Documentation/submitting-patches: Add blurb about backtraces in commit messages

Document that backtraces in commit messages should be trimmed down to
the useful information only.

This has been carved out from a tip subsystem handbook patchset by
Thomas Gleixner:

  https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20181107171010.421878737@linutronix.de

and incorporates follow-on comments.

Signed-off-by: Borislav Petkov <bp@suse.de>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
This commit is contained in:
Borislav Petkov 2020-12-22 14:05:55 +01:00 committed by Jonathan Corbet
parent 4217e5074f
commit 78f101a1b2
1 changed files with 20 additions and 0 deletions

View File

@ -684,6 +684,26 @@ generates appropriate diffstats by default.)
See more details on the proper patch format in the following
references.
Backtraces in commit mesages
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Backtraces help document the call chain leading to a problem. However,
not all backtraces are helpful. For example, early boot call chains are
unique and obvious. Copying the full dmesg output verbatim, however,
adds distracting information like timestamps, module lists, register and
stack dumps.
Therefore, the most useful backtraces should distill the relevant
information from the dump, which makes it easier to focus on the real
issue. Here is an example of a well-trimmed backtrace::
unchecked MSR access error: WRMSR to 0xd51 (tried to write 0x0000000000000064)
at rIP: 0xffffffffae059994 (native_write_msr+0x4/0x20)
Call Trace:
mba_wrmsr
update_domains
rdtgroup_mkdir
.. _explicit_in_reply_to:
Explicit In-Reply-To headers