NACK/Cmnt: [SRU] [Bionic][Xenial][PATCH 1/1] vmxnet3: Remove buf_info from device accessible structures

[Krzysztof Kozlowski]

On 23/03/2021 10:29, Stefan Bader wrote:
> On 22.03.21 18:28, Ronak Doshi wrote:
>>
>> On 3/22/21, 5:38 AM, "Stefan Bader" <stefan.bader at canonical.com> wrote:
>>
>>> The bug asks for this to be included in all releases, Why restrict this to
>>> Xenial and Bionic only. Also the patch is upstream
>>>
>>>     commit de1da8bcf40564a2adada2d5d5426e05355f66e8
>>>     Author: Ronak Doshi <doshir at vmware.com>
>>>     Date:   Wed Jan 27 18:08:16 2021 -0800
>>>
>>>          vmxnet3: Remove buf_info from device accessible structures
>>>
>>>     so this should be a cherry pick / backport submission. Finally the cover email
>>>     and the patch were sent as individual emails and not as reply to the cover email
>>>     which makes it had to keep things together.
>>>
>>>     -Stefan
>>
>> Hi Stefan,
>>
>> I am not sure of the process here. I usually raise a bug and the patches are ported to the
>> kernels. This time I was asked to send the patch to this mailing list. Yes, the patch is upstream.
>> Could you apply the patch to appropriate kernels or let me know what the next steps should be?
> 
> Hi Ronak,
> 
> there would be two options depending on urgency. If timing is less important and 
> things are applicable for upstream stable kernels as well then getting things 
> there will flow back into the Ubuntu kernels as well.
> 
> For direct submission, we need to consider it for every supported release 
> (including the upcoming one). The patch format should be that of a cherry-pick 
> -x (meaning to have a cherry picked from ...) line before the additional signed 
> off by. It would be backported from if it does not apply cleanly. Additionally 
> there should be a line
> 
> BugLink: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/xxx
> 
> added (usually at the top). A patch needs to be sent only once for a set of 
> kernels it applies. IOW if it cherry picks for all only once. When the 
> format-patch is done with --cover-letter there will be a template cover email 
> generated and if that and the patch are sent together in one git send-email step 
> the patch will become a reply to the cover email. That part is because otherwise 
> cover email and patch may float independently in the email reader's view and it 
> becomes hard to link the two together.
> To help getting a list of required series, you should be able to nominate the 
> bug report for series which brings up a bullet list.

Stefan explained everything pretty nicely, so I can only add one more
thing - the process for Ubuntu is quite similar to upstream stable
process. You do it almost the same as you would send a patch to Greg KH
and other stable folks. The process differs only in:
1. Adding BugLink (which you added in the patch),
2. Preserving the cherry-pick notice mentioned by Stefan (and not adding
"commit xxx upstream" like it would be in upstream stable),
3. Adding a cover letter with explanation
(https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Dev/StablePatchFormat)

Best regards,
Krzysztof