title	sidebar_position	description
Contributing	50	How to contribute to Inspektor Gadget.

Here you can learn how you can contribute to Inspektor Gadget. If you are looking to develop Gadgets, please check the Gadget Development documentation.

Getting started

To better understand how the pieces fit together, we recommend reading the architecture documentation before starting to play with Inspektor Gadget.

Setup developer environment

Fork and clone this repo:
- git clone git@github.com:your_account/inspektor-gadget.git.
Install Docker, Docker Buildx and Golang.
To be able to cross build our different container images, you will also need qemu-user-static.

Building the code

Inspektor Gadget is composed of a client executable that runs on the operator's machine, and a container image that runs in the Kubernetes cluster. They can be built together or independently.

Building the client executable

You can compile the client executable for your platform by running make kubectl-gadget.

To cross compile for all supported platforms, you can run make kubectl-gadget-all or select a specific one with make kubectl-gadget-linux-amd64 or make kubectl-gadget-darwin-amd64.

Building the gadget container image

You can build and push the container gadget image by running the following commands:

$ make gadget-container
$ make push-gadget-container

The eBPF code is built using a Docker container, so you don't have to worry installing the compilers to build it.

If you push the container images to another registry, you can use the --image argument when deploying to the Kubernetes cluster.

Notes

Using a locally built container image requires pushing it to a container registry, either local or remote. The default registry can be overridden by changing the value of the CONTAINER_REPO env variable, which defaults to ghcr.io/inspektor-gadget/inspektor-gadget if not defined.
You can generate the required BTF information for some well known kernel versions by setting ENABLE_BTFGEN=true

Building the eBPF object files

If you need to compile the eBPF code of the gadgets, the ebpf-objects target will help you in this task:

$ make ebpf-objects
...
go: downloading github.com/giantswarm/crd-docs-generator v0.7.1
...
Wrote /work/pkg/gadgettracermanager/containers-map/containersmap_bpfel.go

Building `ig`

Inspektor Gadget also provides the ig tool to trace containers without Kubernetes. It can be built independently from the kubectl-gadget and the gadget container image.

$ make ig

Testing

Development environment on minikube

For faster iteration, it's possible to make changes to Inspektor Gadget and test them on minikube locally without pushing container images to any registry.

Follow the specific installation instructions for minikube or use make minikube-start to start it.
Deploy the locally modified version of Inspektor Gadget to an already running minikube cluster with make minikube-deploy.

Unit tests

You can run the different unit tests with:

$ make test

Regenerating testdata

Some unit tests depend on precompiled files on testdata. These files can be regenerated by running

$ make testdata

Integration tests

The integration tests use a Kubernetes cluster to deploy and test Inspektor Gadget. Note that, Inspektor Gadget must be deployed on the Kubernetes cluster before running the tests. Be sure that you have a valid kubeconfig and run:

$ export KUBECONFIG=... # not needed if valid config in $HOME/.kube/config
$ make integration-tests

Integration tests for `ig`

Kubernetes

The integration tests for ig uses minikube for testing different container runtimes. The default minikube driver used for testing is docker. Currently supported container runtimes are docker, containerd and cri-o. You can start minikube using:

$ make minikube-start-all
# for single container runtime e.g containerd
$ make CONTAINER_RUNTIME=containerd minikube-start
# for minikube driver other than docker e.g kvm2
$ make MINIKUBE_DRIVER=kvm2 minikube-start

And run the test using:

$ make -C integration/k8s test-all
# for single container runtime e.g containerd
$ make -C integration/k8s CONTAINER_RUNTIME=containerd test

if no CONTAINER_RUNTIME is specified docker will be used as a default runtime.

Non-Kubernetes

The ig integration tests for non-Kubernetes containers directly interact with container runtime. The tests assume that you already have the desired container runtime installed. Currently supported runtime is docker only, You can run the test using:

$ make -C integration/ig/non-k8s test-docker

Benchmarks

You can run the different benchmark tests with:

$ make gadgets-benchmarks

Or you can run an individual test with:

$ go test -exec sudo \
    -bench='BenchmarkAllGadgetsWithContainers/container10$/trace-tcpconnect' \
    -run=Benchmark \
    ./internal/benchmarks/...

Records of previous benchmarks are available here. See details in the CI documentation (benchmarks).

