2.4.3. Change Sources

A Version Control System maintains a source tree, and tells the buildmaster when it changes. The first step of each Build is typically to acquire a copy of some version of this tree.

This chapter describes how the Buildbot learns about what Changes have occurred. For more information on VC systems and Changes, see Version Control Systems.

Changes can be provided by a variety of ChangeSource types, although any given project will typically have only a single ChangeSource active. This section provides a description of all available ChangeSource types and explains how to set up each of them.

2.4.3.1. Choosing a Change Source

There are a variety of ChangeSource classes available, some of which are meant to be used in conjunction with other tools to deliver Change events from the VC repository to the buildmaster.

As a quick guide, here is a list of VC systems and the ChangeSources that might be useful with them. Note that some of these modules are in Buildbot's "contrib" directory, meaning that they have been offered by other users in hopes they may be useful, and might require some additional work to make them functional.

CVS
  • CVSMaildirSource (watching mail sent by contrib/buildbot_cvs_mail.py script)
  • PBChangeSource (listening for connections from buildbot sendchange run in a loginfo script)
  • PBChangeSource (listening for connections from a long-running contrib/viewcvspoll.py polling process which examines the ViewCVS database directly)
  • Change Hooks in WebStatus
SVN
Darcs
Mercurial
Bzr (the newer Bazaar)
  • PBChangeSource (listening for connections from contrib/bzr_buildbot.py run in a post-change-branch-tip or commit hook)
  • BzrPoller (polling the Bzr repository)
  • Change Hooks in WebStatus
Git
  • PBChangeSource (listening for connections from contrib/git_buildbot.py run in the post-receive hook)
  • PBChangeSource (listening for connections from contrib/github_buildbot.py, which listens for notifications from GitHub)
  • Change Hooks in WebStatus
  • GitHub change hook (specifically designed for GitHub notifications, but requiring a publicly-accessible WebStatus)
  • BitBucket change hook (specifically designed for BitBucket notifications, but requiring a publicly-accessible WebStatus)
  • GitPoller (polling a remote Git repository)
  • GoogleCodeAtomPoller (polling the commit feed for a GoogleCode Git repository)
  • BitbucketPullrequestPoller (polling Bitbucket for pull requests)
Repo/Git
Monotone
  • PBChangeSource (listening for connections from monotone-buildbot.lua, which is available with Monotone)

All VC systems can be driven by a PBChangeSource and the buildbot sendchange tool run from some form of commit script. If you write an email parsing function, they can also all be driven by a suitable mail-parsing source. Additionally, handlers for web-based notification (i.e. from GitHub) can be used with WebStatus' change_hook module. The interface is simple, so adding your own handlers (and sharing!) should be a breeze.

See Change Source Index for a full list of change sources.

2.4.3.2. Configuring Change Sources

The change_source configuration key holds all active change sources for the configuration.

Most configurations have a single ChangeSource, watching only a single tree, e.g.,

from buildbot.plugins import changes
c['change_source'] = changes.PBChangeSource()

For more advanced configurations, the parameter can be a list of change sources:

source1 = ...
source2 = ...
c['change_source'] = [
    source1, source1
]

Repository and Project

ChangeSources will, in general, automatically provide the proper repository attribute for any changes they produce. For systems which operate on URL-like specifiers, this is a repository URL. Other ChangeSources adapt the concept as necessary.

Many ChangeSources allow you to specify a project, as well. This attribute is useful when building from several distinct codebases in the same buildmaster: the project string can serve to differentiate the different codebases. Schedulers can filter on project, so you can configure different builders to run for each project.

2.4.3.3. Mail-parsing ChangeSources

Many projects publish information about changes to their source tree by sending an email message out to a mailing list, frequently named PROJECT-commits or PROJECT-changes. Each message usually contains a description of the change (who made the change, which files were affected) and sometimes a copy of the diff. Humans can subscribe to this list to stay informed about what's happening to the source tree.

