HACKING 18 KB

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  1. Hacking Tor: An Incomplete Guide
  2. ================================
  3. Getting started
  4. ---------------
  5. For full information on how Tor is supposed to work, look at the files in
  6. https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/tree
  7. For an explanation of how to change Tor's design to work differently, look at
  8. https://gitweb.torproject.org/torspec.git/blob_plain/HEAD:/proposals/001-process.txt
  9. For the latest version of the code, get a copy of git, and
  10. git clone git://git.torproject.org/git/tor .
  11. We talk about Tor on the tor-talk mailing list. Design proposals and
  12. discussion belong on the tor-dev mailing list. We hang around on
  13. irc.oftc.net, with general discussion happening on #tor and development
  14. happening on #tor-dev.
  15. How we use Git branches
  16. -----------------------
  17. Each main development series (like 0.2.1, 0.2.2, etc) has its main work
  18. applied to a single branch. At most one series can be the development series
  19. at a time; all other series are maintenance series that get bug-fixes only.
  20. The development series is built in a git branch called "master"; the
  21. maintenance series are built in branches called "maint-0.2.0", "maint-0.2.1",
  22. and so on. We regularly merge the active maint branches forward.
  23. For all series except the development series, we also have a "release" branch
  24. (as in "release-0.2.1"). The release series is based on the corresponding
  25. maintenance series, except that it deliberately lags the maint series for
  26. most of its patches, so that bugfix patches are not typically included in a
  27. maintenance release until they've been tested for a while in a development
  28. release. Occasionally, we'll merge an urgent bugfix into the release branch
  29. before it gets merged into maint, but that's rare.
  30. If you're working on a bugfix for a bug that occurs in a particular version,
  31. base your bugfix branch on the "maint" branch for the first _actively
  32. developed_ series that has that bug. (Right now, that's 0.2.1.) If you're
  33. working on a new feature, base it on the master branch.
  34. How we log changes
  35. ------------------
  36. When you do a commit that needs a ChangeLog entry, add a new file to
  37. the "changes" toplevel subdirectory. It should have the format of a
  38. one-entry changelog section from the current ChangeLog file, as in
  39. o Major bugfixes:
  40. - Fix a potential buffer overflow. Fixes bug 9999; bugfix on
  41. 0.3.1.4-beta.
  42. To write a changes file, first categorize the change. Some common categories
  43. are: Minor bugfixes, Major bugfixes, Minor features, Major features, Code
  44. simplifications and refactoring. Then say what the change does. If
  45. it's a bugfix, mention what bug it fixes and when the bug was
  46. introduced. To find out which Git tag the change was introduced in,
  47. you can use "git describe --contains <sha1 of commit>".
  48. If at all possible, try to create this file in the same commit where
  49. you are making the change. Please give it a distinctive name that no
  50. other branch will use for the lifetime of your change.
  51. When we go to make a release, we will concatenate all the entries
  52. in changes to make a draft changelog, and clear the directory. We'll
  53. then edit the draft changelog into a nice readable format.
  54. What needs a changes file?::
  55. A not-exhaustive list: Anything that might change user-visible
  56. behavior. Anything that changes internals, documentation, or the build
  57. system enough that somebody could notice. Big or interesting code
  58. rewrites. Anything about which somebody might plausibly wonder "when
  59. did that happen, and/or why did we do that" 6 months down the line.
  60. Why use changes files instead of Git commit messages?::
  61. Git commit messages are written for developers, not users, and they
  62. are nigh-impossible to revise after the fact.
  63. Why use changes files instead of entries in the ChangeLog?::
  64. Having every single commit touch the ChangeLog file tended to create
  65. zillions of merge conflicts.
  66. Useful tools
  67. ------------
  68. These aren't strictly necessary for hacking on Tor, but they can help track
  69. down bugs.
  70. The buildbot
  71. ~~~~~~~~~~~~
  72. https://buildbot.vidalia-project.net/one_line_per_build
  73. Dmalloc
  74. ~~~~~~~
  75. The dmalloc library will keep track of memory allocation, so you can find out
  76. if we're leaking memory, doing any double-frees, or so on.
  77. dmalloc -l ~/dmalloc.log
  78. (run the commands it tells you)
  79. ./configure --with-dmalloc
  80. Valgrind
  81. ~~~~~~~~
  82. valgrind --leak-check=yes --error-limit=no --show-reachable=yes src/or/tor
  83. (Note that if you get a zillion openssl warnings, you will also need to
  84. pass --undef-value-errors=no to valgrind, or rebuild your openssl
  85. with -DPURIFY.)
