on
99Solaris 8 and above, as it's known to work.
100
Willy Tarreau3543cdb2014-05-10 09:12:46 +0200101It is possible to add native support for SSL using the GNU makefile, by passing
102"USE_OPENSSL=1" on the make command line. The libssl and libcrypto will
103automatically be linked with haproxy. Some systems also require libz, so if the
104build fails due to missing symbols such as deflateInit(), then try again with
105"ADDLIB=-lz".
Willy Tarreaud4508812012-09-10 09:07:41 +0200106
Lukas Tribus3fe9f1e2013-05-19 16:28:17 +0200107To link OpenSSL statically against haproxy, build OpenSSL with the no-shared
108keyword and install it to a local directory, so your system is not affected :
109
110 $ export STATICLIBSSL=/tmp/staticlibssl
111 $ ./config --prefix=$STATICLIBSSL no-shared
112 $ make && make install_sw
113
Lukas Tribus130ddf72013-10-01 00:28:03 +0200114When building haproxy, pass that path via SSL_INC and SSL_LIB to make and
115include additional libs with ADDLIB if needed (in this case for example libdl):
Willy Tarreau3543cdb2014-05-10 09:12:46 +0200116
Lukas Tribus130ddf72013-10-01 00:28:03 +0200117 $ make TARGET=linux26 USE_OPENSSL=1 SSL_INC=$STATICLIBSSL/include SSL_LIB=$STATICLIBSSL/lib ADDLIB=-ldl
Lukas Tribus3fe9f1e2013-05-19 16:28:17 +0200118
William Lallemand82fe75c2012-10-23 10:25:10 +0200119It is also possible to include native support for ZLIB to benefit from HTTP
120compression. For this, pass "USE_ZLIB=1" on the "make" command line and ensure
121that zlib is present on the system.
122
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +0100123By default, the DEBUG variable is set to '-g' to enable debug symbols. It is
124not wise to disable it on uncommon systems, because it's often the only way to
125get a complete core when you need one. Otherwise, you can set DEBUG to '-s' to
126strip the binary.
127
128For example, I use this to build for Solaris 8 :
129
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +0200130 $ make TARGET=solaris CPU=ultrasparc USE_STATIC_PCRE=1
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +0100131
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +0200132And I build it this way on OpenBSD or FreeBSD :
willy tarreaud38e72d2006-03-19 20:56:52 +0100133
Willy Tarreau3543cdb2014-05-10 09:12:46 +0200134 $ gmake TARGET=freebsd USE_PCRE=1 USE_OPENSSL=1 USE_ZLIB=1
willy tarreaud38e72d2006-03-19 20:56:52 +0100135
Willy Tarreau663148c2012-12-12 00:38:22 +0100136And on a classic Linux with SSL and ZLIB support (eg: Red Hat 5.x) :
137
Willy Tarreau817dad52014-07-10 20:24:25 +0200138 $ make TARGET=linux26 USE_PCRE=1 USE_OPENSSL=1 USE_ZLIB=1
Willy Tarreau663148c2012-12-12 00:38:22 +0100139
140And on a recent Linux >= 2.6.28 with SSL and ZLIB support :
Willy Tarreaud4508812012-09-10 09:07:41 +0200141
Willy Tarreau817dad52014-07-10 20:24:25 +0200142 $ make TARGET=linux2628 USE_PCRE=1 USE_OPENSSL=1 USE_ZLIB=1
Willy Tarreaud4508812012-09-10 09:07:41 +0200143
William Lallemand82fe75c2012-10-23 10:25:10 +0200144In order to build a 32-bit binary on an x86_64 Linux system with SSL support
145without support for compression but when OpenSSL requires ZLIB anyway :
Willy Tarreauef7341d2009-04-11 19:45:50 +0200146
Willy Tarreaud4508812012-09-10 09:07:41 +0200147 $ make TARGET=linux26 ARCH=i386 USE_OPENSSL=1 ADDLIB=-lz
Willy Tarreauef7341d2009-04-11 19:45:50 +0200148
Willy Tarreaub1efede2014-05-09 00:44:48 +0200149The SSL stack supports session cache synchronization between all running
150processes. This involves some atomic operations and synchronization operations
151which come in multiple flavors depending on the system and architecture :
152
153 Atomic operations :
154 - internal assembler versions for x86/x86_64 architectures
155
156 - gcc builtins for other architectures. Some architectures might not
157 be fully supported or might require a more recent version of gcc.