The Buildbot can also be subscribed to a -commits mailing list, and can trigger builds in response to Changes that it hears about. The buildmaster admin needs to arrange for these email messages to arrive in a place where the buildmaster can find them, and configure the buildmaster to parse the messages correctly. Once that is in place, the email parser will create Change objects and deliver them to the schedulers (see Schedulers) just like any other ChangeSource.

There are two components to setting up an email-based ChangeSource. The first is to route the email messages to the buildmaster, which is done by dropping them into a maildir. The second is to actually parse the messages, which is highly dependent upon the tool that was used to create them. Each VC system has a collection of favorite change-emailing tools, and each has a slightly different format, so each has a different parsing function. There is a separate ChangeSource variant for each parsing function.

Once you've chosen a maildir location and a parsing function, create the change source and put it in change_source:

from buildbot.plugins import changes
c['change_source'] = changes.CVSMaildirSource("~/maildir-buildbot",
                                              prefix="/trunk/")

Subscribing the Buildmaster

The recommended way to install the buildbot is to create a dedicated account for the buildmaster. If you do this, the account will probably have a distinct email address (perhaps buildmaster@example.org). Then just arrange for this account's email to be delivered to a suitable maildir (described in the next section).

If the buildbot does not have its own account, extension addresses can be used to distinguish between email intended for the buildmaster and email intended for the rest of the account. In most modern MTAs, the e.g. foo@example.org account has control over every email address at example.org which begins with "foo", such that email addressed to account-foo@example.org can be delivered to a different destination than account-bar@example.org. qmail does this by using separate .qmail files for the two destinations (.qmail-foo and .qmail-bar, with .qmail controlling the base address and .qmail-default controlling all other extensions). Other MTAs have similar mechanisms.

Thus you can assign an extension address like foo-buildmaster@example.org to the buildmaster, and retain foo@example.org for your own use.

Using Maildirs

A maildir is a simple directory structure originally developed for qmail that allows safe atomic update without locking. Create a base directory with three subdirectories: new, tmp, and cur. When messages arrive, they are put into a uniquely-named file (using pids, timestamps, and random numbers) in tmp. When the file is complete, it is atomically renamed into new. Eventually the buildmaster notices the file in new, reads and parses the contents, then moves it into cur. A cronjob can be used to delete files in cur at leisure.

Maildirs are frequently created with the maildirmake tool, but a simple mkdir -p ~/MAILDIR/cur,new,tmp is pretty much equivalent.

Many modern MTAs can deliver directly to maildirs. The usual .forward or .procmailrc syntax is to name the base directory with a trailing slash, so something like ~/MAILDIR/. qmail and postfix are maildir-capable MTAs, and procmail is a maildir-capable MDA (Mail Delivery Agent).

Here is an example procmail config, located in ~/.procmailrc:

# .procmailrc
# routes incoming mail to appropriate mailboxes
PATH=/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin
MAILDIR=$HOME/Mail
LOGFILE=.procmail_log
SHELL=/bin/sh

:0
*
new

If procmail is not setup on a system wide basis, then the following one-line .forward file will invoke it.

!/usr/bin/procmail

For MTAs which cannot put files into maildirs directly, the safecat tool can be executed from a .forward file to accomplish the same thing.

The Buildmaster uses the linux DNotify facility to receive immediate notification when the maildir's new directory has changed. When this facility is not available, it polls the directory for new messages, every 10 seconds by default.

Parsing Email Change Messages

The second component to setting up an email-based ChangeSource is to parse the actual notices. This is highly dependent upon the VC system and commit script in use.

A couple of common tools used to create these change emails, along with the buildbot tools to parse them, are:

CVS
Buildbot CVS MailNotifier
CVSMaildirSource
SVN
svnmailer
http://opensource.perlig.de/en/svnmailer/
commit-email.pl
SVNCommitEmailMaildirSource
Bzr
Launchpad
BzrLaunchpadEmailMaildirSource
Mercurial
NotifyExtension
https://www.mercurial-scm.org/wiki/NotifyExtension
Git
post-receive-email
http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git.git;a=blob;f=contrib/hooks/post-receive-email;hb=HEAD

The following sections describe the parsers available for each of these tools.

