SYNOPSIS

git-notifier [options]

DESCRIPTION

git-notifier is a script to be used with git as a post-receive hook. Once installed, it emails out a summary of all changes each time a user pushes an update to the repository. Different from other similar scripts, git-notifier sends exactly one email per change, each of which includes a complete diff of all modifications as well as the set of branches from which the new revision can be reached. The scripts ensure that that each change is mailed out only exactly once by keeping a state file of already reported revisions.

In addition, git-notifier also mails updates when branches or annotated tags are created or removed; and it furthermore mails a revision summary if a head moves to now include commits already reported previously (e.g., on fast-forwards).

If a commit message contains [nodiff], the generated mail will not include a diff. If a commit message contains [nomail], no mail will be send for that change.

git-notifier supports the options below. Alternatively to giving them on the command line, all of them can alse be set via git config hooks.<option>. For example, to set a recipient address, do git config hooks.mailinglist [email protected].

For full documentation, see the homepage at: http://www.icir.org/robin/git-notifier/.

INSTALLATION

The basic installation is simple: just run the script from hooks/post-receive, as in:

#!/bin/sh

/full/path/to/git-notifier

By default, the script will send its mails to the user running the git-notifier (i.e., the one doing the update). As that's usually not the desired recipient, an alternative email address can be specified via command line or git options, see the mailinglist option below.

OPTIONS

--allchanges <branches>

Lists <branches> for which all changes made to them should be mailed out as straight diffs to their previous state, independent of whether the corresponding commit has already been reported in the past. For merge commits, the mails include the full diff (i.e., git's diff -m). This might for example make sense for master if one wants to closely track any modification applied.

<branches> is a list of comma-separated names of heads to treat this way.

--branches <branches>

Lists <branches> to include/exclude in reporting. By default, all branches are included. If this option is specified, only branches listed are included. Alternatively, one can prefix a branch with - to exclude it: then all but the excluded ones are reported.

<branches> is a list of comma-separated names of heads to treat this way.

--config=PATH

PATH to alternative configuration file.

--debug

Run the script in debug mode, which means that it will (1) log more verbosely and to stderr, and (2) run git-notifier with the --debug and --noupdate options.

--diff [rev1...] rev2

Mails out diffs between all revisions on the first parent's way from rev1 to rev2. This option produces output similar to that of a head moving forward which is listed with --allchanges. If rev1 is skipped, rev2~1 is assumed.

This option is primarily for debugging and retropective (re-)generation of this outut, and does not change the current notifier state in any way. The main difference to --manual is that it considers only revision on the first parent's path, and mails out actual diffs between these.

--emailprefix

Specifies a prefix for the mails' subject line. If the prefix contain an %r, that will be replace with the repositories name. Default is [git/%r]. Note that the name of this option is compatible with some of other git notification scripts.

--hostname <name>

Defines the hostname to use when building the repository path shown in the notification mails. Default is the canonical name of the system the script is running on.

--ignoreremotes

If given, git-notifier will not report any commits that are already known by any configured remote repository.

--gitbasedir=DIRECTORY

Specifies a base DIRECTORY for the git repository. If not given, the current directory is the default.

-h, --help

show help message and exit

--link <url>

Specifies a <url> that will be included into notification mails for locating a changeset online. The <url> can contain a %s placeholder that will be replaced with the corresponding git revision number. The <url> can also contain an %r placeholder that will be replaced with the name of the repository.

--log <file>

Write logging information into the given <file>. Default is git-notifier.log inside the repository.

--mailcmd <command>

Specifies the command to use for sending mail. Default is /usr/sbin/sendmail.

--mailinglist <address>

Specifies the recipient for all generated mails. Default is mailing to the system account that is running the script.

--mailserver <host>

SMTP server to use for outgoing mails. Default is None, in which case mail gets sent through the local sendmail (or whatever --mailcmd defines alternatively).

--mailsubjectlen <max>

Limits subjects of generated mails to <max> characters. Default os no limit.

--manual [rev1..] rev2

Mails out notifications for all revisions on the way from rev1 to rev2. If rev1 is skipped, rev2~1 is assumed.

This option is primarily for debugging and retropective (re-)generation of this output, and does not change the current notifier state in any way.

--maxage <days>

Limits the age of commits to report. No commit older than this many days will trigger a commit notification. Default is 30 days; zero disables the age check.

--maxdiffsize <size>

Limits the <size>R of mails by giving a maximum number of kilobytes that a diff may have. If the diff for a change is larger than this value, a notification mail is still send out but the diff is excluded (and replaced with a note saying so). Default is 50K.

--mergediffs <branches>

Lists <branches> for which merges should include the full diff, including all changes that are already part of branch commits.

<branches> is a list of command-separated names of heads to treat this way.

--noupdate

Does not update the internal state file, meaning that any updates will be reported again next time the script is run.

--replyto <email>

Adds a Reply-To: <email> header to outgoing mails.

--repouri=URI

full URI for the repository

--sender <address>

Defines the sender <address> for all generated mails. Default is the user doing the update (if gitolite is used, that's the gitolite acccount doing the push, not the system account running git-notifier.)

--update-only

Does not send out any mail notifications but still updates the index. In other words, all recent changes will be marked as "seen", without reporting them.

--users <file>

This is only for installations using gitolite <XXX>, for which the default sender address for all mails would normally be the gitolite user account name of the person doing the push. With this option, one can alternatively specify a file that maps such account names to alternative addresses, which will then be used as the sender for mails.

Note that even if --users is not given, git-notifier will still look for such a file in ../conf/sender.cfg, relative to the top-level repository directory. In other words, you can check a file sender.cfg containing the mappings into gitolite's config/ directory and it should Just Work.

--version

Shows program's version number and exit

FILES

git-notifier.conf

This is the git-notifier configuration file, which provides system-wide default configuration values. Configuration data is taken in the following order of precedence:

1. command-line options

2. repository-specific configuration (via git config hooks.<option>)

3. this file

In the default configuration file shipped with git-notifier, options are specified with their default value where possible, but are left commented. Uncommented options override the default value.

../conf/sender.cfg

This is only for installations using gitolite <XXX>, for which the default sender address for all mails would normally be the gitolite user account name of the person doing the push.

The file must consist of line of the form <gitolite-user> <sender>, where sender will be used for the mails and can include spaces. Empty lines and lines starting with # are ignored. It's ok if for a user no entry is found, in which case the default value will be used.

For example, if there's a gitolite user account "joe", one could provide a users file like this:

joe Joe Smith <[email protected]>

Now all mails triggered by Joe will have the specified sender.

LICENSE

git-notifier comes with a BSD-style license.

AUTHOR

Robin Sommer <[email protected]>. This manpage is written by Lev Lamberov <[email protected]>.