Documenting Ceph

User documentation

The documentation on docs.ceph.com is generated from the reStructuredText sources in /doc/ in the Ceph git repository.

Please make sure that your changes are written in a way that is intended for end users of the software, unless you are making additions in /doc/dev/, which is the section for developers.

All pull requests that modify user-facing functionality must include corresponding updates to documentation: see Submitting Patches for more detail.

Check your .rst syntax is working as expected by using the "View" button in the github user interface when looking at a diff on an .rst file, or build the docs locally using the admin/build-doc script.

For more information about the Ceph documentation, see Documenting Ceph.

Code Documentation

C and C++ can be documented with Doxygen, using the subset of Doxygen markup supported by Breathe.

The general format for function documentation is

/**
 * Short description
 *
 * Detailed description when necessary
 *
 * preconditons, postconditions, warnings, bugs or other notes
 *
 * parameter reference
 * return value (if non-void)
 */

This should be in the header where the function is declared, and functions should be grouped into logical categories. The librados C API provides a complete example. It is pulled into Sphinx by librados.rst, which is rendered at Librados (C).

To generate the doxygen documentation in HTML format use:

# cmake --build . --target doxygen

HTML output will be under: build-doc/doxygen/html

Drawing diagrams

Graphviz

You can use Graphviz, as explained in the Graphviz extension documentation.

Most of the time, you'll want to put the actual DOT source in a separate file, like this:

.. graphviz:: myfile.dot

Ditaa

You can use Ditaa:

Blockdiag

If a use arises, we can integrate Blockdiag. It is a Graphviz-style declarative language for drawing things, and includes:

block diagrams: boxes and arrows (automatic layout, as opposed to Ditaa)
sequence diagrams: timelines and messages between them
activity diagrams: subsystems and activities in them
network diagrams: hosts, LANs, IP addresses etc (with Cisco icons if wanted)

Inkscape

You can use Inkscape to generate scalable vector graphics. https://inkscape.org/en/ for restructedText documents.

If you generate diagrams with Inkscape, you should commit both the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file and export a Portable Network Graphic (PNG) file. Reference the PNG file.

By committing the SVG file, others will be able to update the SVG diagrams using Inkscape.

HTML5 will support SVG inline.