Open Mainframe Project Summer Mentorship Series: Midterm Updates – At this midpoint, our selected mentees are reporting in. Below, you’ll learn what they’ve built, the challenges they’ve overcome, and their goals for the rest of the summer. We’re proud of every contribution and eager to see what comes next. Hear from Divij Sharma, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing, Jabalpur below.
About Me
Hi, I’m Divij Sharma, a third-year Computer Science and Engineering undergraduate at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Jabalpur. I’ve been deeply involved with open source communities for some time now, having participated in Google Summer of Code where I worked with FOSSology and Code for GovTech where I worked with a2i Bangladesh. I love and trust open-source software – there’s something deeply satisfying about contributing to projects that benefit users/developers worldwide, working alongside talented individuals, and having meaningful conversations with people from diverse communities. Apart from coding, I also love listening to loud Punjabi music!
Understanding Feilong and the “Give Love to the Bugs List” Initiative
Feilong is a z/VM Cloud Connector that provides virtual resource management for z/VM systems. As an open source project under the Open Mainframe Project umbrella, Feilong serves as a critical bridge between modern cloud management tools and IBM’s powerful z/VM hypervisor. The project enables users to manage VM lifecycle dynamically and automatically through REST APIs without requiring deep knowledge of z/VM itself.
My mentorship project, “Give Love to the Bugs List,” focuses on a critical but often overlooked aspect of software maintenance: comprehensive bug triage and resolution. Feilong’s bug list currently consists of 98 bugs in Launchpad and 19 issues in GitHub. The purpose of this mentorship is to test and review these issues systematically, migrate them to a unified tracking system, classify them appropriately, and resolve as many as technically feasible.
This work directly improves Linux VM management on mainframes and helps maintain critical open source infrastructure that powers enterprise computing environments worldwide. The project requires not just technical problem-solving skills, but also the ability to understand legacy systems, decode cryptic bug reports, and make architectural decisions about issue prioritization.
z/VM and Feilong In Action
(i) z/VM hypervisor login screen on C3270
(ii) Feilong REST APIs to get guests and details
Systematic Bug Analysis Methodology
I developed a systematic approach to handle the analysis task
- Phase 1: Discovery and Cataloging
Each bug underwent initial triage to determine its current relevance. I examined the codebase to verify whether reported issues still existed, checked for existing fixes, and validated whether problems were duplicates of other reports.
- Phase 2: Technical Validation
For active bugs, I performed code analysis to understand the root cause. This often involved studying the code, examining REST API schemas, and understanding z/VM’s behavior patterns. Some bugs required setting up test environments to reproduce issues.
- Phase 3: Resolution Planning
Based on technical analysis, I categorized bugs into several buckets:
- Immediately Closeable: Issues already fixed but not properly closed
- Migration Candidates: Valid issues that should move to GitHub for ongoing tracking. These were further classified into:
- Bugs
- Enhancements
- Security
Six Weeks of Systematic Progress
Before Week 1, I set a goal to process 10 bugs per week, and over the past six weeks I have successfully completed 60 bugs in total. The comprehensive migration and resolution document is attached and week wise progress is below:
Weekly Report: Give Love To The Bugs List @ Divij Sharma
- Week 1
- Initial Setup: Established systematic bug triage methodology and gained understanding of Feilong’s architecture
- Access Resolution: Worked on obtaining write access to Launchpad bug tracker for hands-on issue management
- First 10 Bugs: Processed initial batch including documentation verification and API validation issues
- Week 2
- Methodology Refinement: Developed expertise in complex bug analysis and expanded scope to more technical issues
- Validation & Performance: Strengthened API input checks and examined performance impacts of validation changes
- Feature Migration: Successfully migrated enhancement requests from Launchpad to GitHub platform
- Week 3
- VM Environment Access: Gained access to Feilong VM environment enabling hands-on testing and validation
- Complex Debugging: Tackled advanced issues like guest deployment root disk identification problems
- Practical Validation: Moved from theoretical analysis to direct system testing of bug reports
- Week 4
- Strategic Perspective: Shifted focus toward bugs enhancing Feilong’s future capabilities rather than just current fixes
- Security Enhancement: Identified MD5 migration as major security concern requiring community discussion
- Performance Analysis: Investigated deployment performance improvements and atomic API operations
- Week 5
- Documentation Focus: Concentrated on documentation-related issues and project migration cleanup problems
- Migration Artifacts: Resolved multiple bugs stemming from mfcloud to openmainframeproject transition
- Testing Framework: Addressed Python 3.7 compatibility issues and language version updates
- Week 6
- Documentation Completeness: Ensured comprehensive documentation coverage and removed outdated references
- Reference Cleanup: Migrated OPNCLOUD user references requiring documentation updates
- Service Configuration: Verified SDK server service enable steps were properly documented
Remaining Work and Future Plans
I will focus on resolving the remaining bugs by systematically triaging each issue, prioritizing API validation fixes, documentation gap closures, and performance optimizations. Key tasks include migrating any leftover Launchpad bugs to GitHub with full context, verifying and updating API schemas, enriching feature documentation, and closing high-impact issues affecting core functionality.
Acknowledgments and Community Appreciation
This mentorship has been incredibly rewarding thanks to the generous support of the Open Mainframe Project community, particularly mentors – Eric Bischoff, Mike Friesenegger, and Aazam Thakur – for their patient guidance and technical expertise. Special appreciation goes to the Feilong Community and project maintainers who created comprehensive bug reports that made systematic triage possible, and to the Open Mainframe Project for creating mentorship opportunities that connect students with real-world enterprise software challenges while contributing to critical infrastructure projects.
