GitHub Pull Requests

Repository's remote configuration

Variant a: User configures a local repository

Clone the github mirror of the Gentoo repository under the remote name "upstream" into the path/to/save directory (substitute path/to/save with the directory of choice):

user $git clone -o upstream https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo.git path/to/save

Step into the new directory, then view the 'remote' settings

user $cd $_

user $git remote -v

upstream        https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo.git (fetch)
upstream        https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo.git (push)

Fork the Gentoo repository on GitHub

Add it under the remote name "github" to your local repository.

user $git remote add github <UrlOfYourFork.git>

Verify the repository's remote settings

user $git remote -v

github  https://github.com/<github user>/gentoo (fetch)
github  https://github.com/<github user>/gentoo (push)
upstream        https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo.git (fetch)
upstream        https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo.git (push)

Variant b: Using the git repository as the primary portage tree

Warning
This setup is not fully functional since the plain developer repository as obtained from github lacks the metadata generated for the official tree.

root #mkdir /etc/portage/repos.conf/

Add the following to the file:

FILE /etc/portage/repos.conf/gentoo.conf

<syntaxhighlight lang="ini">[gentoo]
    location = /var/db/repos/gentoo
    sync-type = git
    sync-uri = https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo.git
    auto-sync = yes
    sync-user = portage:portage</syntaxhighlight>

Add the following, changing <dev_user_name>.

FILE /etc/portage/repo.postsync.d/99-user-dev-perms

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">#!/bin/bash
USER_NAME=<dev_user_name>
find /var/db/repos/gentoo/ -type d -exec setfacl -m u:$USER_NAME:rwx {} \;
find /var/db/repos/gentoo/ -type f -exec setfacl -m u:$USER_NAME:rw {} \;
find /var/db/repos/gentoo/.git -type d -exec setfacl -m u:$USER_NAME:rwx {} \;
find /var/db/repos/gentoo/.git -type f -exec setfacl -m u:$USER_NAME:rw {} \;</syntaxhighlight>

root #chmod +x /etc/portage/repo.postsync.d/99-user-dev-perms

Then sync the repository.

root #emerge --sync

Fork the Gentoo repository on GitHub

Add it under the remote name "github" to your local repository.

user $cd /var/db/repos/gentoo

user $git remote add github <UrlOfYourFork.git>

Repository's user configuration

Configure git to use the target key for code signing and to properly sign-off all your commits (A more detailed description of how to create the signingkey is given in the next section):

Add helpful optional settings:

Verify the settings:

GPG configuration

Add the following to dirmgr.conf and gpg.conf respectively:

hkp-cacert /usr/share/gnupg/sks-keyservers.netCA.pem

keyserver hkps://hkps.pool.sks-keyservers.net
keyserver-options no-honor-keyserver-url
cert-digest-algo SHA512
default-preference-list SHA512 SHA384 SHA256 SHA224 AES256 AES192 AES CAST5 ZLIB BZIP2 ZIP Uncompressed

Now to generate the key:

• Select the algorithm.
• Set the key size.
• Specify how long the key should be valid (No more then 5 years).
• Confirm the information is correct.
• Set your name.
• Set your passphrase, and confirm it.
• It might take some time if you've chosen a high bit length key.

Retrieve your GPG public keyID via the following command:

The key id is the portion after the <algorithm>/ on the line beginning with pub as shown in bold below. If you have more than one key with the specified UID you will need to select the correct key yourself from the list of returned keys.

    pub   rsa4096/0x000000000000000

Upload your key to the keyserver.

Note that under some circumstances it may be necessary to provide a keyID to the '--send-key' flag. For example

Repoman configuration

In order to properly sign-off all your commits add the following to /etc/portage/make.conf, see GLEP-76 for more information.

SIGNED_OFF_BY="Full Name <email@example.com>"

Step 1: User updates the local repository

Step 2: User changes a package

Say you are making changes to package app-foo/bar. Create a local branch with your changes:

Make your changes and make sure to run repoman to check for basic errors:

Then commit your changes, preferably using repoman.

If the commit is to close or comment bugs on Bugzilla, these should be mentioned in the commit message as suggested by GLEP66. repoman supports this through the --bug and --closes options.

Step 3: User makes a pull request

Now that you've made your changes and updated your local branch, it's time to send it off to GitHub and make a PR (Pull Request) to the Gentoo Developers.

Start by pushing the branch with your changes to your GitHub repository:

Then create a pull request from your GitHub repository's local branch to the Gentoo repository's master branch. When your changes have been merged, you may delete your local repository's branch with:

Step 4: Developer fetches the PR and reviews

Variant a: Manually

dev $curl -s -L "https://github.com/gentoo/gentoo/pull/1.patch" | git am -S

dev $repoman full -x

dev $ # tests

Step 5: Developer merges to the tree

How does it work?

The bot can parse two types of header:

Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/123456

will automatically write a message in the bug report without closing it.

Closes: https://bugs.gentoo.org/123456

will automatically write a message in the bug report, change the status of the bug report to RESOLVED and the resolution to FIXED.

If the commit involves several bug reports, they can be mentioned and stack the links. The bot will write a message in each bug report:

Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/123456
Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/456789
Bug: https://bugs.gentoo.org/101010

It also works with the Closes: header:

Closes: https://bugs.gentoo.org/123456
Closes: https://bugs.gentoo.org/456789
Closes: https://bugs.gentoo.org/101010

Feel free to add as much information as possible: upstream forums, mailing lists, discussions, links to changelogs, etc. The bot won't post messages all over the place though, but these useful information will appear in the ChangeLog file of the ebuild.

gentoo-repo-qa-bot is engaging in a conversation with me in the PR. I don't understand.

Checks have failed for this pull request

We have set up an automated CI system which performs various QA checks when a PR is filed. These checks may result in two possible outcomes displayed next to your PR:

• a green check-mark meaning everything's fine and your PR isn't offending the tree.
• a red cross meaning something is up and your PR needs fixing.

Our QA bot is chatty when a red cross shows up. At this point, it might point out two types of error:

Issues persisted from underlying repository state:

This error means that unfortunately, you forked the tree whilst it was in a very unstable state (meaning broken). Indeed, every now and then developers break the tree and, tough luck, it turns out you forked the tree into your GitHub profile or synced it up at this very moment. But no big deal as there's nothing for you to do.

New issues:

This error is a bit more serious and means your PR isn't complying with our QA standards. Usually, one or more link(s) are displayed right below for you to visualize in a browser what it's all about. Go ahead, take a look and fix those errors. Push again and wait for the bot to go over your PR again (every 30 minutes) until a green check-mark appears.

Possible issues with signing

It's possible that a message comes up like

In such a case the GPG_TTY environment variable is to be set. To make sure it is always set, it can be added to the ${HOME}/.bashrc or to /etc/portage/make.conf:

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">export GPG_TTY=$(tty)</syntaxhighlight>

Setting pinentry to a terminal-friendly variant, like pinentry-ncurses or pinentry-tty might also help with this issue. The available pinentry variants can be listed with

Available pinentry binary implementations:
  [1]   pinentry-qt
  [2]   pinentry-qt4
  [3]   pinentry-curses
  [4]   pinentry-tty *

and the desired one be set with

For further information about gpg, please visit to the GnuPG page.