README.fuchsia file syntax

README.fuchsia files are used to annotate third-party source libraries with some useful metadata, such as code origin, version, license, and security critical label.

The format of these files consists of one or more directive lines, followed by unstructured description and notes.

Directives consist of a directive keyword at the beginning of the line, immediately followed by a colon and a value that extends to the end of the line. The value may have surrounding whitespace, and blank lines may appear before or between directives.

Several directives are described below, but other directives may appear in README.fuchsia files and software that consumes them should not treat the appearance of an unknown directive as an error. Similarly, such software should match directive keywords case-insensitively.

Description lines are optional and follow a Description directive that must appear on a line by itself prior to any unstructured description text.

Syntax

file                  := directive-line* description?
directive-line        := directive | blank-line
directive             := keyword ":" SPACE* value SPACE* EOL
value                 := NONBLANK ANYCHAR*
description           := description-directive description-line*
description-directive := "Description:" SPACE* EOL
description-line      := ANYCHAR* EOL
keyword               := [A-Za-z0-9][A-Za-z0-9 ]*
blank-line            := SPACE* EOL
SPACE                 := any whitespace character
EOL                   := end of line character
NONBLANK              := any non-whitespace, non-EOL character
ANYCHAR               := any character but EOL

Requirements

Directive keywords and their definitions are defined below. This sections serves as synthesis of what each README.fuchsia needs to have and keep updated as time goes on:

  • For vulnerability scanning purposes, each README.fuchsia needs to keep updated information on:
    • URL and Revision: This is the required option if it is a git repository. OR
    • CPEPrefix and Version

This information gives vulnerability scanners enough information to accurately scan these dependencies.

  • For licensing purposes, each README.fuchsia needs to keep updated information on:
    • License and License File

Common directive keywords

Common directive keywords include:

Name

Descriptive name of the package.

Name: OpenSSH

Short Name

(Optional) Name the package is distributed under (ex. libxml, openssl, etc).

Short Name: openssh

URL

(REQUIRED) The URL where the package lives i.e. a clonable url for git repositories, a package manager url for packages from package managers, or a URL type listed here as per AutoVM's metadata proto. If there is no upstream, use 'This is the canonical public repository'. For packages coming from Google internal repositories, use 'Google Internal'. This directive may be repeated to include multiple URLs if necessary.

Examples: URL: https://github.com/openssh/openssh-portable

URL: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/

Revision

(REQUIRED for dependencies which have a git repository as an upstream, OPTIONAL if the upstream is not a git repository and Version or Date is supplied). Revision is typically a git hash. If the dependency is managed by an autoroller or a script, you must ensure the uprev process also updates the README.fuchsia file with the correct Revision.

Revision: 8950d99ba1ba67280fbd1e5445214d2cebe966bb

Date

The date that the package was updated, in format YYYY-MM-DD.

Date: 2018-02-14

License

The license/s under which the package is distributed. See Fuchsia Open Source Licensing Policies for the policies around which licenses are allowed and other guidance.

License: BSD

License File

A relative path from the README.fuchsia file to the license file. The file should contain a copy of the package's license and correspond to the License provided above. All packages should contain a valid license, regardless of whether it is shipped or not. This directive may be repeated to include multiple files if necessary.

License File: LICENSE

Security Critical

A yes or no label indicating whether the package is security critical, useful for assessing the impact security bugs in the package have on Fuchsia.

A package is security critical if it is for production use, and does any of the following:

  • Accepts untrustworthy inputs from the internet
  • Parses or interprets complex input formats
  • Sends data to internet servers
  • Collects new data
  • Influences or sets security-related policy (including the user experience)
  • Is written in a memory-unsafe language (e.g.: C/C++, Rust with unsafe blocks)

This directive is required.

Security Critical: yes

License Android Compatible

(Optional if the package is not shipped or uses a standard form license) Either yes or no depending on whether the package uses a license compatible with Android.

License Android Compatible: yes

CPEPrefix

(Optional, but REQUIRED if URL and Revision are not provided) A 'common platform enumeration' version 2.3 (preferred) or 2.2, as per search, which represents the upstream package. This will be used to report known vulnerabilities in the upstream software package, such that we can be sure to merge fixes for those vulnerabilities. Please ensure you're using the closest applicable upstream version, according to the standard format for the CPE for that package. For example, cpe:/a:xmlsoft:libxslt:1.0.10. If no CPE is available for the package, please specify "unknown". If you're using a patched or modified version which is halfway between two public versions, please "round downwards" to the lower of the public versions.

Version

(REQUIRED if using CPEPrefix for vuln scanning) This is often a git tag. If not git, it should be a searchable version number for the package (if the package does not version or is versioned by date or revision this field should be "N/A" and the revision, or date should be enumerated in the appropriate field). If the dependency is managed by an autoroller or a script, you must ensure the uprev process also updates the README.fuchsia file with the correct Version.

Version: 7.6

Description

A short description of what the package is and is used for.

Description:

This package does x, y, and z.

Local Modifications

Enumerate any changes that have been made locally to the package from the shipping version listed above.

If the files from the third party package (e.g. fetched during a git checkout) aren't modified, put "None" here (without enclosing quotes).

Local Modifications:

Added README.fuchsia.
Ported build rules from CMake to GN.

References

The README.fuchsia format is based on Chromium's README.chromium format. See Chromium's adding_to_third_party.md as a supplementary reference.