mirror of
https://github.com/ipxe/ipxe
synced 2026-10-07 15:05:42 +03:00
Michael Brown
d00df0822b
With suitable guidance, AI agents such as Claude Code are capable of scanning effectively for potential vulnerabilities, and reporting them in a concise and actionable format. These tools are now widely available to malicious actors, and so any vulnerabilities that they are capable of finding must be fixed now before they are inevitably found and potentially exploited. The recent batch of commits over the past week closes all potential vulnerabilities that were detectable by either Opus 4.8 or Fable in multiple passes over the code. No serious security impact was found, and there is nothing that would merit a UEFI Secure Boot revocation. A concrete threat model is now documented, along with the explicit bounds contracts for several internal APIs (such as ASN.1 parsing and I/O buffer pointer manipulation). Some entire classes of nominal defect (e.g. technically undefined behaviour arising from constant left shifts into the sign bit) have been eliminated. False positives that were raised several times and that could not be silenced through reporting guidelines were fixed in the code, even when the code change had no real-world impact. It is now possible to ask an appropriately instructed AI agent to search for vulnerabilities in the iPXE codebase and to be reasonably confident that anything that it reports is worth investigating further. Add a security policy to formally document the expectations upon both humans and AI agents in terms of reporting potential vulnerabilities, and update the contribution guidelines to grant a limited exception to the blanket ban on AI-generated text. Signed-off-by: Michael Brown <mcb30@ipxe.org>
133 lines
5.1 KiB
Markdown
133 lines
5.1 KiB
Markdown
Contributing to iPXE
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====================
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Thank you for wanting to help to improve iPXE! Your contributions can
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help to make the software better for everyone.
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iPXE is [licensed][licence] under the GNU GPL and is 100% open source
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software. There are no "premium edition" versions, no in-app
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advertisements, no hidden costs. The version that you get to download
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and use forever for free is the definitive and only version of the
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software.
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There are several ways in which you can contribute:
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Bug reports
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-----------
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Good quality [bug reports][issues] are always extremely welcome.
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Please describe exactly what you are trying to achieve, and the exact
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problem that you are encountering. Include a screenshot or a
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transcription of the output from iPXE (including the exact text of any
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error messages).
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If you are not sure whether or not your issue is due to a bug in iPXE,
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please consider creating a [discussion][discussions] instead of an
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issue.
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Bug fix pull requests
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---------------------
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Short and simple [pull requests][pulls] that fix a known [bug][issues]
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are always welcome. Please ensure that your pull request allows
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maintainer edits, since there is a 99% chance that it will need to be
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rebased, reworded, or otherwise modified before being merged.
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Minor feature pull requests
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---------------------------
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A small [pull request][pulls] that adds a very minor feature has some
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chance of being merged.
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As a bootloader, iPXE is an unusual programming environment: code size
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is extremely small (measured in bytes or kilobytes), you absolutely
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cannot use any external libraries, heap size is very limited and you
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should expect memory allocations to fail, various operations may not
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be used in some contexts (e.g. on network fast paths), and cooperative
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multitasking is implemented using event-driven non-blocking object
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interfaces. You will need to be aware of external interoperability
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requirements and firmware quirks dating back to the 1990s.
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In most cases, an [issue report][issues] describing the desired
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feature is likely to get a better result than an unsolicited pull
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request.
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Major feature pull requests
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---------------------------
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A large [pull request][pulls] that adds a substantial new feature
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(e.g. a new device driver, a new cryptographic algorithm, a new script
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command, etc) has very little chance of being merged unless an
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appropriate level of [funding][funding] is provided to cover the time
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required for several rounds of code review.
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Please be aware that thorough code review is generally **more work**
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than code creation. The cost to review a major feature will therefore
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generally be more expensive than the cost of simply [funding][funding]
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the development of the feature instead.
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Any externally developed features are **not eligible** to be signed
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for UEFI Secure Boot, and will be automatically excluded from all
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Secure Boot builds of iPXE.
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Funding
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-------
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Small donations from individual users via [GitHub Sponsors][sponsors]
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are always welcome, and help to purchase the coffee that forms the raw
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material from which iPXE is made.
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Around half of the development work on iPXE is commercially funded.
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Any code that is commercially funded will be pushed to the public iPXE
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repository and made immediately available to everyone under the terms
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of the GNU GPL. Funded development has included many widely used
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features:
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* Support for 64-bit CPUs
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* Support for UEFI firmware
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* Support for USB NICs
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* Support for the Intel 10GbE, 40GbE, and 100GbE NICs
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* Support for [iSCSI and other SAN booting methods][sanboot]
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* Support for [TLS and HTTPS][crypto]
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* Support for [AWS EC2][ec2] and [Google Cloud][gce] public clouds
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As noted above, funding the development of a major feature is
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generally cheaper than developing it yourself and then funding the
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code review to get it fixed up and merged.
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Any funded development work is automatically eligible to be signed for
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UEFI Secure Boot.
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To discuss funding an iPXE development, please send an email to
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<vendor-support@ipxe.org>, or create an [issue][issues] and mention
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that you would be interested in providing funding.
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(Ab)use of AI
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-------------
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Please do not send any AI-generated issue reports or pull requests.
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You are very welcome to use AI to help you understand the issue that
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you are experiencing but do not, under any circumstances, submit text
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or code that an AI has generated.
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A limited exception to this blanket prohibition exists for reporting
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potential security vulnerabilities, as documented in the [security
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policy](SECURITY.md).
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Any other AI-generated submissions will result in the submitting user
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being instantly and permanently banned from interacting with this or
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any related projects. There will be no additional warnings, and there
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is no way to appeal against this ban.
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[crypto]: https://ipxe.org/crypto
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[discussions]: https://github.com/ipxe/ipxe/discussions
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[ec2]: https://ipxe.org/howto/ec2
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[funding]: #funding
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[gce]: https://ipxe.org/howto/gce
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[issues]: https://github.com/ipxe/ipxe/issues
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[licence]: COPYING
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[pulls]: https://github.com/ipxe/ipxe/pulls
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[sanboot]: https://ipxe.org/cmd/sanboot
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[sponsors]: https://github.com/sponsors/ipxe
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