Most of these parsers accept a prefix= argument, which is used to limit the set of files that the buildmaster pays attention to. This is most useful for systems like CVS and SVN which put multiple projects in a single repository (or use repository names to indicate branches). Each filename that appears in the email is tested against the prefix: if the filename does not start with the prefix, the file is ignored. If the filename does start with the prefix, that prefix is stripped from the filename before any further processing is done. Thus the prefix usually ends with a slash.

CVSMaildirSource

class buildbot.changes.mail.CVSMaildirSource

This parser works with the buildbot_cvs_maildir.py script in the contrib directory.

The script sends an email containing all the files submitted in one directory. It is invoked by using the CVSROOT/loginfo facility.

The Buildbot's CVSMaildirSource knows how to parse these messages and turn them into Change objects. It takes the directory name of the maildir root. For example:

from buildbot.plugins import changes
c['change_source'] = changes.CVSMaildirSource("/home/buildbot/Mail")

Configuration of CVS and buildbot_cvs_mail.py

CVS must be configured to invoke the buildbot_cvs_mail.py script when files are checked in. This is done via the CVS loginfo configuration file.

To update this, first do:

cvs checkout CVSROOT

cd to the CVSROOT directory and edit the file loginfo, adding a line like:

SomeModule /cvsroot/CVSROOT/buildbot_cvs_mail.py --cvsroot :ext:example.com:/cvsroot -e buildbot -P SomeModule %@{sVv@}

Note

For cvs version 1.12.x, the --path %p option is required. Version 1.11.x and 1.12.x report the directory path differently.

The above example you put the buildbot_cvs_mail.py script under /cvsroot/CVSROOT. It can be anywhere. Run the script with --help to see all the options. At the very least, the options -e (email) and -P (project) should be specified. The line must end with %{sVv}. This is expanded to the files that were modified.

Additional entries can be added to support more modules.

See buildbot_cvs_mail.py --help` for more information on the available options.

SVNCommitEmailMaildirSource

class buildbot.changes.mail.SVNCommitEmailMaildirSource

SVNCommitEmailMaildirSource parses message sent out by the commit-email.pl script, which is included in the Subversion distribution.

It does not currently handle branches: all of the Change objects that it creates will be associated with the default (i.e. trunk) branch.

from buildbot.plugins import changes
c['change_source'] = changes.SVNCommitEmailMaildirSource("~/maildir-buildbot")

BzrLaunchpadEmailMaildirSource

class buildbot.changes.mail.BzrLaunchpadEmailMaildirSource

BzrLaunchpadEmailMaildirSource parses the mails that are sent to addresses that subscribe to branch revision notifications for a bzr branch hosted on Launchpad.

The branch name defaults to lp:Launchpad path. For example lp:~maria-captains/maria/5.1.

If only a single branch is used, the default branch name can be changed by setting defaultBranch.

For multiple branches, pass a dictionary as the value of the branchMap option to map specific repository paths to specific branch names (see example below). The leading lp: prefix of the path is optional.

The prefix option is not supported (it is silently ignored). Use the branchMap and defaultBranch instead to assign changes to branches (and just do not subscribe the buildbot to branches that are not of interest).

The revision number is obtained from the email text. The bzr revision id is not available in the mails sent by Launchpad. However, it is possible to set the bzr append_revisions_only option for public shared repositories to avoid new pushes of merges changing the meaning of old revision numbers.

from buildbot.plugins import changes
bm = {
    'lp:~maria-captains/maria/5.1': '5.1',
    'lp:~maria-captains/maria/6.0': '6.0'
}
c['change_source'] = changes.BzrLaunchpadEmailMaildirSource("~/maildir-buildbot",
                                                            branchMap=bm)

2.4.3.4. PBChangeSource

class buildbot.changes.pb.PBChangeSource

PBChangeSource actually listens on a TCP port for clients to connect and push change notices into the Buildmaster. This is used by the built-in buildbot sendchange notification tool, as well as several version-control hook scripts. This change is also useful for creating new kinds of change sources that work on a push model instead of some kind of subscription scheme, for example a script which is run out of an email .forward file. This ChangeSource always runs on the same TCP port as the workers. It shares the same protocol, and in fact shares the same space of "usernames", so you cannot configure a PBChangeSource with the same name as a worker.

