CONTRIBUTING.md

Checklist (and a short version for the impatient)

• Commits:

  • Make commits of logical units.

  • Check for unnecessary whitespace with "git diff --check" before committing.

  • Commit using Unix line endings (check the settings around "crlf" in git-config(1)).

  • Do not check in commented out code or unneeded files.

  • The first line of the commit message should be a short description (50 characters is the soft limit, excluding ticket number(s)), and should skip the full stop.

  • If you have a [http://projects.theforeman.org/](Redmine issue) number, associate the issue in the message. The first line should start with the issue number in the form "fixes #XXXX - rest of message". More information on the Redmine style. Tickets are not required for our installer Puppet modules.

  • If you have a GitHub issue number, associate the issue in the message. End the commit message with "Fixes GH-1234" on a new line.

  • The body should provide a meaningful commit message, which:

    • uses the imperative, present tense: "change", not "changed" or "changes".

    • includes motivation for the change, and contrasts its implementation with the previous behavior.

  • Make sure that you have tests for the bug you are fixing, or feature you are adding.

  • Make sure the test suites passes after your commit: bundle exec rake spec More information on testing below

  • When introducing a large change, make sure it is properly documented in the README.md

• Submission:

  • Pre-requisites:

    • Make sure you have a GitHub account

  • Preferred method:

    • Fork the repository on GitHub.

    • Push your changes to a topic branch in your fork of the repository, in a new branch.

    • Submit a pull request to the repository in the 'katello' organization.

The long version

1. Make separate commits for logically separate changes.

   Please break your commits down into logically consistent units which include new or changed tests relevant to the rest of the change. The goal of doing this is to make the diff easier to read for whoever is reviewing your code. In general, the easier your diff is to read, the more likely someone will be happy to review it and get it into the code base.

   If you are going to refactor a piece of code, please do so as a separate commit from your feature or bug fix changes.

   If you have many commits to fix one issue, use git rebase or git commit --amend to combine them into a single commit.

   We also really appreciate changes that include tests to make sure the bug is not re-introduced, and that the feature is not accidentally broken.

   Describe the technical detail of the change(s). If your description starts to get too long, that is a good sign that you probably need to split up your commit into more finely grained pieces.

   Commits which plainly describe the things which help reviewers check the patch and future developers understand the code are much more likely to be merged in with a minimum of bike-shedding or requested changes. Ideally, the commit message would include information, and be in a form suitable for inclusion in the release notes for the version of Puppet that includes them.

   Please also check that you are not introducing any trailing whitespace or other "whitespace errors". You can do this by running "git diff --check" on your changes before you commit.

2. Sending your patches

   To submit your changes via a GitHub pull request, we highly recommend that you have them on a topic branch, instead of directly on "master". It makes things much easier to keep track of, especially if you decide to work on another thing before your first change is merged in.

   GitHub has some pretty good general documentation on using their site. They also have documentation on creating pull requests.

   In general, after pushing your topic branch up to your repository on GitHub, you can switch to the branch in the GitHub UI and click "Pull Request" towards the top of the page in order to open a pull request.

3. Update the related GitHub issue.

   If there is a GitHub issue associated with the change you submitted, then you should update the ticket to include the location of your branch, along with any other commentary you may wish to make.

Testing

Getting Started

Our puppet modules provide Gemfiles which can tell a ruby package manager such as bundler what Ruby packages, or Gems, are required to build, develop, and test this software.

Please make sure you have bundler installed on your system, then use it to install all dependencies needed for this project, by running

% bundle install
Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/........
Fetching gem metadata from https://rubygems.org/..
Using rake (10.1.0)
Using builder (3.2.2)
-- 8><-- many more --><8 --
Using rspec-system-puppet (2.2.0)
Using serverspec (0.6.3)
Using rspec-system-serverspec (1.0.0)
Using bundler (1.3.5)
Your bundle is complete!
Use `bundle show [gemname]` to see where a bundled gem is installed.

NOTE some systems may require you to run this command with sudo.

If you already have those gems installed, make sure they are up-to-date:

% bundle update

With all dependencies in place and up-to-date we can now run the tests:

% rake spec

This will execute all the rspec tests tests under spec/defines, spec/classes, and so on. rspec tests may have the same kind of dependencies as the module they are testing. While the module defines in its Modulefile, rspec tests define them in .fixtures.yml.

Writing Tests

Our tests use rspec-puppet to check that classes and defined types work when compiled with Puppet itself. Ideally, we want to test the smallest logical units possible (i.e. a single class, not the whole module), which helps with speed and reduces work when changing other parts of the module.

By writing tests we ensure that future versions of the module don't introduce regressions, and that we find issues sooner (in this project) rather than later (when used in a Foreman installation).

Each class has its own file within spec/classes/, ending with "_spec.rb" and inside each test file is a section for each test scenario ("describe").

A typical rspec-puppet test for a new class parameter would perhaps start with defining a set of parameters to pass into the class:

describe 'with colour parameter' do
  let :params do
    {:colour => 'red'}
  end
end

The test then has to check for the presence or absence of certain Puppet resources with or without certain properties and relationships. e.g. a test for a service class would ensure the service resource is present, with the right name and the right ensure/enable properties.

describe 'with colour parameter' do
  let :params do
    {:colour => 'red'}
  end

  it 'should configure colour' do
    should contain_file('/etc/service.conf').with_content('colour: red')
  end
end

More advanced topics:

• Use rspec-puppet-facts loops: some tests use a loop with "on_supported_os" to test the class under every OS supported in metadata.json.
• Test presence of inter-resource require/notify relationships.

If you have commit access to the repository

Even if you have commit access to the repository, you will still need to go through the process above, and have someone else review and merge in your changes. The rule is that all changes must be reviewed by a developer on the project (that did not write the code) to ensure that all changes go through a code review process.

Having someone other than the author of the topic branch recorded as performing the merge is the record that they performed the code review.

Additional Resources

• Support and contact details

• General Foreman contribution details

• General GitHub documentation

• GitHub pull request documentation