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Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +02001 ----------------------
2 HAProxy how-to
3 ----------------------
Willy Tarreau289dd922013-04-03 02:26:31 +02004 version 1.5-dev18
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +02005 willy tarreau
Willy Tarreau289dd922013-04-03 02:26:31 +02006 2014/04/03
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +01007
8
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +020091) How to build it
10------------------
11
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010012To build haproxy, you will need :
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +020013 - GNU make. Neither Solaris nor OpenBSD's make work with the GNU Makefile.
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020014 However, specific Makefiles for BSD and OSX are provided.
Willy Tarreau32e65ef2013-04-02 08:14:29 +020015 - GCC between 2.91 and 4.7. Others may work, but not tested.
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010016 - GNU ld
17
18Also, you might want to build with libpcre support, which will provide a very
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +020019efficient regex implementation and will also fix some badness on Solaris' one.
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010020
21To build haproxy, you have to choose your target OS amongst the following ones
22and assign it to the TARGET variable :
23
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020024 - linux22 for Linux 2.2
25 - linux24 for Linux 2.4 and above (default)
26 - linux24e for Linux 2.4 with support for a working epoll (> 0.21)
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020027 - linux26 for Linux 2.6 and above
Willy Tarreaue0c623d2012-06-04 00:42:09 +020028 - linux2628 for Linux 2.6.28 and above (enables splice and tproxy)
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020029 - solaris for Solaris 8 or 10 (others untested)
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +020030 - freebsd for FreeBSD 5 to 8.0 (others untested)
Willy Tarreau8624cab2013-04-02 08:17:43 +020031 - osx for Mac OS/X
Willy Tarreau3b8e9792012-11-22 00:43:09 +010032 - openbsd for OpenBSD 3.1 to 5.2 (others untested)
Willy Tarreau7dec9652012-06-06 16:15:03 +020033 - aix52 for AIX 5.2
Yitzhak Sapir32087312009-06-14 18:27:54 +020034 - cygwin for Cygwin
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020035 - generic for any other OS.
36 - custom to manually adjust every setting
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010037
38You may also choose your CPU to benefit from some optimizations. This is
39particularly important on UltraSparc machines. For this, you can assign
40one of the following choices to the CPU variable :
41
42 - i686 for intel PentiumPro, Pentium 2 and above, AMD Athlon
43 - i586 for intel Pentium, AMD K6, VIA C3.
44 - ultrasparc : Sun UltraSparc I/II/III/IV processor
Willy Tarreaua5899aa2010-11-28 07:41:00 +010045 - native : use the build machine's specific processor optimizations
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010046 - generic : any other processor or no specific optimization. (default)
47
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020048Alternatively, you may just set the CPU_CFLAGS value to the optimal GCC options
49for your platform.
50
Willy Tarreauef7341d2009-04-11 19:45:50 +020051You may want to build specific target binaries which do not match your native
52compiler's target. This is particularly true on 64-bit systems when you want
53to build a 32-bit binary. Use the ARCH variable for this purpose. Right now
Willy Tarreaua5899aa2010-11-28 07:41:00 +010054it only knows about a few x86 variants (i386,i486,i586,i686,x86_64), two
55generic ones (32,64) and sets -m32/-m64 as well as -march=<arch> accordingly.
Willy Tarreauef7341d2009-04-11 19:45:50 +020056
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010057If your system supports PCRE (Perl Compatible Regular Expressions), then you
58really should build with libpcre which is between 2 and 10 times faster than
59other libc implementations. Regex are used for header processing (deletion,
60rewriting, allow, deny). The only inconvenient of libpcre is that it is not
61yet widely spread, so if you build for other systems, you might get into
62trouble if they don't have the dynamic library. In this situation, you should
63statically link libpcre into haproxy so that it will not be necessary to
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020064install it on target systems. Available build options for PCRE are :
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010065
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020066 - USE_PCRE=1 to use libpcre, in whatever form is available on your system
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010067 (shared or static)
68
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020069 - USE_STATIC_PCRE=1 to use a static version of libpcre even if the dynamic
70 one is available. This will enhance portability.