  86. Running gcov for unit test coverage
  87. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  88. -----
  89. make clean
  90. make CFLAGS='-g -fprofile-arcs -ftest-coverage'
  91. ./src/test/test
  92. cd src/common; gcov *.[ch]
  93. cd ../or; gcov *.[ch]
  94. -----
  95. Then, look at the .gcov files. '-' before a line means that the
  96. compiler generated no code for that line. '######' means that the
  97. line was never reached. Lines with numbers were called that number
  98. of times.
  99. Profiling Tor with oprofile
  100. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  101. The oprofile tool runs (on Linux only!) to tell you what functions Tor is
  102. spending its CPU time in, so we can identify berformance pottlenecks.
  103. Here are some basic instructions
  104. - Build tor with debugging symbols (you probably already have, unless
  105. you messed with CFLAGS during the build process).
  106. - Build all the libraries you care about with debugging symbols
  107. (probably you only care about libssl, maybe zlib and Libevent).
  108. - Copy this tor to a new directory
  109. - Copy all the libraries it uses to that dir too (ldd ./tor will
  110. tell you)
  111. - Set LD_LIBRARY_PATH to include that dir. ldd ./tor should now
  112. show you it's using the libs in that dir
  113. - Run that tor
  114. - Reset oprofiles counters/start it
  115. * "opcontrol --reset; opcontrol --start", if Nick remembers right.
  116. - After a while, have it dump the stats on tor and all the libs
  117. in that dir you created.
  118. * "opcontrol --dump;"
  119. * "opreport -l that_dir/*"
  120. - Profit
  121. Coding conventions
  122. ------------------
  123. Patch checklist
  124. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  125. If possible, send your patch as one of these (in descending order of
  126. preference)
  127. - A git branch we can pull from
  128. - Patches generated by git format-patch
  129. - A unified diff
  130. Did you remember...
  131. - To build your code while configured with --enable-gcc-warnings?
  132. - To run "make check-spaces" on your code?
  133. - To write unit tests, as possible?
  134. - To base your code on the appropriate branch?
  135. - To include a file in the "changes" directory as appropriate?
  136. Whitespace and C conformance
  137. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  138. Invoke "make check-spaces" from time to time, so it can tell you about
  139. deviations from our C whitespace style. Generally, we use:
  140. - Unix-style line endings
  141. - K&R-style indentation
  142. - No space before newlines
  143. - A blank line at the end of each file
  144. - Never more than one blank line in a row
  145. - Always spaces, never tabs
  146. - No more than 79-columns per line.
  147. - Two spaces per indent.
  148. - A space between control keywords and their corresponding paren
  149. "if (x)", "while (x)", and "switch (x)", never "if(x)", "while(x)", or
  150. "switch(x)".
  151. - A space between anything and an open brace.
  152. - No space between a function name and an opening paren. "puts(x)", not
  153. "puts (x)".
  154. - Function declarations at the start of the line.
  155. We try hard to build without warnings everywhere. In particular, if you're
  156. using gcc, you should invoke the configure script with the option
  157. "--enable-gcc-warnings". This will give a bunch of extra warning flags to
  158. the compiler, and help us find divergences from our preferred C style.
  159. Getting emacs to edit Tor source properly
  160. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  161. Nick likes to put the following snippet in his .emacs file:
  162. -----
  163. (add-hook 'c-mode-hook
  164. (lambda ()
  165. (font-lock-mode 1)
  166. (set-variable 'show-trailing-whitespace t)
  167. (let ((fname (expand-file-name (buffer-file-name))))
  168. (cond
  169. ((string-match "^/home/nickm/src/libevent" fname)
  170. (set-variable 'indent-tabs-mode t)
  171. (set-variable 'c-basic-offset 4)
  172. (set-variable 'tab-width 4))
  173. ((string-match "^/home/nickm/src/tor" fname)
  174. (set-variable 'indent-tabs-mode nil)
  175. (set-variable 'c-basic-offset 2))
  176. ((string-match "^/home/nickm/src/openssl" fname)
  177. (set-variable 'indent-tabs-mode t)
  178. (set-variable 'c-basic-offset 8)
  179. (set-variable 'tab-width 8))
  180. ))))
  181. -----
  182. You'll note that it defaults to showing all trailing whitespace. The "cond"
  183. test detects whether the file is one of a few C free software projects that I
  184. often edit, and sets up the indentation level and tab preferences to match
  185. what they want.
