Recent changes to GoogleSummerOfCode2015

GoogleSummerOfCode2015 modified by Dmitry V. Levin

Dmitry V. Levin — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 00:15:23 -0000

--- v5
+++ v6
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 __strace participation in the GSOC 2015__

-strace is submitting a GSOC org membership for 2015:
-http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/events/google/gsoc2015
+strace has been accepted as a GSOC mentor organization for 2015:
+https://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/org2/google/gsoc2015/strace

 __Program details __
@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@

 ___ General Proposal Requirements ___

-You will need to submit your official proposal via http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/homepage/google/gsoc2015 and plain text is the way to go. 
+You will need to submit your official proposal via https://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/homepage/google/gsoc2015 and plain text is the way to go. 
 Please subscribe to the strace-devel mailing list and post your proposal there too.
 We expect your application to be in the range of 1000 words. Anything less than that will probably not contain enough information for us to determine whether you are the right person for the job. Your proposal should contain at least the following information, plus anything you think is relevant:

@@ -108,7 +108,7 @@
 The goal of this project would be to provide a new option for a structured output in JSON or similar. This output would have a well defined structure that would make it easier to parse, so that a strace user that wants to interpret the output can focus on the interpretation of the data rather that having to handle the interpretation of the strace output first. This should help trace users write less error prone code and make strace easier to adopt. This project also includes reaching out to known open source strace output parsers creators to ensure that the new output would work out for them.

 Note: there has been a project on this topic during the GSOC 2014 but it did not go all the way through the codebase. 
-Taking over the past project, updating, stremalining the code and breaking it down in small commits that could be pushed and acceptable in the trunk would be  great start.
+Taking over the past project, updating, streamlining the code and breaking it down in small commits that could be pushed and acceptable in the trunk would be  great start.

 __Multi-OS and multiarch continuous tests infrastructure__
@@ -125,4 +125,3 @@
 Strace is reused in several *nix distro. These downstream projects track patches and bugs and these may not be always visible to the strace community and maintainers.

 The goal of this project would to review available patches and bugs from the key downstream maintainers and either contribute these as patches to strace when relevant or work with the downstream maintainers to contribute their patches back to strace. Ideally mini tools should be created to collect these bugs and patches automatically on a regular basis to inform the strace community of bugs and conversation happening elsewhere than on the strace mailing list.
-

GoogleSummerOfCode2015 modified by Philippe Ombredanne

Philippe Ombredanne — Sat, 28 Feb 2015 00:52:10 -0000

--- v4
+++ v5
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@
 ___ General Proposal Requirements ___

 You will need to submit your official proposal via http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/homepage/google/gsoc2015 and plain text is the way to go. 
-Please subscribe to the strace-devl mailing list and post your proposal there too.
+Please subscribe to the strace-devel mailing list and post your proposal there too.
 We expect your application to be in the range of 1000 words. Anything less than that will probably not contain enough information for us to determine whether you are the right person for the job. Your proposal should contain at least the following information, plus anything you think is relevant:

 *     Your name
@@ -75,22 +75,14 @@

 The test suite we have today is far from covering all branches of all parsers yet.

-The most important thing that could be done as a student project
-is a test suite that covers every syscall.  
+The most important thing that could be done as a student project is a test suite that covers every syscall.  

 The goal of this project would to improve the test suite and the test coverage to a level that makes strace more reliable.

-On the one hand, it would be
-educational for any student who is interested in syscall internals because
-writing syscall parsers and tests for them is the second best way to find
-out how syscalls work. 
+On the one hand, it would be educational for any student who is interested in syscall internals because writing syscall parsers and tests for them is the second best way to find out how syscalls work. 