71
Willy Tarreau663148c2012-12-12 00:38:22 +010072 - with no option, use your OS libc's standard regex implementation (default).
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +020073 Warning! group references on Solaris seem broken. Use static-pcre whenever
74 possible.
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010075
Willy Tarreau64bc40b2011-03-23 20:00:53 +010076Recent systems can resolve IPv6 host names using getaddrinfo(). This primitive
77is not present in all libcs and does not work in all of them either. Support in
78glibc was broken before 2.3. Some embedded libs may not properly work either,
79thus, support is disabled by default, meaning that some host names which only
80resolve as IPv6 addresses will not resolve and configs might emit an error
81during parsing. If you know that your OS libc has reliable support for
82getaddrinfo(), you can add USE_GETADDRINFO=1 on the make command line to enable
83it. This is the recommended option for most Linux distro packagers since it's
84working fine on all recent mainstream distros. It is automatically enabled on
85Solaris 8 and above, as it's known to work.
86
Willy Tarreaud4508812012-09-10 09:07:41 +020087It is possible to add native support for SSL using the GNU makefile only, and
88by passing "USE_OPENSSL=1" on the make commande line. The libssl and libcrypto
89will automatically be linked with haproxy. Some systems also require libz, so
90if the build fails due to missing symbols such as deflateInit(), then try again
91with "ADDLIB=-lz".
92
William Lallemand82fe75c2012-10-23 10:25:10 +020093It is also possible to include native support for ZLIB to benefit from HTTP
94compression. For this, pass "USE_ZLIB=1" on the "make" command line and ensure
95that zlib is present on the system.
96
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +010097By default, the DEBUG variable is set to '-g' to enable debug symbols. It is
98not wise to disable it on uncommon systems, because it's often the only way to
99get a complete core when you need one. Otherwise, you can set DEBUG to '-s' to
100strip the binary.
101
102For example, I use this to build for Solaris 8 :
103
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +0200104 $ make TARGET=solaris CPU=ultrasparc USE_STATIC_PCRE=1
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +0100105
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +0200106And I build it this way on OpenBSD or FreeBSD :
willy tarreaud38e72d2006-03-19 20:56:52 +0100107
108 $ make -f Makefile.bsd REGEX=pcre DEBUG= COPTS.generic="-Os -fomit-frame-pointer -mgnu"
109
Willy Tarreau663148c2012-12-12 00:38:22 +0100110And on a classic Linux with SSL and ZLIB support (eg: Red Hat 5.x) :
111
112 $ make TARGET=linux26 CPU=native USE_PCRE=1 USE_OPENSSL=1 USE_ZLIB=1
113
114And on a recent Linux >= 2.6.28 with SSL and ZLIB support :
Willy Tarreaud4508812012-09-10 09:07:41 +0200115
William Lallemand82fe75c2012-10-23 10:25:10 +0200116 $ make TARGET=linux2628 CPU=native USE_PCRE=1 USE_OPENSSL=1 USE_ZLIB=1
Willy Tarreaud4508812012-09-10 09:07:41 +0200117
William Lallemand82fe75c2012-10-23 10:25:10 +0200118In order to build a 32-bit binary on an x86_64 Linux system with SSL support
119without support for compression but when OpenSSL requires ZLIB anyway :
Willy Tarreauef7341d2009-04-11 19:45:50 +0200120
Willy Tarreaud4508812012-09-10 09:07:41 +0200121 $ make TARGET=linux26 ARCH=i386 USE_OPENSSL=1 ADDLIB=-lz
Willy Tarreauef7341d2009-04-11 19:45:50 +0200122
Willy Tarreau3b8e9792012-11-22 00:43:09 +0100123The BSD and OSX makefiles do not support build options for OpenSSL nor zlib.
