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The following notes are written for people who want to help with
maintaining manual pages in the Linux man-pages package.
See also the MAINTAINING and TODO documents in this directory.
Read man-pages(7) for information about conventions that should
be used in man pages for the man-pages package.
Send suggestions and corrections to:
mtk-manpages@gmx.net
Cheers
Michael Kerrisk
man-pages maintainer
THINGS YOU CAN DO TO HELP
=========================
You can help in the following ways:
-- sending in bug reports about problems in existing pages;
(An alternative is to report the bug in one of the
distribution-specific Bugzilla facilities, if that facility
provides a mechanism to automatically forward bug reports
to me. Currently, I am registered to receive man-page bug
reports from the Debian bugzilla, but if other distributions
provide a similar facility I may get myself registered for
those; let me know.)
-- writing patches that improve existing pages (see below);
-- writing new pages (see below for a list of currently missing pages);
-- grepping for the string FIXME in existing pages and writing a
suitable patch (see below);
-- asking me to add you to my distribution list for notification of
new man-pages releases, and reviewing the changes that have
occurred during a release (do "diff -ruN" between the directory
trees for the current and previous releases); and
-- suggesting improvements to this document.
HOW TO CONTRIBUTE PATCHES
=========================
Patches should be sent to Michael Kerrisk, mtk-manpages@gmx.net.
When you submit a patch, please note the following:
-- Submit a patch against the current version of the page. The current
version of the man-pages package can be downloaded from
ftp://ftp.win.tue.nl/pub/linux-local/manpages
or:
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages
or mirrors: ftp://ftp.XX.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages
-- Let me know how you obtained the information: was it by reading (or
writing) the relevant kernel or (g)libc source code; by writing a
test program (send it to me, if you want, and if it is clear and
simple to use); from other documentation; from a mailing list or
Usenet thread (please provide a URL if possible).
-- Send patches in "diff -u" format, inline inside the mail message
is usually best; if it is a very long patch then send it both inline
and as an attachment.
-- Send logically separate patches (e.g., for unrelated pages) as
separate mails.
-- In the body of the mail message, identify the manual page
version against which the patch applies.
-- Make sure that the mail has a suitable SUBJECT line (i.e., one that
mentions the name(s) of the page(s) being patched). Don't put the
manual page version in the subject line (it should already be in the
body, and cluttering the subject line with a version number does
not help me when filing messages...). A suitable subject line might
be something like:
[patch] shmop.2: add "(void *)" cast to RETURN VALUE
-- If editing a page, and you find one or two white spaces at the end
of an existing line, DON'T bother removing them. The reason is
that in a "diff -u" patch this will make it look like there is a
change when in fact nothing has changed. In most cases, these
extra white spaces do no harm, so just leave them be.
MANUAL PAGES IN OTHER PACKAGES
==============================
Not all Linux manual pages are part of the man-pages set. In
particular, most Section 1 and 8 pages come as part of some other
package. The easiest way to determine which pages are part of the
man-pages package is to download the latest tarball, and see if the
page is present.
If you want to submit a patch for a manual page that comes from another
source, then you need to work out where the manual page comes from
(i.e., which package) and who the maintainer of that manual page is.
On an RPM-based distribution (e..g., SUSE, Red Had, Mandriva), you
can do the following to find out which package owns a particular file.
For example, suppose we want to find out who maintains the fstab(5)
manual page:
$ man -w fstab
/usr/share/man/man5/fstab.5.gz
$ rpm -qf /usr/share/man/man5/fstab.5.gz
util-linux-2.12q-7.2
If we then look in the MAINTAINERS file in the util-linux
package, we see:
Maintainer: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
Maintainer of getopt: Frodo Looijaard <frodol@dds.nl>
Maintainer of simpleinit: Richard Gooch <rgooch@atnf.csiro.au>
On a Debian-based distribution (e.g. Debian, Knoppix, Ubuntu) you can
do the following:
$ man -w fstab
/usr/share/man/man5/fstab.5.gz
$ dpkg -S /usr/share/man/man5/fstab.5.gz
mount: /usr/share/man/man5/fstab.5.gz
$ dpkg -p mount | grep Maintainer
Maintainer: LaMont Jones <lamont@debian.org>
Note: this gives you the Debian maintainer of the package in question,
which is a good address to report to, since many packages and manual
pages are modified by Debian. The maintainer of the original package
can usually be found in a README in /usr/share/doc/<package-name>.
Use "dpkg -L mount" to find all files from the mount package.
