Ubuntu Wiki

Using Commit templates

In debian/commit-templates/ in the source tree there are several templates that should be used when committing changes that you expect to be integrated with the Ubuntu kernel repo. The commit templates contain comments for how to fill out the required information. Also note that all commits must have a Signed-off-by line (the "-s" option to git commit). A typical git commit command will look like:

• git commit -s -F debian/commit-templates/patch -e

Note that the -e (edit) option must follow the -F option, else git will not let you edit the commit-template before committing. The primary one you will use is the patch template. It is commented heavily, so should be self explanatory. Some templates do not require editing such as the bumpabi and updateconfigs templates. An example commit log will look like this:

• UBUNTU: scsi: My cool change to the scsi subsystem
  
  UpstreamStatus: Merged with 2.6.15-rc3
  
  My cool change to the scsi subsystem makes scsi transfers increase
  magically to 124GiB/sec.
  
  Signed-off-by: Joe Cool Hacker <jch@ubuntu.com>

The first line is critical and should summarise the change. The prefix for the line defines the type of the commit (see below). The last line should contain your sign-off for the patch and any acks it has received. The remainder of the text should concisely describe the change.

• Prefix	Meaning
  UBUNTU: SAUCE:	a kernel source modification which is specific to Ubuntu
  UBUNTU: [Config]	a change to the kernel configuration
  UBUNTU:	any other change to the debian packaging for the kernel
  <none>	upstream kernel patches