124Also, at least on OpenBSD, pthread_mutexattr_setpshared() does not exist so
125the SSL session cache cannot be shared between multiple processes. If you want
126to enable these options, you need to use GNU make with the default makefile as
127follows :
128
129 $ gmake TARGET=openbsd USE_OPENSSL=1 USE_ZLIB=1 USE_PRIVATE_CACHE=1
130
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +0100131If you need to pass other defines, includes, libraries, etc... then please
132check the Makefile to see which ones will be available in your case, and
Willy Tarreau83b30c12008-05-25 10:32:50 +0200133use the USE_* variables in the GNU Makefile, or ADDINC, ADDLIB, and DEFINE
134variables in the BSD makefiles.
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +0100135
Willy Tarreau97ec9692010-01-28 20:52:05 +0100136AIX 5.3 is known to work with the generic target. However, for the binary to
137also run on 5.2 or earlier, you need to build with DEFINE="-D_MSGQSUPPORT",
138otherwise __fd_select() will be used while not being present in the libc.
Willy Tarreau7dec9652012-06-06 16:15:03 +0200139If you get build errors because of strange symbols or section mismatches,
140simply remove -g from DEBUG_CFLAGS.
Willy Tarreau97ec9692010-01-28 20:52:05 +0100141
Willy Tarreau32e65ef2013-04-02 08:14:29 +0200142You can easily define your own target with the GNU Makefile. Unknown targets
143are processed with no default option except USE_POLL=default. So you can very
144well use that property to define your own set of options. USE_POLL can even be
145disabled by setting USE_POLL="". For example :
146
147 $ gmake TARGET=tiny USE_POLL="" TARGET_CFLAGS=-fomit-frame-pointer
148
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200149
1502) How to install it
151--------------------
152
153To install haproxy, you can either copy the single resulting binary to the
154place you want, or run :
155
156 $ sudo make install
157
158If you're packaging it for another system, you can specify its root directory
159in the usual DESTDIR variable.
160
161
1623) How to set it up
163-------------------
164
165There is some documentation in the doc/ directory :
166
167 - architecture.txt : this is the architecture manual. It is quite old and
168 does not tell about the nice new features, but it's still a good starting
169 point when you know what you want but don't know how to do it.
170
171 - configuration.txt : this is the configuration manual. It recalls a few
172 essential HTTP basic concepts, and details all the configuration file
173 syntax (keywords, units). It also describes the log and stats format. It
174 is normally always up to date. If you see that something is missing from
175 it, please report it as this is a bug.
176
177 - haproxy-en.txt / haproxy-fr.txt : these are the old outdated docs. You
178 should never need them. If you do, then please report what you didn't
179 find in the other ones.
180
181 - gpl.txt / lgpl.txt : the copy of the licenses covering the software. See
182 the 'LICENSE' file at the top for more information.
183
184 - the rest is mainly for developers.
185
186There are also a number of nice configuration examples in the "examples"
187directory as well as on several sites and articles on the net which are linked
188to from the haproxy web site.
189
190
1914) How to report a bug
192----------------------
193
194It is possible that from time to time you'll find a bug. A bug is a case where
195what you see is not what is documented. Otherwise it can be a misdesign. If you
196find that something is stupidly design, please discuss it on the list (see the
197"how to contribute" section below). If you feel like you're proceeding right
198and haproxy doesn't obey, then first ask yourself if it is possible that nobody
199before you has even encountered this issue. If it's unlikely, the you probably
200have an issue in your setup. Just in case of doubt, please consult the mailing
201list archives :
202
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200203 http://marc.info/?l=haproxy
204
205Otherwise, please try to gather the maximum amount of information to help
206reproduce the issue and send that to the mailing list :
207
208 haproxy@formilux.org
209
210Please include your configuration and logs. You can mask your IP addresses and
211passwords, we don't need them. But it's essential that you post your config if
212you want people to guess what is happening.
213
214Also, keep in mind that haproxy is designed to NEVER CRASH. If you see it die
215without any reason, then it definitely is a critical bug that must be reported
216and urgently fixed. It has happened a couple of times in the past, essentially
217on development versions running on new architectures. If you think your setup
218is fairly common, then it is possible that the issue is totally unrelated.
219Anyway, if that happens, feel free to contact me directly, as I will give you
220instructions on how to collect a usable core file, and will probably ask for
221other captures that you'll not want to share with the list.