On Gentoo, we can use the "equery belongs" command to do similar:
$ equery belongs $(man -w fstab)
(FIXME: add instructions for doing the equivalent of the above on
distributions that use other schemes.)
SECTION 9 MAN PAGES
===================
These have nothing to with man-pages. They are documentation
of in-kernel APIs, built from specially formatted comments in
the kernel source. After installing the required software, these
pages can be built from a kernel source tree using the command
'make mandocs'; see the kernel source file Documentation/HOWTO
for more information.
REPAIRING PAGES MARKED "FIXME"
==============================
Grepping the source of the manual pages will show various places where
pages are marked with the string FIXME. There is also a shell script
(scripts/FIXME_list.sh) that can be used to obtain a list of FIXMEs
in the manual page sources:
$ cd man-pages
$ sh scripts/FIXME_list.sh .
The presence of a FIXME usually indicates that someone has
noticed that some information on the page is incorrect or
incomplete, but has not had the time/knowledge to fix the problem.
(Sometimes a FIXME relates to a kernel or glibc bug report that is
awaiting resolution, and it may be sufficient to check if the bug
has been resolved and then provide a suitable write-up on the page.)
If you know how to fix the problem, then please send a patch.
However, note that some of the FIXME markings are associated with
problems that are quite difficult: you need to ensure that you are
knowledgeable on the relevant point(s), or you need to be willing to
invest the time to become knowledgeable (by reading kernel or
[g]libc source files and/or writing suitable test programs).
MISSING MANUAL PAGES
====================
Below is a list of pages that I would like to see in the man-pages set.
If you are thinking of writing one or more of these pages, then:
-- It might be wise to let me know in advance, just in case someone
else has started working on the page, or a related page. I may
also be able point you at useful sources of information for
the manual page.
-- You need to have a reasonably high degree of understanding of the
topic, or be prepared to invest the time (e.g., reading source code,
writing test programs) to gain that understanding. Writing test
programs is important; quite a few kernel and glibc bugs have been
uncovered while writing test programs during the preparation of
manual pages.
-- Follow the existing formatting conventions for manual pages.
Some information about formatting is provided in the "man(7)"
manual page. As an example of how these conventions are employed,
have a look at the "fcntl(2)" manual page and read its source file
(man2/fcntl.2).
-- The page must be submitted under some sort of license that permits
the page to be freely redistributed and modified. Include that
license or a reference to it, in the source code of the manual page.
Possible licenses include the GPL, the BSD license, or a range of
other licenses, some of which can be seen in existing manual pages.
-- You may find it useful to check the information in your page
against the specifications in SUSv3/POSIX.1-2001
(http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/toc.htm) or against
manual pages on other implementations, but do not not violate the
copyright on those publications by copying text from them.
-- The GNU C library documents many of the functions that it provides
using info(1). If you are thinking of writing a manual page for
a function that is already documented in info(1) format, then
ideally this page needs to present new or different information from
that provided by the info(1) page (for example, historical
information about how the function has changed across various glibc
versions, or variations in operation across C libraries; such
information is often not present in info pages). (An alternative to
consider is submitting a patch to the maintainers of the glibc
documentation, if that is more appropriate.)
System Calls
------------
add_key(2) (new in kernel 2.6.10)
keyctl(2) (new in kernel 2.6.10)
request_key(2) (new in kernel 2.6.10)
See:
Documentation/keys.txt
Documentation/keys-request-key.txt
Requires CONFIG_KEYS (and optionally CONFIG_KEYS_DEBUG_PROC_KEYS)
under "Security options"
restart_syscall(2) (new in kernel 2.6)
getcpu(2) new in kernel 2.6.16; glibc support since
version 2.6 with wrapper sched_getcpu(3)
kexec_load(2) (new in kernel 2.6.13)
migrate_pages(2) (new in kernel 2.6.16)
See Documentation/vm/page_migration
preadv(2), pwritev(2) (new in ?? -- see
http://www.lwn.net/Articles/164887/ )
(Perhaps these will ultimately be library
functions.)
set_robust_list(2) New in 2.6.17
get_robust_list(2) Information can be found in the 2.6.17 ChangeLog
under "lightweight robust futexes"
move_pages(2) New in 2.6.18
fallocate(2) May appear in a future kernel
signalfd(2) Likely to appear around 2.6.23 (or pollfs?)
See http://lwn.net/Articles/225714/
timerfd(2) Likely to appear around 2.6.22 (or pollfs?)