-On the other hand, a comprehensive test suite is a
-prerequisite for any major change in strace source code.  This test suite
-project doesn't have to be a work from scratch, there are already existing
-tests (e.g. ltp/testcases/kernel/syscalls and sandbox/tests) that could
-be used as a starting point.
+On the other hand, a comprehensive test suite is a prerequisite for any major change in strace source code.  This test suite project doesn't have to be a work from scratch, there are already existing tests (e.g. ltp/testcases/kernel/syscalls and sandbox/tests) that could be used as a starting point.

@@ -98,13 +90,13 @@
 Suggested by: Dmitry V. Levin

 The way multiarchitecture support (simultaneous tracing of processes with different personalities, e.g. x86-64/x32/x86) is implemented in strace for now is inherently unreliable.
+
 Instead, parsers should be compiled natively for each supported personality.

-An implementation idea is to separate all personality-specific parsers from universal ones, compile these parsers for each personality using
-gcc -E -m32/-mx32 and preprocessor tricks, and hook up appropriate
-parsers to syscall tables.  This approach requires good understanding of strace internals and implies a lot of changes to already existing code, so it's a less likely candidate for a student project unless you have the skills for this.
+An implementation idea is to separate all personality-specific parsers from universal ones, compile these parsers for each personality using gcc -E -m32/-mx32 and preprocessor tricks, and hook up appropriate parsers to syscall tables.  This approach requires good understanding of strace internals and implies a lot of changes to already existing code, so it's a less likely candidate for a student project unless you have the skills for this.

 The goal of this project would to improve the way multiarchitecture is handled by strace, to simplify the code and parsers.
+
 Note: there has been a project on this topic during the GSOC 2014 and this is a tough area. This NOT something for the faint of heart.

GoogleSummerOfCode2015 modified by Philippe Ombredanne

Philippe Ombredanne — Sat, 28 Feb 2015 00:48:06 -0000

--- v3
+++ v4
@@ -20,6 +20,10 @@

 strace is typically released once per year.

+Note that we are pretty laid back and cool compared to larger and professional projects like the Linux Kernel but our standards are high and the people involved in strace are die hard system coders often contributing to or maintaining major C libraries such as Glibc, Glib or Bionic, contributing to the Linux Kernel and other major free and open source projects. 
+
+So we expect that you would be making the efforts to learn our mailing list and patch ways and ask good questions and do your home work for a most productive and efficient participation.
+

 ___What to do as a prospective student___
@@ -32,14 +36,13 @@

 All the communication is going through a single mailing list: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/strace-devel

-
 Subscribe to the list, introduce yourself and start the discussion!

 Please prefix your email subjects with GSOC.

 Check our list of projects ideas below or submit new ideas to the list for consideration.

-The best way to demonstrate your capability could be to submit a small patch ahead of the project selection for a small issue you could have identified in the codebase.
+The best way to demonstrate your capability could be to submit a small patch ahead of the project selection for a small issue you could have identified in the codebase or a bug that has been reported.

 ___ General Proposal Requirements ___
@@ -51,18 +54,45 @@
 *     Your name
 *     Title of your proposal
 *     Abstract of your proposal
-*     Detailed description of your idea including explanation on why is it innovative
+*     Detailed description of your idea including explanation on why is it innovative and what it will contribute
 *     Description of previous work, existing solutions (links to prototypes, bibliography are more than welcome)
 *     Mention the details of your academic studies, any previous work, internships
 *     Any relevant skills that will help you to achieve the goal (programming languages, frameworks)?
 *     Any previous open-source projects (or even previous GSoC) you have contributed to?
-*     Do you plan to have any other commitments during SoC that may affect you work? Any vacations/holidays planned? Will you be available full time to work on your project?
+*     Any open-source code of yours that we can check out?
+*     Do you plan to have any other commitments during SoC that may affect you work? Any vacations/holidays planned? Will you be available full time to work on your project? (Hint: do not bother applying if this is not a serious full time commitment)

-Beyond your proposal you need obviously to be familiar with C and Git (or willing to learn Git quick).
+Beyond your proposal you need obviously to be familiar with C and Git (or willing to learn these two super quick).
+