222
223
2245) How to contribute
225--------------------
226
227It is possible that you'll want to add a specific feature to satisfy your needs
228or one of your customers'. Contributions are welcome, however I'm often very
229picky about changes. I will generally reject patches that change massive parts
230of the code, or that touch the core parts without any good reason if those
231changes have not been discussed first.
232
233The proper place to discuss your changes is the HAProxy Mailing List. There are
234enough skilled readers to catch hazardous mistakes and to suggest improvements.
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200235I trust a number of them enough to merge a patch if they say it's OK, so using
236the list is the fastest way to get your code reviewed and merged. You can
237subscribe to it by sending an empty e-mail at the following address :
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200238
239 haproxy+subscribe@formilux.org
240
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200241If you have an idea about something to implement, *please* discuss it on the
242list first. It has already happened several times that two persons did the same
243thing simultaneously. This is a waste of time for both of them. It's also very
244common to see some changes rejected because they're done in a way that will
245conflict with future evolutions, or that does not leave a good feeling. It's
246always unpleasant for the person who did the work, and it is unpleasant for me
247too because I value people's time and efforts. That would not happen if these
248were discussed first. There is no problem posting work in progress to the list,
249it happens quite often in fact. Also, don't waste your time with the doc when
250submitting patches for review, only add the doc with the patch you consider
251ready to merge.
252
Willy Tarreau2ddccb72013-05-01 10:07:21 +0200253Another important point concerns code portability. Haproxy requires gcc as the
254C compiler, and may or may not work with other compilers. However it's known
255to build using gcc 2.95 or any later version. As such, it is important to keep
256in mind that certain facilities offered by recent versions must not be used in
257the code :
258
259 - declarations mixed in the code (requires gcc >= 3.x)
260 - GCC builtins without checking for their availability based on version and
261 architecture ;
262 - assembly code without any alternate portable form for other platforms
263 - use of stdbool.h, "bool", "false", "true" : simply use "int", "0", "1"
264 - in general, anything which requires C99 (such as declaring variables in
265 "for" statements)
266
267Since most of these restrictions are just a matter of coding style, it is
268normally not a problem to comply.
269
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200270If your work is very confidential and you can't publicly discuss it, you can
271also mail me directly about it, but your mail may be waiting several days in
272the queue before you get a response.
273
274If you'd like a feature to be added but you think you don't have the skills to
275implement it yourself, you should follow these steps :
276
277 1. discuss the feature on the mailing list. It is possible that someone
278 else has already implemented it, or that someone will tell you how to
279 proceed without it, or even why not to do it. It is also possible that
280 in fact it's quite easy to implement and people will guide you through
281 the process. That way you'll finally have YOUR patch merged, providing
282 the feature YOU need.
283
284 2. if you really can't code it yourself after discussing it, then you may
285 consider contacting someone to do the job for you. Some people on the
286 list might be OK with trying to do it. Otherwise, you can check the list
287 of contributors at the URL below, some of the regular contributors may
288 be able to do the work, probably not for free but their time is as much
289 valuable as yours after all, you can't eat the cake and have it too.
290
291The list of past and regular contributors is available below. It lists not only
292significant code contributions (features, fixes), but also time or money
293donations :
294
295 http://haproxy.1wt.eu/contrib.html
296
297Note to contributors: it's very handy when patches comes with a properly
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200298formated subject. There are 3 criteria of particular importance in any patch :
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200299
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200300 - its nature (is it a fix for a bug, a new feature, an optimization, ...)
301 - its importance, which generally reflects the risk of merging/not merging it
302 - what area it applies to (eg: http, stats, startup, config, doc, ...)
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200303
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200304It's important to make these 3 criteria easy to spot in the patch's subject,
305because it's the first (and sometimes the only) thing which is read when
306reviewing patches to find which ones need to be backported to older versions.
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200307
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200308Specifically, bugs must be clearly easy to spot so that they're never missed.