If you have a publicly accessible worker port, and are using PBChangeSource, you must establish a secure username and password for the change source. If your sendchange credentials are known (e.g., the defaults), then your buildmaster is susceptible to injection of arbitrary changes, which (depending on the build factories) could lead to arbitrary code execution on workers.

The PBChangeSource is created with the following arguments.

port
which port to listen on. If None (which is the default), it shares the port used for worker connections.
user
The user account that the client program must use to connect. Defaults to change
passwd
The password for the connection - defaults to changepw. Do not use this default on a publicly exposed port!
prefix

The prefix to be found and stripped from filenames delivered over the connection, defaulting to None. Any filenames which do not start with this prefix will be removed. If all the filenames in a given Change are removed, the that whole Change will be dropped. This string should probably end with a directory separator.

This is useful for changes coming from version control systems that represent branches as parent directories within the repository (like SVN and Perforce). Use a prefix of trunk/ or project/branches/foobranch/ to only follow one branch and to get correct tree-relative filenames. Without a prefix, the PBChangeSource will probably deliver Changes with filenames like trunk/foo.c instead of just foo.c. Of course this also depends upon the tool sending the Changes in (like buildbot sendchange) and what filenames it is delivering: that tool may be filtering and stripping prefixes at the sending end.

For example:

from buildbot.plugins import changes
c['change_source'] = changes.PBChangeSource(port=9999, user='laura', passwd='fpga')

The following hooks are useful for sending changes to a PBChangeSource:

Bzr Hook

Bzr is also written in Python, and the Bzr hook depends on Twisted to send the changes.

To install, put contrib/bzr_buildbot.py in one of your plugins locations a bzr plugins directory (e.g., ~/.bazaar/plugins). Then, in one of your bazaar conf files (e.g., ~/.bazaar/locations.conf), set the location you want to connect with buildbot with these keys:

  • buildbot_on one of 'commit', 'push, or 'change'. Turns the plugin on to report changes via commit, changes via push, or any changes to the trunk. 'change' is recommended.
  • buildbot_server (required to send to a buildbot master) the URL of the buildbot master to which you will connect (as of this writing, the same server and port to which workers connect).
  • buildbot_port (optional, defaults to 9989) the port of the buildbot master to which you will connect (as of this writing, the same server and port to which workers connect)
  • buildbot_pqm (optional, defaults to not pqm) Normally, the user that commits the revision is the user that is responsible for the change. When run in a pqm (Patch Queue Manager, see https://launchpad.net/pqm) environment, the user that commits is the Patch Queue Manager, and the user that committed the parent revision is responsible for the change. To turn on the pqm mode, set this value to any of (case-insensitive) "Yes", "Y", "True", or "T".
  • buildbot_dry_run (optional, defaults to not a dry run) Normally, the post-commit hook will attempt to communicate with the configured buildbot server and port. If this parameter is included and any of (case-insensitive) "Yes", "Y", "True", or "T", then the hook will simply print what it would have sent, but not attempt to contact the buildbot master.
  • buildbot_send_branch_name (optional, defaults to not sending the branch name) If your buildbot's bzr source build step uses a repourl, do not turn this on. If your buildbot's bzr build step uses a baseURL, then you may set this value to any of (case-insensitive) "Yes", "Y", "True", or "T" to have the buildbot master append the branch name to the baseURL.

Note

The bzr smart server (as of version 2.2.2) doesn't know how to resolve bzr:// urls into absolute paths so any paths in locations.conf won't match, hence no change notifications will be sent to Buildbot. Setting configuration parameters globally or in-branch might still work. When buildbot no longer has a hardcoded password, it will be a configuration option here as well.

Here's a simple example that you might have in your ~/.bazaar/locations.conf.