Explaining performance improvements in a PR

If you want to contribute a performance improvement, it is useful to use benchmarks to explain the impact on performances. I will use the example of an improvement on the networking gadgets from #1430:

Run the benchmarks both on the main and the feature branches and saving the output in two files.

$ git checkout main
$ go test -exec sudo \
    -bench='^BenchmarkAllGadgetsWithContainers$/^container100$/trace-(dns|sni)' \
    -run=Benchmark \
    ./internal/benchmarks/... \
    -count 10 | tee main.bench
$ git checkout myfeature
$ go test -exec sudo \
    -bench='^BenchmarkAllGadgetsWithContainers$/^container100$/trace-(dns|sni)' \
    -run=Benchmark \
    ./internal/benchmarks/... \
    -count 10 | tee patched.bench

Please use -count to gather a statistically significant sample of results. The benchstat's documentation recommends 10 times.

Compare the results with benchstat:

$ go install golang.org/x/perf/cmd/benchstat@latest # if not already installed
$ benchstat main.bench patched.bench
goos: linux
goarch: amd64
pkg: github.com/inspektor-gadget/inspektor-gadget/internal/benchmarks
cpu: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6500U CPU @ 2.50GHz
                                                  │ main.bench  │           patched.bench            │
                                                  │   sec/op    │   sec/op    vs base                │
AllGadgetsWithContainers/container100/trace-dns-4   2.941 ±  3%   1.489 ± 4%  -49.38% (p=0.000 n=10)
AllGadgetsWithContainers/container100/trace-sni-4   4.440 ± 19%   1.495 ± 6%  -66.34% (p=0.000 n=10)
geomean                                             3.613         1.492       -58.72%

Include the commands used and the output of benchstat in your pull request description

Profiling benchmarks

You can run the different benchmark tests while using the bcc profile tool. To be able to see the symbols in the profile, you need to build the binary with -ldflags="-s=false".

$ go test -exec sudo \
    -ldflags="-s=false" \
    -bench='^BenchmarkAllGadgetsWithContainers$/^container100$/snapshot-socket' \
    -run=Benchmark \
    ./internal/benchmarks/... \
    -count 100

Example of output showing a stack trace including both the userspace and kernel parts:

$ sudo /usr/share/bcc/tools/profile -p $(pidof benchmarks.test)
    b'established_get_first'
    b'established_get_first'
    b'tcp_seek_last_pos'
    b'bpf_iter_tcp_batch'
    b'bpf_iter_tcp_seq_next'
    b'bpf_seq_read'
    b'vfs_read'
    b'ksys_read'
    b'do_syscall_64'
    b'entry_SYSCALL_64_after_hwframe'
    runtime/internal/syscall.Syscall6
    syscall.Syscall
    syscall.read
    internal/poll.(*FD).Read
    os.(*File).Read
    bufio.(*Scanner).Scan
    github.com/inspektor-gadget/inspektor-gadget/pkg/gadgets/snapshot/socket/tracer.(*Tracer).RunCollector.func1
    github.com/inspektor-gadget/inspektor-gadget/pkg/netnsenter.NetnsEnter
    github.com/inspektor-gadget/inspektor-gadget/pkg/gadgets/snapshot/socket/tracer.(*Tracer).RunCollector
    github.com/inspektor-gadget/inspektor-gadget/pkg/gadgets/snapshot/socket/tracer.(*Tracer).Run
    github.com/inspektor-gadget/inspektor-gadget/pkg/runtime/local.(*Runtime).RunGadget
    github.com/inspektor-gadget/inspektor-gadget/internal/benchmarks.BenchmarkAllGadgetsWithContainers.func1.1
    testing.(*B).runN
    testing.(*B).launch
    testing.(*B).doBench.func1
    runtime.goexit.abi0
    -                benchmarks.test (3452330)
        22

It is also possible to use pprof to profile the benchmarks with the -cpuprofile and -memprofile flags.

go test \
    -cpuprofile cpu.prof -memprofile mem.prof \
    -exec sudo \
    -ldflags="-s=false" \
    -bench='^BenchmarkAllGadgetsWithContainers$/^container100$/snapshot-socket' \
    -run=Benchmark ./internal/benchmarks/... \
    -count 5
$ go tool pprof -top cpu.prof
$ go tool pprof -top mem.prof

Continuous Integration

Inspektor Gadget uses GitHub Actions as CI. Please check dedicated CI documentation for more details.