309Any patch fixing a bug must have the "BUG" tag in its subject. Most common
310patch types include :
311
312 - BUG fix for a bug. The severity of the bug should also be indicated
313 when known. Similarly, if a backport is needed to older versions,
314 it should be indicated on the last line of the commit message. If
315 the bug has been identified as a regression brought by a specific
316 patch or version, this indication will be appreciated too. New
317 maintenance releases are generally emitted when a few of these
318 patches are merged.
319
320 - CLEANUP code cleanup, silence of warnings, etc... theorically no impact.
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200321 These patches will rarely be seen in stable branches, though they
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200322 may appear when they remove some annoyance or when they make
323 backporting easier. By nature, a cleanup is always minor.
324
325 - REORG code reorganization. Some blocks may be moved to other places,
326 some important checks might be swapped, etc... These changes
327 always present a risk of regression. For this reason, they should
328 never be mixed with any bug fix nor functional change. Code is
329 only moved as-is. Indicating the risk of breakage is highly
330 recommended.
331
332 - BUILD updates or fixes for build issues. Changes to makefiles also fall
333 into this category. The risk of breakage should be indicated if
334 known. It is also appreciated to indicate what platforms and/or
335 configurations were tested after the change.
336
337 - OPTIM some code was optimised. Sometimes if the regression risk is very
338 low and the gains significant, such patches may be merged in the
339 stable branch. Depending on the amount of code changed or replaced
340 and the level of trust the author has in the change, the risk of
341 regression should be indicated.
342
343 - RELEASE release of a new version (development or stable).
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200344
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200345 - LICENSE licensing updates (may impact distro packagers).
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200346
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200347
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200348When the patch cannot be categorized, it's best not to put any tag. This is
349commonly the case for new features, which development versions are mostly made
350of.
351
352Additionally, the importance of the patch should be indicated when known. A
353single upper-case word is preferred, among :
354
355 - MINOR minor change, very low risk of impact. It is often the case for
356 code additions that don't touch live code. For a bug, it generally
357 indicates an annoyance, nothing more.
358
359 - MEDIUM medium risk, may cause unexpected regressions of low importance or
360 which may quickly be discovered. For a bug, it generally indicates
361 something odd which requires changing the configuration in an
362 undesired way to work around the issue.
363
364 - MAJOR major risk of hidden regression. This happens when I rearrange
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200365 large parts of code, when I play with timeouts, with variable
366 initializations, etc... We should only exceptionally find such
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200367 patches in stable branches. For a bug, it indicates severe
368 reliability issues for which workarounds are identified with or
369 without performance impacts.
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200370
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200371 - CRITICAL medium-term reliability or security is at risk and workarounds,
372 if they exist, might not always be acceptable. An upgrade is
373 absolutely required. A maintenance release may be emitted even if
374 only one of these bugs are fixed. Note that this tag is only used
375 with bugs. Such patches must indicate what is the first version
376 affected, and if known, the commit ID which introduced the issue.
377
378If this criterion doesn't apply, it's best not to put it. For instance, most
379doc updates and most examples or test files are just added or updated without
380any need to qualify a level of importance.
381
382The area the patch applies to is quite important, because some areas are known
383to be similar in older versions, suggesting a backport might be desirable, and
384conversely, some areas are known to be specific to one version. When the tag is
385used alone, uppercase is preferred for readability, otherwise lowercase is fine
386too. The following tags are suggested but not limitative :
387
388 - doc documentation updates or fixes. No code is affected, no need to
389 upgrade. These patches can also be sent right after a new feature,
390 to document it.
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200391
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200392 - examples example files. Be careful, sometimes these files are packaged.
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200393
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200394 - tests regression test files. No code is affected, no need to upgrade.
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200395
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200396 - init initialization code, arguments parsing, etc...