[chroot-*:///var/local/myrepo/mybranch]
buildbot_on = change
buildbot_server = localhost

2.4.3.5. P4Source

The P4Source periodically polls a Perforce depot for changes. It accepts the following arguments:

p4port
The Perforce server to connect to (as host:port).
p4user
The Perforce user.
p4passwd
The Perforce password.
p4base
The base depot path to watch, without the trailing '/...'.
p4bin
An optional string parameter. Specify the location of the perforce command line binary (p4). You only need to do this if the perforce binary is not in the path of the buildbot user. Defaults to p4.
split_file
A function that maps a pathname, without the leading p4base, to a (branch, filename) tuple. The default just returns (None, branchfile), which effectively disables branch support. You should supply a function which understands your repository structure.
pollInterval
How often to poll, in seconds. Defaults to 600 (10 minutes).
project
Set the name of the project to be used for the P4Source. This will then be set in any changes generated by the P4Source, and can be used in a Change Filter for triggering particular builders.
pollAtLaunch
Determines when the first poll occurs. True = immediately on launch, False = wait for one pollInterval (default).
histmax
The maximum number of changes to inspect at a time. If more than this number occur since the last poll, older changes will be silently ignored.
encoding
The character encoding of p4's output. This defaults to "utf8", but if your commit messages are in another encoding, specify that here. For example, if you're using Perforce on Windows, you may need to use "cp437" as the encoding if "utf8" generates errors in your master log.
server_tz
The timezone of the Perforce server, using the usual timezone format (e.g: "Europe/Stockholm") in case it's not in UTC.
use_tickets
Set to True to use ticket-based authentication, instead of passwords (but you still need to specify p4passwd).
ticket_login_interval
How often to get a new ticket, in seconds, when use_tickets is enabled. Defaults to 86400 (24 hours).

Example

This configuration uses the P4PORT, P4USER, and P4PASSWD specified in the buildmaster's environment. It watches a project in which the branch name is simply the next path component, and the file is all path components after.

from buildbot.plugins import changes
s = changes.P4Source(p4base='//depot/project/',
                     split_file=lambda branchfile: branchfile.split('/',1))
c['change_source'] = s

2.4.3.6. SVNPoller

class buildbot.changes.svnpoller.SVNPoller

The SVNPoller is a ChangeSource which periodically polls a Subversion repository for new revisions, by running the svn log command in a subshell. It can watch a single branch or multiple branches.

SVNPoller accepts the following arguments:

repourl

The base URL path to watch, like svn://svn.twistedmatrix.com/svn/Twisted/trunk, or http://divmod.org/svn/Divmo/, or even file:///home/svn/Repository/ProjectA/branches/1.5/. This must include the access scheme, the location of the repository (both the hostname for remote ones, and any additional directory names necessary to get to the repository), and the sub-path within the repository's virtual filesystem for the project and branch of interest.

The SVNPoller will only pay attention to files inside the subdirectory specified by the complete repourl.

split_file

A function to convert pathnames into (branch, relative_pathname) tuples. Use this to explain your repository's branch-naming policy to SVNPoller. This function must accept a single string (the pathname relative to the repository) and return a two-entry tuple. Directory pathnames always end with a right slash to distinguish them from files, like trunk/src/, or src/. There are a few utility functions in buildbot.changes.svnpoller that can be used as a split_file function; see below for details.

For directories, the relative pathname returned by split_file should end with a right slash but an empty string is also accepted for the root, like ("branches/1.5.x", "") being converted from "branches/1.5.x/".

The default value always returns (None, path), which indicates that all files are on the trunk.

