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HACKING.md

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title category layout SPDX-License-Identifier
Hacking on systemd
Contributing
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LGPL-2.1-or-later

Hacking on systemd

We welcome all contributions to systemd. If you notice a bug or a missing feature, please feel invited to fix it, and submit your work as a GitHub Pull Request (PR) at https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/new.

Please make sure to follow our Coding Style when submitting patches. Also have a look at our Contribution Guidelines.

When adding new functionality, tests should be added. For shared functionality (in src/basic/ and src/shared/) unit tests should be sufficient. The general policy is to keep tests in matching files underneath src/test/, e.g. src/test/test-path-util.c contains tests for any functions in src/basic/path-util.c. If adding a new source file, consider adding a matching test executable. For features at a higher level, tests in src/test/ are very strongly recommended. If that is not possible, integration tests in test/ are encouraged.

Please also have a look at our list of code quality tools we have setup for systemd, to ensure our codebase stays in good shape.

Please always test your work before submitting a PR. For many of the components of systemd testing is straight-forward as you can simply compile systemd and run the relevant tool from the build directory.

For some components (most importantly, systemd/PID1 itself) this is not possible, however. In order to simplify testing for cases like this we provide a set of mkosi build files directly in the source tree. mkosi is a tool for building clean OS images from an upstream distribution in combination with a fresh build of the project in the local working directory. To make use of this, please install the mkosi package (if not packaged for your distro, it can be downloaded from https://github.com/systemd/mkosi). mkosi will build an image for the host distro by default. It is sufficient to type mkosi in the systemd project directory to generate a disk image image.raw you can boot either in systemd-nspawn or in an UEFI-capable VM:

# mkosi boot

or:

# mkosi qemu

Every time you rerun the mkosi command a fresh image is built, incorporating all current changes you made to the project tree. To save time when rebuilding, you can use mkosi's incremental mode (-i). This instructs mkosi to build a set of cache images that make future builds a lot faster. Note that the -i flag both instructs mkosi to build cached images if they don't exist yet and to use cached images if they already exist so make sure to always specify -i if you want mkosi to use the cached images.

If you're going to build mkosi images that use the same distribution and release that you're currently using, you can speed up the initial mkosi run by having it reuse the host's package cache. To do this, create a mkosi override file in mkosi.default.d/ (e.g 20-local.conf) and add the following contents:

[Packages]
Cache=<full-path-to-package-manager-cache> # (e.g. /var/cache/dnf)

If you want to do a local build without mkosi, most distributions also provide very simple and convenient ways to install all development packages necessary to build systemd. For example, on Fedora the following command line should be sufficient to install all of systemd's build dependencies:

# dnf builddep systemd

Putting this all together, here's a series of commands for preparing a patch for systemd (this example is for Fedora):

$ sudo dnf builddep systemd               # install build dependencies
$ sudo dnf install mkosi                  # install tool to quickly build images
$ git clone https://github.com/systemd/systemd.git
$ cd systemd
$ vim src/core/main.c                     # or wherever you'd like to make your changes
$ meson build                             # configure the build
$ meson compile -C build                  # build it locally, see if everything compiles fine
$ meson test -C build                     # run some simple regression tests
$ ln -s .mkosi/mkosi.fedora mkosi.default # Configure mkosi to build a fedora image
$ sudo mkosi                              # build a test image
$ sudo mkosi boot                         # boot up the test image
$ git add -p                              # interactively put together your patch
$ git commit                              # commit it
$ git push REMOTE HEAD:refs/heads/BRANCH
                                          # where REMOTE is your "fork" on GitHub
                                          # and BRANCH is a branch name.

And after that, head over to your repo on GitHub and click "Compare & pull request"

Happy hacking!