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200397
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200398 - config configuration parser, mostly used when adding new config keywords
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200399
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200400 - http the HTTP engine
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200401
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200402 - stats the stats reporting engine as well as the stats socket CLI
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200403
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200404 - checks the health checks engine (eg: when adding new checks)
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200405
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200406 - acl the ACL processing core or some ACLs from other areas
407
408 - peers the peer synchronization engine
409
410 - listeners everything related to incoming connection settings
411
412 - frontend everything related to incoming connection processing
413
414 - backend everything related to LB algorithms and server farm
415
416 - session session processing and flags (very sensible, be careful)
417
418 - server server connection management, queueing
419
420 - proxy proxy maintenance (start/stop)
421
422 - log log management
423
424 - poll any of the pollers
425
426 - halog the halog sub-component in the contrib directory
427
428 - contrib any addition to the contrib directory
429
430Other names may be invented when more precise indications are meaningful, for
431instance : "cookie" which indicates cookie processing in the HTTP core. Last,
432indicating the name of the affected file is also a good way to quickly spot
433changes. Many commits were already tagged with "stream_sock" or "cfgparse" for
434instance.
435
436It is desired that AT LEAST one of the 3 criteria tags is reported in the patch
437subject. Ideally, we would have the 3 most often. The two first criteria should
438be present before a first colon (':'). If both are present, then they should be
439delimited with a slash ('/'). The 3rd criterion (area) should appear next, also
440followed by a colon. Thus, all of the following messages are valid :
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200441
442Examples of messages :
Willy Tarreau9a639a12011-09-10 22:48:36 +0200443 - DOC: document options forwardfor to logasap
444 - DOC/MAJOR: reorganize the whole document and change indenting
445 - BUG: stats: connection reset counters must be plain ascii, not HTML
446 - BUG/MINOR: stats: connection reset counters must be plain ascii, not HTML
447 - MEDIUM: checks: support multi-packet health check responses
448 - RELEASE: Released version 1.4.2
449 - BUILD: stats: stdint is not present on solaris
450 - OPTIM/MINOR: halog: make fgets parse more bytes by blocks
451 - REORG/MEDIUM: move syscall redefinition to specific places
452
453Please do not use square brackets anymore around the tags, because they give me
454more work when merging patches. By default I'm asking Git to keep them but this
455causes trouble when patches are prefixed with the [PATCH] tag because in order
456not to store it, I have to hand-edit the patches. So as of now, I will ask Git
457to remove whatever is located between square brackets, which implies that any
458subject formatted the old way will have its tag stripped out.
459
460In fact, one of the only square bracket tags that still makes sense is '[RFC]'
461at the beginning of the subject, when you're asking for someone to review your
462change before getting it merged. If the patch is OK to be merged, then I can
463merge it as-is and the '[RFC]' tag will automatically be removed. If you don't
464want it to be merged at all, you can simply state it in the message, or use an
465alternate '[WIP]' tag ("work in progress").
466
467The tags are not rigid, follow your intuition first, anyway I reserve the right
468to change them when merging the patch. It may happen that a same patch has a
469different tag in two distinct branches. The reason is that a bug in one branch
470may just be a cleanup in the other one because the code cannot be triggered.
471
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200472
473For a more efficient interaction between the mainline code and your code, I can
474only strongly encourage you to try the Git version control system :
475
476 http://git-scm.com/
477
478It's very fast, lightweight and lets you undo/redo your work as often as you
479want, without making your mistakes visible to the rest of the world. It will
480definitely help you contribute quality code and take other people's feedback
481in consideration. In order to clone the HAProxy Git repository :
482
483 $ git clone http://git.1wt.eu/git/haproxy-1.4.git (stable 1.4)
484 $ git clone http://git.1wt.eu/git/haproxy.git/ (development)
485
Willy Tarreau663148c2012-12-12 00:38:22 +0100486The site above is slow, a faster mirror is maintained up to date here :
487
488 $ git clone http://master.formilux.org/git/people/willy/haproxy.git/
489
Willy Tarreaub1a34b62010-05-09 22:37:12 +0200490If you decide to use Git for your developments, then your commit messages will
491have the subject line in the format described above, then the whole description
492of your work (mainly why you did it) will be in the body. You can directly send
493your commits to the mailing list, the format is convenient to read and process.
494
willy tarreau78345332005-12-18 01:33:16 +0100495-- end