 ___List of project ideas for students___
+
+
+__Comprehensive test suite__
+Suggested by: Dmitry V. Levin
+
+The test suite we have today is far from covering all branches of all parsers yet.
+
+The most important thing that could be done as a student project
+is a test suite that covers every syscall.  
+
+The goal of this project would to improve the test suite and the test coverage to a level that makes strace more reliable.
+
+
+On the one hand, it would be
+educational for any student who is interested in syscall internals because
+writing syscall parsers and tests for them is the second best way to find
+out how syscalls work. 
+
+On the other hand, a comprehensive test suite is a
+prerequisite for any major change in strace source code.  This test suite
+project doesn't have to be a work from scratch, there are already existing
+tests (e.g. ltp/testcases/kernel/syscalls and sandbox/tests) that could
+be used as a starting point.
+
+

 __Reliable multiarchitecture support__
 Suggested by: Dmitry V. Levin
@@ -70,15 +100,12 @@
 The way multiarchitecture support (simultaneous tracing of processes with different personalities, e.g. x86-64/x32/x86) is implemented in strace for now is inherently unreliable.
 Instead, parsers should be compiled natively for each supported personality.

+An implementation idea is to separate all personality-specific parsers from universal ones, compile these parsers for each personality using
+gcc -E -m32/-mx32 and preprocessor tricks, and hook up appropriate
+parsers to syscall tables.  This approach requires good understanding of strace internals and implies a lot of changes to already existing code, so it's a less likely candidate for a student project unless you have the skills for this.
+
 The goal of this project would to improve the way multiarchitecture is handled by strace, to simplify the code and parsers.
-
-
-__Comprehensive test suite__
-Suggested by: Dmitry V. Levin
-
-The test suite we have today is far from covering all branches of all parsers yet.
-
-The goal of this project would to improve the test suite and the test coverage to a level that makes strace more reliable.
+Note: there has been a project on this topic during the GSOC 2014 and this is a tough area. This NOT something for the faint of heart.

 __Structured output__
@@ -88,6 +115,9 @@

 The goal of this project would be to provide a new option for a structured output in JSON or similar. This output would have a well defined structure that would make it easier to parse, so that a strace user that wants to interpret the output can focus on the interpretation of the data rather that having to handle the interpretation of the strace output first. This should help trace users write less error prone code and make strace easier to adopt. This project also includes reaching out to known open source strace output parsers creators to ensure that the new output would work out for them.

+Note: there has been a project on this topic during the GSOC 2014 but it did not go all the way through the codebase. 
+Taking over the past project, updating, stremalining the code and breaking it down in small commits that could be pushed and acceptable in the trunk would be  great start.
+

 __Multi-OS and multiarch continuous tests infrastructure__
 Suggested by: Philippe Ombredanne
@@ -96,6 +126,7 @@

 The goal of this project would to be setup and configure an environment for continuous testing of strace on multiple OS and architectures using available open and free resources such as the OpenSuse build service or other similar services from *nix distros, Travis CI and others, including soliciting the community to provide support for more exotic architectures test environments. With this, strace could be continuously tested on each new commit or prospective patch submission and could be released more frequently in confidence that tests are all passing.

+
 __Downstream patches roundup and ushering__
 Suggested by: Philippe Ombredanne

@@ -103,11 +134,3 @@

 The goal of this project would to review available patches and bugs from the key downstream maintainers and either contribute these as patches to strace when relevant or work with the downstream maintainers to contribute their patches back to strace. Ideally mini tools should be created to collect these bugs and patches automatically on a regular basis to inform the strace community of bugs and conversation happening elsewhere than on the strace mailing list.