Templating engines in .in files

Some source files are generated during build. We use two templating engines:

{% raw %}

  • most files are rendered using jinja2, with {{VARIABLE}} and {% if … %}, {% elif … %}, {% else … %}, {% endif … %} blocks. {# … #} is a jinja2 comment, i.e. that block will not be visible in the rendered output. {% raw %} … {% endraw %}{{ '{' }}{{ '% endraw %' }}} creates a block where jinja2 syntax is not interpreted.

    See the Jinja Template Designer Documentation for details.

Please note that files for both template engines use the .in extension.

Developer and release modes

In the default meson configuration (-Dmode=developer), certain checks are enabled that are suitable when hacking on systemd (such as internal documentation consistency checks). Those are not useful when compiling for distribution and can be disabled by setting -Dmode=release.

Fuzzers

systemd includes fuzzers in src/fuzz/ that use libFuzzer and are automatically run by OSS-Fuzz with sanitizers. To add a fuzz target, create a new src/fuzz/fuzz-foo.c file with a LLVMFuzzerTestOneInput function and add it to the list in src/fuzz/meson.build.

Whenever possible, a seed corpus and a dictionary should also be added with new fuzz targets. The dictionary should be named src/fuzz/fuzz-foo.dict and the seed corpus should be built and exported as $OUT/fuzz-foo_seed_corpus.zip in tools/oss-fuzz.sh.

The fuzzers can be built locally if you have libFuzzer installed by running tools/oss-fuzz.sh. You should also confirm that the fuzzer runs in the OSS-Fuzz environment by checking out the OSS-Fuzz repo, and then running commands like this:

python infra/helper.py build_image systemd
python infra/helper.py build_fuzzers --sanitizer memory systemd ../systemd
python infra/helper.py run_fuzzer systemd fuzz-foo

If you find a bug that impacts the security of systemd, please follow the guidance in CONTRIBUTING.md on how to report a security vulnerability.

For more details on building fuzzers and integrating with OSS-Fuzz, visit:

mkosi + clangd

clangd is a language server that provides code completion, diagnostics and more right in your editor of choice (with the right plugin installed). When using mkosi, we can run clangd in the mkosi build container to avoid needing to build systemd on the host machine just to make clangd work. To achieve this, create a script with the following contents in systemd's project directory on the host:

#!/usr/bin/env sh
tee mkosi-clangd.build > /dev/null << EOF
#!/usr/bin/env sh
exec clangd \\
        --compile-commands-dir=/root/build \\
        --path-mappings=\\
"\\
$(pwd)=/root/src,\\
$(pwd)/mkosi.builddir=/root/build,\\
$(pwd)/mkosi.includedir=/usr/include,\\
$(pwd)/mkosi.installdir=/root/dest\\
" \\
        --header-insertion=never
EOF
chmod +x mkosi-clangd.build
exec sudo mkosi --source-file-transfer=mount --incremental --skip-final-phase --build-script mkosi-clangd.build build

Next, mark the script as executable and point your editor plugin to use this script to start clangd. For vscode's clangd extension, this is done via setting the clangd.path option to the path of the mkosi-clangd.sh script.

To be able to navigate to include files of systemd's dependencies, we need to make the /usr/include folder of the build image available on the host. mkosi supports this by setting the IncludeDirectory option in mkosi's config. The easiest way to set the option is to create a file 20-local.conf in mkosi.default.d/ and add the following contents:

[Packages]
IncludeDirectory=mkosi.includedir

This will make the contents of /usr/include available in mkosi.includedir in the systemd project directory. We already configured clangd to map any paths in /usr/include in the build image to mkosi.includedir/ on the host in the mkosi-clangd.sh script.

We also need to make sure clangd is installed in the build image. To have mkosi install clangd in the build image, edit the 20-local.conf file we created earlier and add the following contents under the [Packages] section:

BuildPackages=<clangd-package>

Note that the exact package containing clangd will differ depending on the distribution used. Some distributions have a separate clangd package, others put the clangd binary in a clang-tools-extra package and some bundle clangd in the clang package.