Some integration tests (like AKS and ARO) are only run when a commit is pushed to the main branch or a new tag is pushed. It's also possible to run those by pusing a branch named citest/.... Please notice that the container images will be pushed to https://github.com/inspektor-gadget/inspektor-gadget/pkgs/container/inspektor-gadget and those should be manually cleaned up.

Documentation

We kindly request that any contributions to the project also include updates to the respective portions of the documentation. This ensures that members of the community can easily learn about and utilize newly developed features.

Getting Help

If you are having any issues with your contribution, or want to discuss anything about it, feel free to reach out to us on Slack or on our community meeting

Contribution Guidelines

Code of Conduct

Inspektor Gadget follows the CNCF Code of Conduct.

Authoring PRs

For making PRs/commits consistent and easier to review, please check out Kinvolk's contribution guidelines on git.

We require all commits on a PR to be signed off certifying the Developer Certificate of Origin:

Developer Certificate of Origin
Version 1.1

Copyright (C) 2004, 2006 The Linux Foundation and its contributors.

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this
license document, but changing it is not allowed.


Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1

By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:

(a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I
    have the right to submit it under the open source license
    indicated in the file; or

(b) The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best
    of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate open source
    license and I have the right under that license to submit that
    work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part
    by me, under the same open source license (unless I am
    permitted to submit under a different license), as indicated
    in the file; or

(c) The contribution was provided directly to me by some other
    person who certified (a), (b) or (c) and I have not modified
    it.

(d) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution
    are public and that a record of the contribution (including all
    personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is
    maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with
    this project or the open source license(s) involved.

It can be done by using git commit -s, git commit --sign-off or by manually adding a line like to the commit message.

Signed-off-by: Joe Smith <joe.smith@email.com>

Good first issues

If you're looking where to start, you can check the issues with the good first issue label on Inspektor Gadget. Don't hesitate to talk to us if you need further help.

Proposing new features

If you want to propose a new feature or do a big change in the architecture it's highly recommended to open an issue first to discuss it with the team.

Writing tests

We use github.com/stretchr/testify to make tests less verbose.

Planning

Our planning is published through two different project boards:

Inspektor Gadget Roadmap has the high level view of the big issues that we are planning to tackle in the upcoming months.
Inspektor Gadget Sprint Planning has the week-to-week plans of which bugs we are currently working on, and the different priorities of the issues involved.

BCC

Porting BCC gadgets

This project uses some gadgets based on BCC. In the past, we modified the BCC gadgets and executed them from our process, however it was very inflexible and we decided to integrate those gadgets directly into our code base by rewriting their control plane in Golang.

If you want to implement support for a BCC gadget, please read the Rewriting the Control Plane of BCC Tools in Golang blogpost that contains all the details about this process.

Security

For security, we invite you to take at look at the dedicated document.

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contributing.md

contributing.md

Getting started

Setup developer environment

Building the code

Building the client executable

Building the gadget container image

Notes

Building the eBPF object files

Building `ig`

Testing

Development environment on minikube

Unit tests

Regenerating testdata

Integration tests

Integration tests for `ig`

Kubernetes

Non-Kubernetes

Benchmarks

Explaining performance improvements in a PR

Profiling benchmarks

Continuous Integration

Documentation

Getting Help

Contribution Guidelines

Code of Conduct

Authoring PRs

Good first issues

Proposing new features

Writing tests

Planning

BCC

Porting BCC gadgets

Security

Files

contributing.md

Latest commit

History

contributing.md

File metadata and controls

Getting started

Setup developer environment

Building the code

Building the client executable

Building the gadget container image

Notes

Building the eBPF object files

Building ig

Testing

Development environment on minikube

Unit tests

Regenerating testdata

Integration tests

Integration tests for ig

Kubernetes

Non-Kubernetes

Benchmarks

Explaining performance improvements in a PR

Profiling benchmarks

Continuous Integration

Documentation

Getting Help

Contribution Guidelines

Code of Conduct

Authoring PRs

Good first issues

Proposing new features

Writing tests

Planning

BCC

Porting BCC gadgets

Security

Building `ig`

Integration tests for `ig`