The complete guide on how to submit an NGINX change using Mercurial

Step 1

Clone the repo

hg clone http://hg.nginx.org/nginx

Step 2

make the change

vim conf/mime.types
hg diff

See your change

Step 3

Make a new branch

hg branch update-mime-types

Step 4

Edit the config and add username

hg config --edit

Inside the config file

[ui]
username = Person McPersonface <pmcpersonface@gmail.com>

Step 5

Make the commit

hg ci

This should open up your editor and you can write your commit message, the first line is the subject of less than 67 characters. Add a blank line and then add a paragraph with no more than 67 characters per line explaining the change

Step 6

View the patch

hg export

Make sure it looks the way you want, if it doesn’t follow step 6a.

Step 6a

If you need to make changes

hg export # copy your commit message and save it somewhere
hg rollback
vim conf/mime.types

edit the file to make changes

hg ci

Edit the commit message again with a new one or the one you copied over

Step 7

Set up email to email the patch over

vim ~/.hgrc

Add this into the config file

[extensions]
hgext.patchbomb =

[email]
from=Person McPersonface <pmcpersonface@gmail.com>
method=smtp

[smtp]
host=smtp.gmail.com
port=587
username=pmcpersonface@gmail.com
password=SuperSecretPassword@!@#1234
tls=True

If you’re using gmail you’ll have to temporarily enable “less secure app access” by going to google account -> security -> less secure app access

Step 8

Email the patch.

First sign up for the mailing list and change “Receive acknowledgement mail when you send mail to the list?” to yes and click save in the mailing list subscriber settings.

Then wait 30 minutes.

Then

hg email --to nginx-devel@nginx.org -r tip --confirm

Make sure it looks the way you want (the entire diff won’t be shown)

I hit enter when I saw the Cc: line

And then hit “y” then enter

You should get a confirmation email in your inbox.

Step 9

Don’t forget to turn off less secure app access