158 If your architecture is not supported, you willy have to either use
159 pthread if supported, or to disable the shared cache.
160
161 - pthread (posix threads). Pthreads are very common but inter-process
162 support is not that common, and some older operating systems did not
163 report an error when enabling multi-process mode, so they used to
164 silently fail, possibly causing crashes. Linux's implementation is
165 fine. OpenBSD doesn't support them and doesn't build. FreeBSD 9 builds
166 and reports an error at runtime, while certain older versions might
167 silently fail. Pthreads are enabled using USE_PTHREAD_PSHARED=1.
168
169 Synchronization operations :
170 - internal spinlock : this mode is OS-independant, light but will not
171 scale well to many processes. However, accesses to the session cache
172 are rare enough that this mode could certainly always be used. This
173 is the default mode.
174
175 - Futexes, which are Linux-specific highly scalable light weight mutexes
176 implemented in user-space with some limited assistance from the kernel.
177 This is the default on Linux 2.6 and above and is enabled by passing
178 USE_FUTEX=1
179
180 - pthread (posix threads). See above.
181
182If none of these mechanisms is supported by your platform, you may need to
183build with USE_PRIVATE_CACHE=1 to totally disable SSL cache sharing. Then
184it is better not to run SSL on multiple processes.
185
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +0100186If you need to pass other defines, includes, libraries, etc... then please
187check the Makefile to see which ones will be available in your case, and
Willy Tarreau3543cdb2014-05-10 09:12:46 +0200188use the USE_* variables in the Makefile.
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +0100189
Willy Tarreau97ec9692010-01-28 20:52:05 +0100190AIX 5.3 is known to work with the generic target. However, for the binary to
191also run on 5.2 or earlier, you need to build with DEFINE="-D_MSGQSUPPORT",
Willy Tarreau869f3512014-06-19 15:26:32 +0200192otherwise __fd_select() will be used while not being present in the libc, but
193this is easily addressed using the "aix52" target. If you get build errors
194because of strange symbols or section mismatches, simply remove -g from
195DEBUG_CFLAGS.
Willy Tarreau97ec9692010-01-28 20:52:05 +0100196
Willy Tarreau32e65ef2013-04-02 08:14:29 +0200197You can easily define your own target with the GNU Makefile. Unknown targets
198are processed with no default option except USE_POLL=default. So you can very
199well use that property to define your own set of options. USE_POLL can even be
200disabled by setting USE_POLL="". For example :
201
202 $ gmake TARGET=tiny USE_POLL="" TARGET_CFLAGS=-fomit-frame-pointer
203
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200204
2052) How to install it
206--------------------
207
208To install haproxy, you can either copy the single resulting binary to the
209place you want, or run :
210
211 $ sudo make install
212
213If you're packaging it for another system, you can specify its root directory
214in the usual DESTDIR variable.
215
216
2173) How to set it up
218-------------------
219
220There is some documentation in the doc/ directory :
221
222 - architecture.txt : this is the architecture manual. It is quite old and
223 does not tell about the nice new features, but it's still a good starting
224 point when you know what you want but don't know how to do it.
225
226 - configuration.txt : this is the configuration manual. It recalls a few
227 essential HTTP basic concepts, and details all the configuration file
228 syntax (keywords, units). It also describes the log and stats format. It
229 is normally always up to date. If you see that something is missing from
Willy Tarreau74774c02014-04-23 00:57:08 +0200230 it, please report it as this is a bug. Please note that this file is
231 huge and that it's generally more convenient to review Cyril Bonté's
232 HTML translation online here :
233
234 http://cbonte.github.io/haproxy-dconv/configuration-1.5.html
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200235
236 - haproxy-en.txt / haproxy-fr.txt : these are the old outdated docs. You
237 should never need them. If you do, then please report what you didn't
238 find in the other ones.
239
240 - gpl.txt / lgpl.txt : the copy of the licenses covering the software. See
241 the 'LICENSE' file at the top for more information.
242
243 - the rest is mainly for developers.
244
245There are also a number of nice configuration examples in the "examples"
246directory as well as on several sites and articles on the net which are linked
247to from the haproxy web site.