See http://lwn.net/Articles/225714/
lutimesat(2) Likely to appear in a future kernel
utimesnsat(2) Kernel 2.6.22?
futimesns(3) Supported in glibc since version 2.6,
layered on utimesnsat(2)
/sys file system
----------------
There is no man page for the /sys file system: there probably should
be a sys.5 page similar to proc.5. The kernel source file
Documentation/filesystems/sysfs.txt provides a starting point for
this page.
Library Functions
-----------------
(See a further list of missing pages in the "undocumented(3)"
manual page.)
Searches like the following are likely to suggest other functions
that need to be documented:
MPDIR=~/man-pages # Directory containing uncompressed man-pages
GLIBCDIR=/SOME_DIR # Directory containing glibc tree
for f in $(cat $(echo $GLIBCDIR/abilist/*.abilist) | grep -v 'GLIBC' | \
awk '{print $1}' | grep -v '^_' | sort -u); do
if ! test -f $MPDIR/man3/$f.3 > /dev/null 2>&1 && \
! test -f $MPDIR/man2/$f.2 > /dev/null 2>&1 ; then
echo $f;
fi
done
)
clock_nanosleep(3)
crypt_r(3) (To be added to crypt.3)
dlinfo(3) Since glibc 2.3.3
(Solaris and FreeBSD have a similar function.)
dladdr1(3) Since glibc 2.3.3
dlmopen(3) (Solaris has a similar function; since glibc 2.3.4;
probably to be documented in dlopen.3)
etext, edata, end (variables)
fdopendir(3) (since glibc 2.4)
fopencookie(3)
getgrouplist(3) (since glibc 2.2.4)
getutmp(3)
getutmpx(3)
gnu_get_libc_release(3)
gnu_get_libc_version(3)
mallinfo(3)
mallopt(3)
mcheck(3), mprobe(3)
memmem(3) (GNU extension)
readdir_r(3) (probably as additional text in readdir.3)
open_wmemstream(3) (since glibc 2.4)
posix_madvise(3) (glibc support since version 2.2.)
sigstack(3)
sigwait(3)
strftime_l(3) (since glibc 2.3)
strptime_l(3) (since glibc 2.3.2)
tmpnam_r(3) (probably as additional text in tmpnam.3)
updwtmpx(3)
argp_error(3)
argp_failure(3)
argp_help(3)
argp_parse(3)
argp_program_bug_address(3)
argp_program_version(3)
argp_program_version_hook(3)
argp_state_help(3)
argp_usage(3)
posix_spawn(3)
posix_spawnattr_destroy(3)
posix_spawnattr_getflags(3)
posix_spawnattr_getpgroup(3)
posix_spawnattr_getschedparam(3)
posix_spawnattr_getschedpolicy(3)
posix_spawnattr_getsigdefault(3)
posix_spawnattr_getsigmask(3)
posix_spawnattr_init(3)
posix_spawnattr_setflags(3)
posix_spawnattr_setpgroup(3)
posix_spawnattr_setschedparam(3)
posix_spawnattr_setschedpolicy(3)
posix_spawnattr_setsigdefault(3)
posix_spawnattr_setsigmask(3)
posix_spawn_file_actions_addclose(3)
posix_spawn_file_actions_adddup2(3)
posix_spawn_file_actions_addopen(3)
posix_spawn_file_actions_destroy(3)
posix_spawn_file_actions_init(3)
posix_spawnp(3)
if_freenameindex(3)
if_indextoname(3)
if_nameindex(3)
if_nametoindex(3)
getaddrinfo_a(3), gai_cancel(3), gai_error(3), gai_suspend(3)
(libanl; since glibc 2.2.3; See
http://people.redhat.com/~drepper/asynchnl.pdf)
Various wide-character functions (with their traditional equivalents
mentioned in parentheses):
wscanf(3) (scanf(3))
and fwscanf(3), swscanf(3), vfwscanf(3), vswscanf(3)
wcschrnul(3) (strchrnul(3))
wcscoll(3) (strcoll(3))
wcsftime(3) (strftime(3))
wcstod(3) (strtod(3))
wcstof(3) (strtof(3))
wcstold(3) (strtold(3))
wcstol(3) (atol(3))
wcstol(3) (strtol(3))
wcstoul(3) (strtoul(3))
wcstoll(3) (strtoll(3))
wcstoull(3) (strtoull(3))
wcstoq(3) (atoq(3))
wcstoq(3) (strtoq(3))
wcstouq(3) (strtouq(3))
wcswcs(3) (strstr(3))
wcsxfrm(3) (strxfrm(3))
After these manual pages are written, add SEE ALSO entries
from the pages for the traditional functions to the pages
describing their wide-character equivalents.
