Email Notifications with Subversion Revision as of Wednesday, 26 June 2024 at 10:57 UTC

Pre-Flight

Setup

Copy over the sample post-commit hook

Permissions and ownership are vitally important here!

cp hooks/post-commit.tmpl hooks/post-commit  
chmod 770 hooks/post-commit  
chown apache:apache hooks/post-commit

Now edit hooks/post-commit and add this line:

/usr/share/doc/subversion-1.4.2/tools/hook-scripts/mailer/mailer.py commit "$REPOS" "$REV"

Comment out these lines:

commit-email.pl "$REPOS" "$REV" commit-watchers@example.org  
log-commit.py --repository "$REPOS" --revision "$REV"

Configure email alerts for a repository

First copy over the sample mailer config:

cp /usr/share/doc/subversion-1.4.2/tools/hook-scripts/mailer/mailer.conf.example conf/mailer.conf

A general file looks like this:

[general]  
mail_command = /usr/sbin/sendmail  
smtp_hostname = localhost  
  
[defaults]  
diff = /usr/bin/diff -u -L %(label_from)s -L %(label_to)s %(from)s %(to)s  
commit_subject_prefix = "[SVN - IT Scripts]"  
propchange_subject_prefix =  
lock_subject_prefix =  
unlock_subject_prefix =  
from_addr = donotreply@svn.eng.uiowa.edu  
to_addr = foo@uiowa.edu bar@gmail.com  
reply_to = donotreply@svn.eng.uiowa.edu  
generate_diffs = add copy modify  
show_nonmatching_paths = yes  
suppress_deletes = yes  
    
[maps]

The various options should be self-explanatory. A test commit should
work at this point.

Configuring alerts for specific folders

Let’s say that a specific group of people is to know if commits are made
to the firewall_scripts folder. In that case:

[firewall_scripts]  
for_paths = ^firewall_scripts($|/)  
commit_subject_prefix = "[SVN - Firewall Scripts]"  
from_addr = donotreply@svn.eng.uiowa.edu  
to_addr = it-admins@genome.uiowa.edu

Testing things out

You don’t necessarily need to commit things to test out the config.

sh hooks/post-commit /home/svn/repository 195

Where the last two arguments are the path to the repo and the revision
number.

Tip of the Iceberg

There are tons of things you can do with mailer.conf in a large
and/or complicated setting. The best way to get acquainted with its
features is to essentially read the default file to figure out what it’s
capable of. Reading others’ config files also helps :)