248
249
2504) How to report a bug
251----------------------
252
253It is possible that from time to time you'll find a bug. A bug is a case where
254what you see is not what is documented. Otherwise it can be a misdesign. If you
255find that something is stupidly design, please discuss it on the list (see the
256"how to contribute" section below). If you feel like you're proceeding right
257and haproxy doesn't obey, then first ask yourself if it is possible that nobody
258before you has even encountered this issue. If it's unlikely, the you probably
259have an issue in your setup. Just in case of doubt, please consult the mailing
260list archives :
261
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200262 http://marc.info/?l=haproxy
263
264Otherwise, please try to gather the maximum amount of information to help
265reproduce the issue and send that to the mailing list :
266
267 haproxy@formilux.org
268
269Please include your configuration and logs. You can mask your IP addresses and
270passwords, we don't need them. But it's essential that you post your config if
271you want people to guess what is happening.
272
273Also, keep in mind that haproxy is designed to NEVER CRASH. If you see it die
274without any reason, then it definitely is a critical bug that must be reported
275and urgently fixed. It has happened a couple of times in the past, essentially
276on development versions running on new architectures. If you think your setup
277is fairly common, then it is possible that the issue is totally unrelated.
278Anyway, if that happens, feel free to contact me directly, as I will give you
279instructions on how to collect a usable core file, and will probably ask for
280other captures that you'll not want to share with the list.
281
282
2835) How to contribute
284--------------------
285
286It is possible that you'll want to add a specific feature to satisfy your needs
287or one of your customers'. Contributions are welcome, however I'm often very
288picky about changes. I will generally reject patches that change massive parts
289of the code, or that touch the core parts without any good reason if those
290changes have not been discussed first.
291
292The proper place to discuss your changes is the HAProxy Mailing List. There are
293enough skilled readers to catch hazardous mistakes and to suggest improvements.
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200294I trust a number of them enough to merge a patch if they say it's OK, so using
295the list is the fastest way to get your code reviewed and merged. You can
296subscribe to it by sending an empty e-mail at the following address :
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200297
298 haproxy+subscribe@formilux.org
299
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200300If you have an idea about something to implement, *please* discuss it on the
301list first. It has already happened several times that two persons did the same
302thing simultaneously. This is a waste of time for both of them. It's also very
303common to see some changes rejected because they're done in a way that will
304conflict with future evolutions, or that does not leave a good feeling. It's
305always unpleasant for the person who did the work, and it is unpleasant for me
306too because I value people's time and efforts. That would not happen if these
307were discussed first. There is no problem posting work in progress to the list,
308it happens quite often in fact. Also, don't waste your time with the doc when
309submitting patches for review, only add the doc with the patch you consider
310ready to merge.
311
Willy Tarreau2ddccb72013-05-01 10:07:21 +0200312Another important point concerns code portability. Haproxy requires gcc as the
313C compiler, and may or may not work with other compilers. However it's known
314to build using gcc 2.95 or any later version. As such, it is important to keep
315in mind that certain facilities offered by recent versions must not be used in
316the code :
317
318 - declarations mixed in the code (requires gcc >= 3.x)
319 - GCC builtins without checking for their availability based on version and
320 architecture ;
321 - assembly code without any alternate portable form for other platforms
322 - use of stdbool.h, "bool", "false", "true" : simply use "int", "0", "1"
323 - in general, anything which requires C99 (such as declaring variables in
324 "for" statements)
325
326Since most of these restrictions are just a matter of coding style, it is
327normally not a problem to comply.
328
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200329If your work is very confidential and you can't publicly discuss it, you can
330also mail me directly about it, but your mail may be waiting several days in
331the queue before you get a response.
332
333If you'd like a feature to be added but you think you don't have the skills to
334implement it yourself, you should follow these steps :
335
336 1. discuss the feature on the mailing list. It is possible that someone
337 else has already implemented it, or that someone will tell you how to
338 proceed without it, or even why not to do it. It is also possible that
339 in fact it's quite easy to implement and people will guide you through
340 the process. That way you'll finally have YOUR patch merged, providing
341 the feature YOU need.
342
343 2. if you really can't code it yourself after discussing it, then you may
344 consider contacting someone to do the job for you. Some people on the
Willy Tarreau869f3512014-06-19 15:26:32 +0200345 list might sometimes be OK with trying to do it.