  186. If you want to try this out, you'll need to change the filename regex
  187. patterns to match where you keep your Tor files.
  188. If you use emacs for editing Tor and nothing else, you could always just say:
  189. -----
  190. (add-hook 'c-mode-hook
  191. (lambda ()
  192. (font-lock-mode 1)
  193. (set-variable 'show-trailing-whitespace t)
  194. (set-variable 'indent-tabs-mode nil)
  195. (set-variable 'c-basic-offset 2)))
  196. -----
  197. There is probably a better way to do this. No, we are probably not going
  198. to clutter the files with emacs stuff.
  199. Functions to use
  200. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  201. We have some wrapper functions like tor_malloc, tor_free, tor_strdup, and
  202. tor_gettimeofday; use them instead of their generic equivalents. (They
  203. always succeed or exit.)
  204. You can get a full list of the compatibility functions that Tor provides by
  205. looking through src/common/util.h and src/common/compat.h. You can see the
  206. available containers in src/common/containers.h. You should probably
  207. familiarize yourself with these modules before you write too much code, or
  208. else you'll wind up reinventing the wheel.
  209. Use 'INLINE' instead of 'inline', so that we work properly on Windows.
  210. Calling and naming conventions
  211. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  212. Whenever possible, functions should return -1 on error and 0 on success.
  213. For multi-word identifiers, use lowercase words combined with
  214. underscores. (e.g., "multi_word_identifier"). Use ALL_CAPS for macros and
  215. constants.
  216. Typenames should end with "_t".
  217. Function names should be prefixed with a module name or object name. (In
  218. general, code to manipulate an object should be a module with the same name
  219. as the object, so it's hard to tell which convention is used.)
  220. Functions that do things should have imperative-verb names
  221. (e.g. buffer_clear, buffer_resize); functions that return booleans should
  222. have predicate names (e.g. buffer_is_empty, buffer_needs_resizing).
  223. If you find that you have four or more possible return code values, it's
  224. probably time to create an enum. If you find that you are passing three or
  225. more flags to a function, it's probably time to create a flags argument that
  226. takes a bitfield.
  227. What To Optimize
  228. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  229. Don't optimize anything if it's not in the critical path. Right now, the
  230. critical path seems to be AES, logging, and the network itself. Feel free to
  231. do your own profiling to determine otherwise.
  232. Log conventions
  233. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  234. https://wiki.torproject.org/noreply/TheOnionRouter/TorFAQ#LogLevels
  235. No error or warning messages should be expected during normal OR or OP
  236. operation.
  237. If a library function is currently called such that failure always means ERR,
  238. then the library function should log WARN and let the caller log ERR.
  239. Every message of severity INFO or higher should either (A) be intelligible
  240. to end-users who don't know the Tor source; or (B) somehow inform the
  241. end-users that they aren't expected to understand the message (perhaps
  242. with a string like "internal error"). Option (A) is to be preferred to
  243. option (B).
  244. Doxygen
  245. ~~~~~~~~
  246. We use the 'doxygen' utility to generate documentation from our
  247. source code. Here's how to use it:
  248. 1. Begin every file that should be documented with
  249. /**
  250. * \file filename.c
  251. * \brief Short description of the file.
  252. **/
  253. (Doxygen will recognize any comment beginning with /** as special.)
  254. 2. Before any function, structure, #define, or variable you want to
  255. document, add a comment of the form:
  256. /** Describe the function's actions in imperative sentences.
  257. *
  258. * Use blank lines for paragraph breaks
  259. * - and
  260. * - hyphens
  261. * - for
  262. * - lists.
  263. *
  264. * Write <b>argument_names</b> in boldface.
  265. *
  266. * \code
  267. * place_example_code();
  268. * between_code_and_endcode_commands();
  269. * \endcode
  270. */
  271. 3. Make sure to escape the characters "<", ">", "\", "%" and "#" as "\<",
  272. "\>", "\\", "\%", and "\#".
  273. 4. To document structure members, you can use two forms:
  274. struct foo {
  275. /** You can put the comment before an element; */
  276. int a;
  277. int b; /**< Or use the less-than symbol to put the comment
  278. * after the element. */
  279. };
  280. 5. To generate documentation from the Tor source code, type:
  281. $ doxygen -g
  282. To generate a file called 'Doxyfile'. Edit that file and run
  283. 'doxygen' to generate the API documentation.
  284. 6. See the Doxygen manual for more information; this summary just
  285. scratches the surface.