Because mkosi needs to run as root, we also need to make sure we can enter the root password when the editor plugin tries to run the mkosi-clangd.sh script. To be able to enter the root password in non-interactive scripts, we use an askpass provider. This is a program that sudo will launch if it detects it's being executed from a non-interactive shell so that the root password can still be entered. There are multiple implementations such as gnome askpass and KDE askpass. Install one of the askpass packages your distro provides and set the SUDO_ASKPASS environment variable to the path of the askpass binary you want to use. If configured correctly, a window will appear when your editor plugin tries to run the mkosi-clangd.sh script allowing you to enter the root password.

Due to a bug in btrfs, it's currently impossible to mount two mkosi btrfs images at the same time. Because of this, trying to do a regular build while the clangd image is running will fail. To circumvent this, use ext4 instead of btrfs for the images by adding the following contents to 20-local.conf:

[Output]
Format=gpt_ext4

Finally, to ensure clangd starts up quickly in the editor, run an incremental build with mkosi to make sure the cached images are initialized (mkosi -i).

Now, your editor will start clangd in the mkosi build image and all of clangd's features will work as expected.

Debugging systemd with mkosi + vscode

To simplify debugging systemd when testing changes using mkosi, we're going to show how to attach VSCode's debugger to an instance of systemd running in a mkosi image (either using QEMU or systemd-nspawn).

To allow VSCode's debugger to attach to systemd running in a mkosi image, we have to make sure it can access the container/virtual machine spawned by mkosi where systemd is running. mkosi makes this possible via a handy SSH option that makes the generated image accessible via SSH when booted. The easiest way to set the option is to create a file 20-local.conf in mkosi.default.d/ and add the following contents:

[Host]
Ssh=yes

Next, make sure systemd-networkd is running on the host system so that it can configure the network interface connecting the host system to the container/VM spawned by mkosi. Once systemd-networkd is running, you should be able to connect to a running mkosi image by executing mkosi ssh in the systemd repo directory.

Now we need to configure VSCode. First, make sure the C/C++ extension is installed. If you're already using a different extension for code completion and other IDE features for C in VSCode, make sure to disable the corresponding parts of the C/C++ extension in your VSCode user settings by adding the following entries:

"C_Cpp.formatting": "Disabled",
"C_Cpp.intelliSenseEngine": "Disabled",
"C_Cpp.enhancedColorization": "Disabled",
"C_Cpp.suggestSnippets": false,

With the extension set up, we can create the launch.json file in the .vscode/ directory to tell the VSCode debugger how to attach to the systemd instance running in our mkosi container/VM. Create the file and add the following contents:

{
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "type": "cppdbg",
            "program": "/usr/lib/systemd/systemd",
            "processId": "${command:pickProcess}",
            "request": "attach",
            "name": "systemd",
            "pipeTransport": {
                "pipeProgram": "mkosi",
                "pipeArgs": [
                    "-C",
                    "/path/to/systemd/repo/directory/on/host/system/",
                    "ssh"
                ],
                "debuggerPath": "/usr/bin/gdb"
            },
            "MIMode": "gdb",
            "sourceFileMap": {
                "/root/build/../src": {
                    "editorPath": "${workspaceFolder}",
                    "useForBreakpoints": false
                },
                "/root/build/*": {
                    "editorPath": "${workspaceFolder}/mkosi.builddir",
                    "useForBreakpoints": false
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

Now that the debugger knows how to connect to our process in the container/VM and we've set up the necessary source mappings, go to the "Run and Debug" window and run the "systemd" debug configuration. If everything goes well, the debugger should now be attached to the systemd instance running in the container/VM. You can attach breakpoints from the editor and enjoy all the other features of VSCode's debugger.

To debug systemd components other than PID 1, set "program" to the full path of the component you want to debug and set "processId" to "${command:pickProcess}". Now, when starting the debugger, VSCode will ask you the PID of the process you want to debug. Run systemctl show --property MainPID --value <component> in the container to figure out the PID and enter it when asked and VSCode will attach to that process instead.