Subclasses of SVNPoller can override the split_file method instead of using the split_file= argument.

project
Set the name of the project to be used for the SVNPoller. This will then be set in any changes generated by the SVNPoller, and can be used in a Change Filter for triggering particular builders.
svnuser
An optional string parameter. If set, the option --user argument will be added to all svn commands. Use this if you have to authenticate to the svn server before you can do svn info or svn log commands.
svnpasswd
Like svnuser, this will cause a option --password argument to be passed to all svn commands.
pollInterval
How often to poll, in seconds. Defaults to 600 (checking once every 10 minutes). Lower this if you want the buildbot to notice changes faster, raise it if you want to reduce the network and CPU load on your svn server. Please be considerate of public SVN repositories by using a large interval when polling them.
pollAtLaunch
Determines when the first poll occurs. True = immediately on launch, False = wait for one pollInterval (default).
histmax
The maximum number of changes to inspect at a time. Every pollInterval seconds, the SVNPoller asks for the last histmax changes and looks through them for any revisions it does not already know about. If more than histmax revisions have been committed since the last poll, older changes will be silently ignored. Larger values of histmax will cause more time and memory to be consumed on each poll attempt. histmax defaults to 100.
svnbin
This controls the svn executable to use. If subversion is installed in a weird place on your system (outside of the buildmaster's PATH), use this to tell SVNPoller where to find it. The default value of svn will almost always be sufficient.
revlinktmpl
This parameter is deprecated in favour of specifying a global revlink option. This parameter allows a link to be provided for each revision (for example, to websvn or viewvc). These links appear anywhere changes are shown, such as on build or change pages. The proper form for this parameter is an URL with the portion that will substitute for a revision number replaced by ''%s''. For example, 'http://myserver/websvn/revision.php?rev=%s' could be used to cause revision links to be created to a websvn repository viewer.
cachepath
If specified, this is a pathname of a cache file that SVNPoller will use to store its state between restarts of the master.
extra_args
If specified, the extra arguments will be added to the svn command args.

Several split file functions are available for common SVN repository layouts. For a poller that is only monitoring trunk, the default split file function is available explicitly as split_file_alwaystrunk:

from buildbot.plugins import changes, util
c['change_source'] = changes.SVNPoller(
    repourl="svn://svn.twistedmatrix.com/svn/Twisted/trunk",
    split_file=util.svn.split_file_alwaystrunk)

For repositories with the /trunk and /branches/BRANCH layout, split_file_branches will do the job:

from buildbot.plugins import changes, util
c['change_source'] = changes.SVNPoller(
    repourl="https://amanda.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/amanda/amanda",
    split_file=util.svn.split_file_branches)

When using this splitter the poller will set the project attribute of any changes to the project attribute of the poller.

For repositories with the PROJECT/trunk and PROJECT/branches/BRANCH layout, split_file_projects_branches will do the job:

from buildbot.plugins import changes, util
c['change_source'] = changes.SVNPoller(
    repourl="https://amanda.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/amanda/",
    split_file=util.svn.split_file_projects_branches)

When using this splitter the poller will set the project attribute of any changes to the project determined by the splitter.

The SVNPoller is highly adaptable to various Subversion layouts. See Customizing SVNPoller for details and some common scenarios.

2.4.3.7. Bzr Poller

If you cannot insert a Bzr hook in the server, you can use the Bzr Poller. To use, put contrib/bzr_buildbot.py somewhere that your buildbot configuration can import it. Even putting it in the same directory as the master.cfg should work. Install the poller in the buildbot configuration as with any other change source. Minimally, provide a URL that you want to poll (bzr://, bzr+ssh://, or lp:), making sure the buildbot user has necessary privileges.

# put bzr_buildbot.py file to the same directory as master.cfg
from bzr_buildbot import BzrPoller
c['change_source'] = BzrPoller(
    url='bzr://hostname/my_project',
    poll_interval=300)

The BzrPoller parameters are:

url
The URL to poll.
poll_interval
The number of seconds to wait between polls. Defaults to 10 minutes.
branch_name
Any value to be used as the branch name. Defaults to None, or specify a string, or specify the constants from bzr_buildbot.py SHORT or FULL to get the short branch name or full branch address.
blame_merge_author
normally, the user that commits the revision is the user that is responsible for the change. When run in a pqm (Patch Queue Manager, see https://launchpad.net/pqm) environment, the user that commits is the Patch Queue Manager, and the user that committed the merged, parent revision is responsible for the change. Set this value to True if this is pointed against a PQM-managed branch.

2.4.3.8. GitPoller

If you cannot take advantage of post-receive hooks as provided by contrib/git_buildbot.py for example, then you can use the GitPoller.

