Source code

All the Qubes code is kept in Git repositories. We have divided the project into several components, each of which has its own separate repository, for example:

  • core-admin.git – The core Qubes infrastructure, responsible for VM management, VM templates, fs sharing, etc.
  • gui-daemon.git – GUI virtualization, Dom0 side.
  • gui-agent-linux.git – GUI virtualization, Linux VM side.
  • linux-template-builder.git – Scripts and other files used to create Qubes template images.

All of our repositories are available under the QubesOS GitHub account.

To clone a repository:

git clone https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-<repo_name>.git <repo_name>

e.g.:

git clone https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-core-admin.git core-admin

To build Qubes you do not need to download all these repositories. If you use qubes builder you can specify what you want to build, and download only the repositories needed to build that target.

If you really do want to clone all of the repositories, you can use these commands:

curl "https://api.github.com/orgs/QubesOS/repos?page=1&per_page=100" | grep -e 'clone_url*' | cut -d \" -f 4 | xargs -L1 git clone
curl "https://api.github.com/orgs/QubesOS/repos?page=2&per_page=100" | grep -e 'clone_url*' | cut -d \" -f 4 | xargs -L1 git clone

To update (git fetch) all of these repositories :

find . -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -type d -exec git -C {} fetch --tags --recurse-submodules=on-demand --all \;

(Alternatively, you can pull instead of just fetching.)

How to Send Patches

If you want to contribute code to the project, there are two ways. Whichever method you choose, you must sign your code before it can be accepted.

  • Preferred: Use GitHub’s fork & pull requests.

    Opening a pull request on GitHub greatly eases the code review and tracking process. In addition, especially for bigger changes, it’s a good idea to send a message to the qubes-devel mailing list in order to notify people who do not receive GitHub notifications.

  • Send a patch to the qubes-devel mailing list (git format-patch).

    1. Make all the changes in your working directory, i.e. edit files, move them around (you can use ‘git mv’ for this), etc.
    2. Add the changes and commit them (git add, git commit). Never mix different changes into one commit! Write a good description of the commit. The first line should contain a short summary, and then, if you feel like more explanations are needed, enter an empty new line, and then start the long, detailed description (optional).
    3. Test your changes NOW: check if RPMs build fine, etc.
    4. Create the patch using git format-patch. This has an advantage over git diff, because the former will also include your commit message, your name and email, so that your name will be used as a commit’s author.
    5. Send your patch to qubes-devel. Start the message subject with [PATCH].