* Re: [RFC Draft net-next] docs: netdev: add section on using lei to manage netdev mail volume
[not found] ` <8205a0ba-aeef-4ab6-80cc-87848903f541@kernel.org>
@ 2023-11-06 16:57 ` David Wei
2023-11-07 12:06 ` Matthieu Baerts
0 siblings, 1 reply; 2+ messages in thread
From: David Wei @ 2023-11-06 16:57 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Matthieu Baerts
Cc: netdev, Jakub Kicinski, workflows, linux-doc, pabeni, davem,
corbet, edumazet
On 2023-11-06 03:24, Matthieu Baerts wrote:
> Hi David,
>
> On 05/11/2023 19:50, David Wei wrote:
>> As a beginner to netdev I found the volume of mail to be overwhelming. I only
>> want to focus on core netdev changes and ignore most driver changes. I found a
>> way to do this using lei, filtering the mailing list using lore's query
>> language and writing the results into an IMAP server.
>
> I agree that the volume of mail is too high with a variety of subjects.
> That's why it is very important to CC the right people (as mentioned by
> Patchwork [1] ;) )
>
> [1]
> https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/netdevbpf/patch/20231105185014.2523447-1-dw@davidwei.uk/
Sorry and noted, I've now CC'd maintainers mentioned by Patchwork.
>
>> This patch is an RFC draft of updating the maintainer-netdev documentation with
>> this information in the hope of helping out others in the future.
>
> Note that I'm also using lei to filter emails, e.g. to be notified when
> someone sends a patch modifying this maintainer-netdev.rst file! [2]
>
> But I don't think this issue of "busy mailing list" is specific to
> netdev. It seems that "lei" is already mentioned in another part of the
> doc [3]. Maybe this part can be improved? Or the netdev doc could add a
> reference to the existing part?
I think "busy mailing list" is especially bad for netdev. There are many
tutorials for setting up lei, but my ideal goal is a copy + paste
command specifically for netdev that outputs into an IMAP server for
beginners to use. As opposed to writing something more generic.
>
> (Maybe such info should be present elsewhere, e.g. on vger [4] or lore)
>
> [2]
> https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/?q=%28dfn%3ADocumentation%2Fnetworking%2Fnetdev-FAQ.rst+OR+dfn%3ADocumentation%2Fprocess%2Fmaintainer-netdev.rst%29+AND+rt%3A1.month.ago..
> [3]
> https://docs.kernel.org/maintainer/feature-and-driver-maintainers.html#mailing-list-participation
This document is aimed at kernel maintainers. My concern is that
beginners would not find or read this document.
> [4] http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html
It would be nice to add a link in the netdev list "Info" section. Do you
know how to update it?
How about keeping a netdev specific sample lei query in
maintainer-netdev and refer to it from [4]?
>
> (Note: regarding the commit message here, each line should be limited to
> max 72 chars ideally)
Apologies, I may not have line wrap set up properly in my editor.
>
>> Signed-off-by: David Wei <dw@davidwei.uk>
>> ---
>> Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst | 39 +++++++++++++++++++++
>> 1 file changed, 39 insertions(+)
>>
>> diff --git a/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst b/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
>> index 7feacc20835e..93851783de6f 100644
>> --- a/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
>> +++ b/Documentation/process/maintainer-netdev.rst
>> @@ -33,6 +33,45 @@ Aside from subsystems like those mentioned above, all network-related
>> Linux development (i.e. RFC, review, comments, etc.) takes place on
>> netdev.
>>
>> +Managing emails
>> +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> +
>> +netdev is a busy mailing list with on average over 200 emails received per day,
>> +which can be overwhelming to beginners. Rather than subscribing to the entire
>> +list, considering using ``lei`` to only subscribe to topics that you are
>> +interested in. Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote excellent tutorials on using ``lei``:
>> +
>> + - https://people.kernel.org/monsieuricon/lore-lei-part-1-getting-started
>> + - https://people.kernel.org/monsieuricon/lore-lei-part-2-now-with-imap
>> +
>> +As a netdev beginner, you may want to filter out driver changes and only focus
>> +on core netdev changes. Try using the following query with ``lei q``::
>> +
>> + lei q -o ~/Mail/netdev \
>> + -I https://lore.kernel.org/all \
>> + -t '(b:b/net/* AND tc:netdev@vger.kernel.org AND rt:2.week.ago..'
>
> Small optimisations:
>
> - you can remove tc:netdev@vger.kernel.org and modify the '-I' to
> restrict to netdev instead of querying 'all': -I
> https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/
Thank you, this is great.
>
> - In theory, 'dfn:' should help you to match a filename being modified.
> But in your case, 'net' is too generic, and I don't think we can specify
> "starting with 'net'". You can still omit some results after [5] but the
> syntax doesn't look better :)
>
> dfn:net AND NOT dfn:drivers/net AND NOT dfn:selftests/net AND NOT
> dfn:tools/net AND rt:2.week.ago..
I initially went with this as well, but found it tedious to add many AND
NOT statements. My metric was number of emails filtered and matching
using b:b/net/* produced the least number of emails :)
It would be ideal if we could express dfn:^net/*. I contacted the public
inbox folks and they said it is not supported :(
>
> [5]
> https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/?q=dfn%3Anet+AND+NOT+dfn%3Adrivers%2Fnet+AND+NOT+dfn%3Aselftests%2Fnet+AND+NOT+dfn%3Atools%2Fnet+AND+rt%3A2.week.ago..
>
>> +This query will only match threads containing messages with patches that modify
>> +files in ``net/*``. For more information on the query language, see:
>> +
>> + https://lore.kernel.org/linux-btrfs/_/text/help/
>
> (if this is specific to 'netdev', best to use '/netdev/', not
> '/linux-btrfs/')
Thank you, will fix this.
>
>> +By default ``lei`` will output to a Maildir, but it also supports Mbox and IMAP
>> +by adding a prefix to the output directory ``-o``. For a list of supported
>> +formats and prefix strings, see:
>> +
>> + https://www.mankier.com/1/lei-q
>
> Maybe safer to point to the official doc?
>
> https://public-inbox.org/lei-q.html
>
> (or 'man lei-q')
Thanks, official manpages are best.
>
>> +If you would like to use IMAP, Konstantin’s blog is slightly outdated and you
>> +no longer need to use here strings i.e. ``<<<`` or ``<<EOF``.
>
> I think we can still use them. In the part 1, they are not used. Maybe
> best to contact Konstantin to update his blog post instead of mentioning
> in the doc that the blog post is outdated?
You're right, I've emailed Konstantin.
>
>> You can simply
>> +point lei at an IMAP server e.g. ``imaps://imap.gmail.com``::
>
> In Konstantin's blog post, he mentioned different servers with different
> specificities. Maybe easier to just point to that instead of taking one
> example without more explanations?
Will do!
>
> Cheers,
> Matt
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