And last, but far from least, the POSIX threads API. Note that there is
an existing, outdated set of pages supplied with glibc that document the
old LinuxThreads implementation. (These pages are written under a
license that allows re-use, so some material that they contain could
be used in new pages.) What is required is a set of pages that document
the complete API, describing details where LinuxThreads and NPTL diverge
from the standard. The existing pthreads(7) manual page, which gives an
overview of Pthreads implementations on Linux, is designed as a base
document for these manual pages. The list of required manual pages is
long (related functions can be grouped on a single page); those marked
with more asterisks are probably the most desirable to get done first:
pthread_atfork() *
pthread_attr_destroy()
pthread_attr_getaffinity_np()
pthread_attr_getdetachstate()
pthread_attr_getguardsize()
pthread_attr_getinheritsched()
pthread_attr_getschedparam()
pthread_attr_getschedpolicy()
pthread_attr_getscope()
pthread_attr_getstack()
pthread_attr_getstackaddr()
pthread_attr_getstacksize()
pthread_attr_init()
pthread_attr_setaffinity_np()
pthread_attr_setdetachstate()
pthread_attr_setguardsize()
pthread_attr_setinheritsched()
pthread_attr_setschedparam()
pthread_attr_setschedpolicy()
pthread_attr_setscope()
pthread_attr_setstack()
pthread_attr_setstackaddr()
pthread_attr_setstacksize()
pthread_barrierattr_destroy()
pthread_barrierattr_getpshared()
pthread_barrierattr_init()
pthread_barrierattr_setpshared()
pthread_barrier_destroy()
pthread_barrier_init()
pthread_barrier_wait()
pthread_cancel() **
pthread_cleanup_pop() **
pthread_cleanup_pop_restore_np()
pthread_cleanup_push() **
pthread_cleanup_push_defer_np()
pthread_condattr_destroy()
pthread_condattr_getclock()
pthread_condattr_getpshared()
pthread_condattr_init()
pthread_condattr_setclock()
pthread_condattr_setpshared()
pthread_cond_broadcast() **
pthread_cond_destroy() **
pthread_cond_init() **
pthread_cond_signal() **
pthread_cond_timedwait() **
pthread_cond_wait() **
pthread_create() ***
pthread_detach() ***
pthread_equal() ***
pthread_exit() ***
pthread_getaffinity_np()
pthread_getattr_np()
pthread_getconcurrency()
pthread_getcpuclockid()
pthread_getschedparam()
pthread_getspecific() **
pthread_join() ***
pthread_key_create() **
pthread_key_delete() **
pthread_kill() *
pthread_kill_other_threads_np()
pthread_mutexattr_destroy()
pthread_mutexattr_getpshared()
pthread_mutexattr_gettype()
pthread_mutexattr_init()
pthread_mutexattr_setpshared()
pthread_mutexattr_settype()
pthread_mutex_destroy() **
pthread_mutex_init() **
pthread_mutex_lock() **
pthread_mutex_timedlock() **
pthread_mutex_trylock() **
pthread_mutex_unlock() **
pthread_once() **
pthread_rwlockattr_destroy()
pthread_rwlockattr_getkind_np()
pthread_rwlockattr_getpshared()
pthread_rwlockattr_init()
pthread_rwlockattr_setkind_np()
pthread_rwlockattr_setpshared()
pthread_rwlock_destroy()
pthread_rwlock_init()
pthread_rwlock_rdlock()
pthread_rwlock_timedrdlock()
pthread_rwlock_timedwrlock()
pthread_rwlock_tryrdlock()
pthread_rwlock_trywrlock()
pthread_rwlock_unlock()
pthread_rwlock_wrlock()
pthread_self() **
pthread_setaffinity_np()
pthread_setcancelstate()
pthread_setcanceltype()
pthread_setconcurrency()
pthread_setschedparam()
pthread_setspecific() **
pthread_sigmask() *
pthread_spin_destroy()
pthread_spin_init()
pthread_spin_lock()
pthread_spin_trylock()
pthread_spin_unlock()
pthread_testcancel() **
pthread_timedjoin_np()
pthread_tryjoin_np()
pthread_yield() *
pthread_yield_np()
And new in glibc 2.4:
pthread_mutex_consistent_np()
pthread_mutexattr_getrobust_np()
pthread_mutexattr_setrobust_np()
pthread_mutexattr_getprotocol()
pthread_mutexattr_setprotocol()
pthread_mutexattr_getprioceiling()
pthread_mutexattr_setprioceiling()
pthread_mutex_getprioceiling()
pthread_mutex_setprioceiling()
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