Introduction

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. The script integrates nicely with gitolite.

Here's example of such a git-notifier mail:

Subject: [git/git-notifier] master: Adding www target to Makefile. (7dc1f95)

Repository : ssh://<removed>/git-notifier

On branch  : master

>---------------------------------------------------------------

commit 7dc1f95c97275618d5bde1aaf6760cd7ff6a6ef7
Author: Robin Sommer <robin@icir.org>
Date:   Sun Dec 19 20:21:38 2010 -0800

    Adding www target to Makefile.

>---------------------------------------------------------------

 Makefile |    6 ++++++
 1 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index e184c66..9c9951b 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -5,6 +5,8 @@ VERSION   = 0.1

 DISTFILES = git-notifier README COPYING

+WWW = $(HOME)/www/git-notifier
+
 all:

 dist:
@@ -13,3 +15,7 @@ dist:
    cp $(DISTFILES) git-notifier-$(VERSION)
    tar czvf git-notifier-$(VERSION).tgz git-notifier-$(VERSION)
    rm -rf git-notifier-$(VERSION)
+
+www: dist
+   rst2html.py README >$(WWW)/index.html
+   cp git-notifier-$(VERSION).tgz $(WWW)

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.

Download

The current release is git-notifier 0.3

Not surprisingly, git-notifier is maintained in a git repository that you clone:

git clone git://git.icir.org/git-notifier

You can also browse the repository

History

The CHANGES file records recent updates to 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.

Usage

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 git-updates@foo.com:

--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. This might for
example make sense for master if one wants to closely track any modification applied. <branches> is a list of command-separated names of heads to treat this way.

--debug

Prints the mails that would normally be generated to standard error instead, without sending them. The output also includes some further debugging information, like the git commands being executed during operation.

Note that in debug mode, the script still updates its state file, i.e., if there are changes that haven't been reported yet, they will only be printed, not mailed out next time. If you don't want that, use --noupdate as
well.

--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. Default is [git]. 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.

--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.

--log <file>

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

--mailinglist <address>

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

--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.

--maxdiffsize <size in KB>

Limits the size of mails by giving a maximum number of bytes 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.

--noupdate

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

--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.)

--updateonly

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.

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 <joe@foo.bar>

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

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.

License

git-notifier comes with a BSD-style licence.