-__Advanced and improved absolute paths decoding__
-Suggested by: Philippe Ombredanne
-
-strace can decode file descriptor path arguments with the -y option. There are other areas where paths decoding could be improved such as decoding an absolute for a relative path, or decoding a file descriptor returned as a call return code. Interpreting paths-related arguments that are not decoded requires today to know and track the cwd (current working directory) when parsing a strace output. If all paths could optionally be returned as decoded absolute paths, such tracking and interpretation would not be needed.
-
-The goal of this project would be to provide advanced and improved path decoding in these cases: for call arguments that are about paths that depend on the cwd (such as open, rename and more) or depend on a file descriptor/path combos (such as openat, renameat and more) and/or for calls that return a file descriptor (such as open). The end results should be possibly a new option (possibly -yy) and its effects would be that all paths or descriptors are decoded to absolute paths wherever they appear in calls. This could also include better socket descriptors decoding such that actual address, protocol and ports are known. See some posts for more details: https://sourceforge.net/p/strace/mailman/search/?q=Advanced+and+improved+absolute+paths+decoding 
-  
-

GoogleSummerOfCode2015 modified by Dmitry V. Levin

Dmitry V. Levin — Tue, 24 Feb 2015 15:23:21 -0000

--- v2
+++ v3
@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@
 *     Do you plan to have any other commitments during SoC that may affect you work? Any vacations/holidays planned? Will you be available full time to work on your project?

-Beyond your proposal you need obviously to be familiar with C and Git (or willing to lean Git quick).
+Beyond your proposal you need obviously to be familiar with C and Git (or willing to learn Git quick).

 ___List of project ideas for students___

GoogleSummerOfCode2015 modified by Philippe Ombredanne

Philippe Ombredanne — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 05:05:12 -0000

--- v1
+++ v2
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@

 ___ General Proposal Requirements ___

-You will need to submit your official proposal via http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/homepage/google/gsoc2014 and plain text is the way to go. 
+You will need to submit your official proposal via http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/homepage/google/gsoc2015 and plain text is the way to go. 
 Please subscribe to the strace-devl mailing list and post your proposal there too.
 We expect your application to be in the range of 1000 words. Anything less than that will probably not contain enough information for us to determine whether you are the right person for the job. Your proposal should contain at least the following information, plus anything you think is relevant:

GoogleSummerOfCode2015 modified by Philippe Ombredanne

Philippe Ombredanne — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 04:51:23 -0000

strace participation in the GSOC 2015

strace is submitting a GSOC org membership for 2015:
http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/events/google/gsoc2015

Program details

about strace and why you should submit your project to strace
strace is a system call tracer, i.e. a debugging tool which prints out a trace of all the system calls made by another process/program.

strace is one of the longest running open source projects and started even before Linux started.

strace is an important tool for debugging and tracing deployed on all Linux distributions and most Unix distributions with a small community of active contributors.

While strace is a small project, the strace tool is essential for many developers, system administrators and open source projects. Its maintainers and contributors are experienced developers.

The project organization is simple: the community discusses proposed patches and a few core maintainers eventually accept or reject contributions. All contributions are submitted as git patches to the mailing list, which is the single point of communication, in a mode very similar to the ways of the Linux kernel.

strace is typically released once per year.

What to do as a prospective student

We want engage with students that are interested in system programming and want to help making strace a better tool. We hope to gain you as a new long term contributor and that you will contribute interesting and new features.

You need to grok C and have an interest in system programming and debugging.
The codebase is not huge but the domain is not simple and requires a meticulous attention to many details.

All the communication is going through a single mailing list: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/strace-devel

Subscribe to the list, introduce yourself and start the discussion!

Please prefix your email subjects with GSOC.

Check our list of projects ideas below or submit new ideas to the list for consideration.

The best way to demonstrate your capability could be to submit a small patch ahead of the project selection for a small issue you could have identified in the codebase.