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200346
347Note to contributors: it's very handy when patches comes with a properly
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200348formated subject. There are 3 criteria of particular importance in any patch :
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200349
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200350 - its nature (is it a fix for a bug, a new feature, an optimization, ...)
351 - its importance, which generally reflects the risk of merging/not merging it
352 - what area it applies to (eg: http, stats, startup, config, doc, ...)
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200353
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200354It's important to make these 3 criteria easy to spot in the patch's subject,
355because it's the first (and sometimes the only) thing which is read when
356reviewing patches to find which ones need to be backported to older versions.
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200357
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200358Specifically, bugs must be clearly easy to spot so that they're never missed.
359Any patch fixing a bug must have the "BUG" tag in its subject. Most common
360patch types include :
361
362 - BUG fix for a bug. The severity of the bug should also be indicated
363 when known. Similarly, if a backport is needed to older versions,
364 it should be indicated on the last line of the commit message. If
365 the bug has been identified as a regression brought by a specific
366 patch or version, this indication will be appreciated too. New
367 maintenance releases are generally emitted when a few of these
368 patches are merged.
369
370 - CLEANUP code cleanup, silence of warnings, etc... theorically no impact.
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200371 These patches will rarely be seen in stable branches, though they
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200372 may appear when they remove some annoyance or when they make
373 backporting easier. By nature, a cleanup is always minor.
374
375 - REORG code reorganization. Some blocks may be moved to other places,
376 some important checks might be swapped, etc... These changes
377 always present a risk of regression. For this reason, they should
378 never be mixed with any bug fix nor functional change. Code is
379 only moved as-is. Indicating the risk of breakage is highly
380 recommended.
381
382 - BUILD updates or fixes for build issues. Changes to makefiles also fall
383 into this category. The risk of breakage should be indicated if
384 known. It is also appreciated to indicate what platforms and/or
385 configurations were tested after the change.
386
387 - OPTIM some code was optimised. Sometimes if the regression risk is very
388 low and the gains significant, such patches may be merged in the
389 stable branch. Depending on the amount of code changed or replaced
390 and the level of trust the author has in the change, the risk of
391 regression should be indicated.
392
393 - RELEASE release of a new version (development or stable).
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200394
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200395 - LICENSE licensing updates (may impact distro packagers).
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200396
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200397
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200398When the patch cannot be categorized, it's best not to put any tag. This is
399commonly the case for new features, which development versions are mostly made
400of.
401
402Additionally, the importance of the patch should be indicated when known. A
403single upper-case word is preferred, among :
404
405 - MINOR minor change, very low risk of impact. It is often the case for
406 code additions that don't touch live code. For a bug, it generally
407 indicates an annoyance, nothing more.
408
409 - MEDIUM medium risk, may cause unexpected regressions of low importance or
410 which may quickly be discovered. For a bug, it generally indicates
411 something odd which requires changing the configuration in an
412 undesired way to work around the issue.
413
414 - MAJOR major risk of hidden regression. This happens when I rearrange
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200415 large parts of code, when I play with timeouts, with variable
416 initializations, etc... We should only exceptionally find such
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200417 patches in stable branches. For a bug, it indicates severe
418 reliability issues for which workarounds are identified with or
419 without performance impacts.
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200420
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200421 - CRITICAL medium-term reliability or security is at risk and workarounds,
422 if they exist, might not always be acceptable. An upgrade is
423 absolutely required. A maintenance release may be emitted even if
424 only one of these bugs are fixed. Note that this tag is only used
425 with bugs. Such patches must indicate what is the first version
426 affected, and if known, the commit ID which introduced the issue.
427
428If this criterion doesn't apply, it's best not to put it. For instance, most
429doc updates and most examples or test files are just added or updated without
430any need to qualify a level of importance.
431
432The area the patch applies to is quite important, because some areas are known
433to be similar in older versions, suggesting a backport might be desirable, and
434conversely, some areas are known to be specific to one version. When the tag is
435used alone, uppercase is preferred for readability, otherwise lowercase is fine
436too. The following tags are suggested but not limitative :
437
438 - doc documentation updates or fixes. No code is affected, no need to
439 upgrade. These patches can also be sent right after a new feature,
440 to document it.
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200441
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200442 - examples example files. Be careful, sometimes these files are packaged.