  286. Doxygen comment conventions
  287. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  288. Say what functions do as a series of one or more imperative sentences, as
  289. though you were telling somebody how to be the function. In other words, DO
  290. NOT say:
  291. /** The strtol function parses a number.
  292. *
  293. * nptr -- the string to parse. It can include whitespace.
  294. * endptr -- a string pointer to hold the first thing that is not part
  295. * of the number, if present.
  296. * base -- the numeric base.
  297. * returns: the resulting number.
  298. */
  299. long strtol(const char *nptr, char **nptr, int base);
  300. Instead, please DO say:
  301. /** Parse a number in radix <b>base</b> from the string <b>nptr</b>,
  302. * and return the result. Skip all leading whitespace. If
  303. * <b>endptr</b> is not NULL, set *<b>endptr</b> to the first character
  304. * after the number parsed.
  305. **/
  306. long strtol(const char *nptr, char **nptr, int base);
  307. Doxygen comments are the contract in our abstraction-by-contract world: if
  308. the functions that call your function rely on it doing something, then your
  309. function should mention that it does that something in the documentation. If
  310. you rely on a function doing something beyond what is in its documentation,
  311. then you should watch out, or it might do something else later.
  312. Putting out a new release
  313. -------------------------
  314. Here are the steps Roger takes when putting out a new Tor release:
  315. 1) Use it for a while, as a client, as a relay, as a hidden service,
  316. and as a directory authority. See if it has any obvious bugs, and
  317. resolve those.
  318. 1.5) As applicable, merge the maint-X branch into the release-X branch.
  319. 2) Gather the changes/* files into a changelog entry, rewriting many
  320. of them and reordering to focus on what users and funders would find
  321. interesting and understandable.
  322. 2.1) Make sure that everything that wants a bug number has one.
  323. 2.2) Concatenate them.
  324. 2.3) Sort them by section. Within each section, try to make the
  325. first entry or two and the last entry most interesting: they're
  326. the ones that skimmers tend to read.
  327. 2.4) Clean them up
  328. Standard idioms:
  329. "Fixes bug 9999; Bugfix on 0.3.3.3-alpha."
  330. One period after a space.
  331. Make stuff very terse
  332. Describe the user-visible problem right away
  333. Mention relevant config options by name. If they're rare or unusual,
  334. remind people what they're for
  335. Avoid starting lines with open-paren
  336. Present and imperative tense: not past.
  337. If a given changes stanza showed up in a different release (e.g.
  338. maint-0.2.1), be sure to make the stanzas identical (so people can
  339. distinguish if these are the same change).
  340. 2.5) Merge them in.
  341. 2.6) Clean everything one last time.
  342. 2.7) Run it through fmt to make it pretty.
  343. 3) Compose a short release blurb to highlight the user-facing
  344. changes. Insert said release blurb into the ChangeLog stanza. If it's
  345. a stable release, add it to the ReleaseNotes file too. If we're adding
  346. to a release-0.2.x branch, manually commit the changelogs to the later
  347. git branches too.
  348. 4) Bump the version number in configure.in and rebuild.
  349. 5) Make dist, put the tarball up somewhere, and tell #tor about it. Wait
  350. a while to see if anybody has problems building it. Try to get Sebastian
  351. or somebody to try building it on Windows.
  352. 6) Get at least two of weasel/arma/karsten to put the new version number
  353. in their approved versions list.
  354. 7) Sign and push the tarball to the website in the dist/ directory. Sign
  355. and push the git tag.
  356. (That's either "git tag -u <keyid> tor-0.2.x.y-status", then
  357. "git push origin tag tor-0.2.x.y-status". To sign the
  358. tarball, "gpg -ba <the_tarball>")
  359. 8) Edit include/versions.wmi to note the new version. Rebuild and push
  360. the website.
  361. 9) Email Erinn and weasel (cc'ing tor-assistants) that a new tarball
  362. is up. This step should probably change to mailing more packagers.
  363. 10) Add the version number to Trac. To do this, go to Trac, log in,
  364. select "Admin" near the top of the screen, then select "Versions" from
  365. the menu on the left. At the right, there will be an "Add version"
  366. box. By convention, we enter the version in the form "Tor:
  367. 0.2.2.23-alpha" (or whatever the version is), and we select the date as
  368. the date in the ChangeLog.
  369. 11) Wait up to a day or two (for a development release), or until most
  370. packages are up (for a stable release), and mail the release blurb and
  371. changelog to tor-talk or tor-announce.
  372. (We might be moving to faster announcements, but don't announce until
  373. the website is at least updated.)