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From:   JunChao Sun <sunjunchao2870@gmail.com>
Date:   Mon, 12 Sep 2022 21:09:48 +0800
Message-ID: <CAHB1NahK6LMggGEcoCfhun6rAWiyrANnNR5+d93c07WsZk6Kvg@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: How does newbie find bugs in ext4?
To:     tytso@mit.edu
Cc:     linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org
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Hi Ted.
I am a new guy in ext4, may I ask several questions about ext4?
I am very interested in ext4 file system and have been reading and
debugging ext4 source code for 2-3 months(just about basic
open(create)/close read/write, do not involve advanced features). I
want to contribute to ext4 but I find it seems hard only by reading
and debugging by myself, can't even find bugs. I only sent two patches
up to now. The reason that I could not find bugs in ext4 may be that I
could not understand code deeply only by reading and debugging them...
And I find many contributors fix bugs which are found at work, but my
company will not give me opportunity to trace the bug in the kernel,
they just tell users "this is a bug in linux", and I could not repro
that by myself...
Could you please provide some suggestions for people who want to
contribute to ext4 like me? Any suggestions about how to start
contributing to ext4 step by step? I mean, really bugs fix other than
document correction(This is also very important and one of the patches
I have sent is about document correction, but I want to learn ext4
more deeply). I know that there is xfs-tests project which is used for
testing ext4/xfs, but I think ext4 developers will pass all test cases
before releasing a new version, so is it necessary to retest ext4
using xfs-tests?
Best regards.