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200443
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200444 - tests regression test files. No code is affected, no need to upgrade.
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200445
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200446 - init initialization code, arguments parsing, etc...
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200447
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200448 - config configuration parser, mostly used when adding new config keywords
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200449
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200450 - http the HTTP engine
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200451
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200452 - stats the stats reporting engine as well as the stats socket CLI
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200453
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200454 - checks the health checks engine (eg: when adding new checks)
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200455
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200456 - acl the ACL processing core or some ACLs from other areas
457
458 - peers the peer synchronization engine
459
460 - listeners everything related to incoming connection settings
461
462 - frontend everything related to incoming connection processing
463
464 - backend everything related to LB algorithms and server farm
465
466 - session session processing and flags (very sensible, be careful)
467
468 - server server connection management, queueing
469
470 - proxy proxy maintenance (start/stop)
471
472 - log log management
473
474 - poll any of the pollers
475
476 - halog the halog sub-component in the contrib directory
477
478 - contrib any addition to the contrib directory
479
480Other names may be invented when more precise indications are meaningful, for
481instance : "cookie" which indicates cookie processing in the HTTP core. Last,
482indicating the name of the affected file is also a good way to quickly spot
483changes. Many commits were already tagged with "stream_sock" or "cfgparse" for
484instance.
485
486It is desired that AT LEAST one of the 3 criteria tags is reported in the patch
487subject. Ideally, we would have the 3 most often. The two first criteria should
488be present before a first colon (':'). If both are present, then they should be
489delimited with a slash ('/'). The 3rd criterion (area) should appear next, also
490followed by a colon. Thus, all of the following messages are valid :
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200491
492Examples of messages :
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200493 - DOC: document options forwardfor to logasap
494 - DOC/MAJOR: reorganize the whole document and change indenting
495 - BUG: stats: connection reset counters must be plain ascii, not HTML
496 - BUG/MINOR: stats: connection reset counters must be plain ascii, not HTML
497 - MEDIUM: checks: support multi-packet health check responses
498 - RELEASE: Released version 1.4.2
499 - BUILD: stats: stdint is not present on solaris
500 - OPTIM/MINOR: halog: make fgets parse more bytes by blocks
501 - REORG/MEDIUM: move syscall redefinition to specific places
502
503Please do not use square brackets anymore around the tags, because they give me
504more work when merging patches. By default I'm asking Git to keep them but this
505causes trouble when patches are prefixed with the [PATCH] tag because in order
506not to store it, I have to hand-edit the patches. So as of now, I will ask Git
507to remove whatever is located between square brackets, which implies that any
508subject formatted the old way will have its tag stripped out.
509
510In fact, one of the only square bracket tags that still makes sense is '[RFC]'
511at the beginning of the subject, when you're asking for someone to review your
512change before getting it merged. If the patch is OK to be merged, then I can
513merge it as-is and the '[RFC]' tag will automatically be removed. If you don't
514want it to be merged at all, you can simply state it in the message, or use an
515alternate '[WIP]' tag ("work in progress").
516
517The tags are not rigid, follow your intuition first, anyway I reserve the right
518to change them when merging the patch. It may happen that a same patch has a
519different tag in two distinct branches. The reason is that a bug in one branch
520may just be a cleanup in the other one because the code cannot be triggered.
521
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200522
523For a more efficient interaction between the mainline code and your code, I can
524only strongly encourage you to try the Git version control system :
525
526 http://git-scm.com/
527
528It's very fast, lightweight and lets you undo/redo your work as often as you
529want, without making your mistakes visible to the rest of the world. It will
530definitely help you contribute quality code and take other people's feedback
531in consideration. In order to clone the HAProxy Git repository :
532
Willy Tarreau869f3512014-06-19 15:26:32 +0200533 $ git clone http://git.haproxy.org/git/haproxy-1.5.git (stable 1.5)
Willy Tarreau6346f0a2014-05-10 11:04:39 +0200534 $ git clone http://git.haproxy.org/git/haproxy.git/ (development)
Willy Tarreau663148c2012-12-12 00:38:22 +0100535
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200536If you decide to use Git for your developments, then your commit messages will
537have the subject line in the format described above, then the whole description
538of your work (mainly why you did it) will be in the body. You can directly send
539your commits to the mailing list, the format is convenient to read and process.
540
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +0100541-- end