[cgl_discussion] TIPC mini-HOWTO

[Mika Kukkonen]

I guess it was time to do this. Let me know if you have any questions.

--MiKu



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					TIPC HOWTO
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1) What is TIPC?
	Currently the name means "Telecom IPC" (if you do not know what IPC is, then you should
	not be reading this ;-). The name has some obvious issues, but we are planning to stick
	with it for now.

	TIPC is the lowest level of planned clustering infrastructure here at OSDL, i.e. the
	communication layer. TIPC has several advantages over TCP/IP and CORBA; for more information,
	read the original TIPC documentation at SourceForge: http://tipc.sf.net.

2) How can I get TIPC?
	The original Open Source:d version made by Jon Malloy (jon.malloy at ericsson.com) is available
	at SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/tipc (currently at version 0.94).

	OSDL maintains a fork of that code currently in open BitKeeper repository, now located
	at http://tipc-linux.bkbits.net/. This may change in near future to be hosted at OSDL.

	If you have any questions how to download source code with BitKeeper, read the documentation
	at the http://www.bitkeeper.com or contact our repository maintainer Rusty(*).

3) Why did you do the fork?
	Because it was my (Mika) opinion, that there was no reasonable way to edit the 0.94 code
	to become acceptable by the kernel community, and instead a significant rewrite is needed.

	At this point of course our version is as bad as the original one, so feel free to use
	one you like. Only time will tell if my decision was good or bad one.

4) How can I contribute?
	At this point push access to the BitKeeper tree is limited to me, Rusty and Mark (*).
	To get access, first send me email to convince me, and then send Rusty your SSH1 key
	(sorry, SSH2 is not supported).

	At this point though the preferred method of participation is to send patches directly
	to one of us, as the code is nowhere near beta-stability and is constantly having major
	rewrites.

	If you do not know where to start working on the code, a very good place to start is
	to check the CGL Bugzilla (http://www.osdl.org/developer_bugzilla/) for TIPC bugs,
	assign one of them to yourself and start hunting it down. See also the next item.

	Feel free also to send patches to 0.94 to Jon; we will be tracking his tree as long as it
	is possible. Jon's code also has a good README file that lists several TODO items.

5) Are the any test I can use?
	Not much. Our method of testing currently is to have two machines, one with our code on
	latest 2.5 kernel, and another with 2.4 kernel + Jon's TIPC. There also exist a small
	test client/server program that we use. If you need it, send email to us (*).

	We really need badly some kind of regression test suite, and this actually is the most
	valuable place where you can contribute.

6) Can I use OSDL machines for TIPC?
	We currently have four OSDL machines reserved for TIPC use (cl008, cl017, cl018 and cl019).
	Contact me (Mika) if you want to use them.

7) Anything else I need to know?
	Well, Rusty currently maintains an IRC channel (#tipc) at irc.kernelnewbies.org, and both
	Mark and I hang around there occasionally. Email is still the preferred communication channel.

Mika Kukkonen
OSDL CGL-WG Roadmap Coordinator

(*) Email addresses:
	Mark Haverkamp	(markh at osdl.org)
	Mika Kukkonen	(mika at osdl.org)
	Rusty Lynch	(rusty at linux.intel.com)