General Proposal Requirements

You will need to submit your official proposal via http://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/homepage/google/gsoc2014 and plain text is the way to go.
Please subscribe to the strace-devl mailing list and post your proposal there too.
We expect your application to be in the range of 1000 words. Anything less than that will probably not contain enough information for us to determine whether you are the right person for the job. Your proposal should contain at least the following information, plus anything you think is relevant:

Your name
Title of your proposal
Abstract of your proposal
Detailed description of your idea including explanation on why is it innovative
Description of previous work, existing solutions (links to prototypes, bibliography are more than welcome)
Mention the details of your academic studies, any previous work, internships
Any relevant skills that will help you to achieve the goal (programming languages, frameworks)?
Any previous open-source projects (or even previous GSoC) you have contributed to?
Do you plan to have any other commitments during SoC that may affect you work? Any vacations/holidays planned? Will you be available full time to work on your project?

Beyond your proposal you need obviously to be familiar with C and Git (or willing to lean Git quick).

List of project ideas for students

Reliable multiarchitecture support
Suggested by: Dmitry V. Levin

The way multiarchitecture support (simultaneous tracing of processes with different personalities, e.g. x86-64/x32/x86) is implemented in strace for now is inherently unreliable.
Instead, parsers should be compiled natively for each supported personality.

The goal of this project would to improve the way multiarchitecture is handled by strace, to simplify the code and parsers.

Comprehensive test suite
Suggested by: Dmitry V. Levin

The test suite we have today is far from covering all branches of all parsers yet.

The goal of this project would to improve the test suite and the test coverage to a level that makes strace more reliable.

Structured output
Suggested by: Philippe Ombredanne

Even though not too complex, parsing a strace output can be almost as involved as the strace code that encodes the output itself.

The goal of this project would be to provide a new option for a structured output in JSON or similar. This output would have a well defined structure that would make it easier to parse, so that a strace user that wants to interpret the output can focus on the interpretation of the data rather that having to handle the interpretation of the strace output first. This should help trace users write less error prone code and make strace easier to adopt. This project also includes reaching out to known open source strace output parsers creators to ensure that the new output would work out for them.

Multi-OS and multiarch continuous tests infrastructure
Suggested by: Philippe Ombredanne

The nature of strace makes it difficult to have all the tests running on all supported architectures and versions of supported OSes on a regular basis.

The goal of this project would to be setup and configure an environment for continuous testing of strace on multiple OS and architectures using available open and free resources such as the OpenSuse build service or other similar services from *nix distros, Travis CI and others, including soliciting the community to provide support for more exotic architectures test environments. With this, strace could be continuously tested on each new commit or prospective patch submission and could be released more frequently in confidence that tests are all passing.

Downstream patches roundup and ushering
Suggested by: Philippe Ombredanne

Strace is reused in several *nix distro. These downstream projects track patches and bugs and these may not be always visible to the strace community and maintainers.

The goal of this project would to review available patches and bugs from the key downstream maintainers and either contribute these as patches to strace when relevant or work with the downstream maintainers to contribute their patches back to strace. Ideally mini tools should be created to collect these bugs and patches automatically on a regular basis to inform the strace community of bugs and conversation happening elsewhere than on the strace mailing list.

Advanced and improved absolute paths decoding
Suggested by: Philippe Ombredanne

strace can decode file descriptor path arguments with the -y option. There are other areas where paths decoding could be improved such as decoding an absolute for a relative path, or decoding a file descriptor returned as a call return code. Interpreting paths-related arguments that are not decoded requires today to know and track the cwd (current working directory) when parsing a strace output. If all paths could optionally be returned as decoded absolute paths, such tracking and interpretation would not be needed.

The goal of this project would be to provide advanced and improved path decoding in these cases: for call arguments that are about paths that depend on the cwd (such as open, rename and more) or depend on a file descriptor/path combos (such as openat, renameat and more) and/or for calls that return a file descriptor (such as open). The end results should be possibly a new option (possibly -yy) and its effects would be that all paths or descriptors are decoded to absolute paths wherever they appear in calls. This could also include better socket descriptors decoding such that actual address, protocol and ports are known. See some posts for more details: https://sourceforge.net/p/strace/mailman/search/?q=Advanced+and+improved+absolute+paths+decoding