Andy Smith writes ("Re: Bug#850425: Debian bug #850425 - mpt3sas "swiotlb
buffer is full" problem only under Xen"):
> On Mon, Jan 09, 2017 at 06:01:14PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > Patches only make it into Linux upstream stable releases if someone
> > pushes to get them in.
>
> Do you have any advice how I could push to get this to happen?
>
> Obviously I need this in order for Xen to be usable on my hardware
> but we're talking mpt3sas driver here which is pretty common, so I
> think it is quite desirable.
Right. Well, you need to post to linux-kernel saying "this patch
fixes such-and-such". You should:
1. git clone or git fetch the current master, which is
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git#master
and check that it doesn't have the patch.
2. Post the patch to linux-kernel. You need to CC all the relevant
maintainers and mailing lists. The kernel source tree has a script
get_maintainer.pl which will produce a list. Your message should
include all the relevant information, including:
* A copy of the patch (eg as produced by git-format-patch)
* A description of why it is needed, how it has been tested,
or whatever
If you don't get a sensible response you may need to repeat yourself.
There is no bug tracker or upstream work queue tracker; the retry
token is with you at all times.
When the patch is in the upstream tree (or perhaps, when it has been
queued by one of the driver maintainers for the next merge window, or
whatever), you should consider asking for backports.
Backports to Debian are requested via the Debian BTS but you ideally
the patch would be in upstream stable trees.
To get the patch into upstream stable trees, you need to send a
similar kind of email, but to <sta...@vger.kernel.org> (and the
maintainers for the subsystems, I think). You will again need to
chase this until you get a response. The corresponding trees are
something like
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git#linux-3.19.y
Getting a respone may take some time. When you get a response saying
`queued' that does not mean it's actually in the public branch; only
that it is in the maintainers' private tree for the next push. I'm
told that that may again take several weeks. If it takes much longer
you should probably chase it.
Now that I have written all of this down, I hope you can see why we're
not volunteering to do all this donkey work :-/. But, I would be
happy to review drafts of your mails if you like, and to be CC'd.
Good luck.
Ian.