The GitPoller periodically fetches from a remote Git repository and processes any changes. It requires its own working directory for operation. The default should be adequate, but it can be overridden via the workdir property.

Note

There can only be a single GitPoller pointed at any given repository.

The GitPoller requires Git-1.7 and later. It accepts the following arguments:

repourl
the git-url that describes the remote repository, e.g. git@example.com:foobaz/myrepo.git (see the git fetch help for more info on git-url formats)
branches

One of the following:

  • a list of the branches to fetch.
  • True indicating that all branches should be fetched
  • a callable which takes a single argument. It should take a remote refspec (such as 'refs/heads/master', and return a boolean indicating whether that branch should be fetched.
branch
accepts a single branch name to fetch. Exists for backwards compatibility with old configurations.
pollInterval
interval in seconds between polls, default is 10 minutes
pollAtLaunch
Determines when the first poll occurs. True = immediately on launch, False = wait for one pollInterval (default).
buildPushesWithNoCommits
Determine if a push on a new branch with already known commits should trigger a build. (defaults to False).
gitbin
path to the Git binary, defaults to just 'git'
category
Set the category to be used for the changes produced by the GitPoller. This will then be set in any changes generated by the GitPoller, and can be used in a Change Filter for triggering particular builders.
project
Set the name of the project to be used for the GitPoller. This will then be set in any changes generated by the GitPoller, and can be used in a Change Filter for triggering particular builders.
usetimestamps
parse each revision's commit timestamp (default is True), or ignore it in favor of the current time (so recently processed commits appear together in the waterfall page)
encoding
Set encoding will be used to parse author's name and commit message. Default encoding is 'utf-8'. This will not be applied to file names since Git will translate non-ascii file names to unreadable escape sequences.
workdir
the directory where the poller should keep its local repository. The default is gitpoller_work. If this is a relative path, it will be interpreted relative to the master's basedir. Multiple Git pollers can share the same directory.

A configuration for the Git poller might look like this:

from buildbot.plugins import changes
c['change_source'] = changes.GitPoller(repourl='git@example.com:foobaz/myrepo.git',
                                       branches=['master', 'great_new_feature'])

2.4.3.9. HgPoller

The HgPoller periodically pulls a named branch from a remote Mercurial repository and processes any changes. It requires its own working directory for operation, which must be specified via the workdir property.

The HgPoller requires a working hg executable, and at least a read-only access to the repository it polls (possibly through ssh keys or by tweaking the hgrc of the system user buildbot runs as).

The HgPoller will not transmit any change if there are several heads on the watched named branch. This is similar (although not identical) to the Mercurial executable behaviour. This exceptional condition is usually the result of a developer mistake, and usually does not last for long. It is reported in logs. If fixed by a later merge, the buildmaster administrator does not have anything to do: that merge will be transmitted, together with the intermediate ones.

The HgPoller accepts the following arguments:

name
the name of the poller. This must be unique, and defaults to the repourl.
repourl
the url that describes the remote repository, e.g. http://hg.example.com/projects/myrepo. Any url suitable for hg pull can be specified.
branch
the desired branch to pull, will default to 'default'
workdir

the directory where the poller should keep its local repository. It is mandatory for now, although later releases may provide a meaningful default.

It also serves to identify the poller in the buildmaster internal database. Changing it may result in re-processing all changes so far.

Several HgPoller instances may share the same workdir for mutualisation of the common history between two different branches, thus easing on local and remote system resources and bandwidth.

If relative, the workdir will be interpreted from the master directory.

pollInterval
interval in seconds between polls, default is 10 minutes
pollAtLaunch
Determines when the first poll occurs. True = immediately on launch, False = wait for one pollInterval (default).
hgbin
path to the Mercurial binary, defaults to just 'hg'
category
Set the category to be used for the changes produced by the HgPoller. This will then be set in any changes generated by the HgPoller, and can be used in a Change Filter for triggering particular builders.
project
Set the name of the project to be used for the HgPoller. This will then be set in any changes generated by the HgPoller, and can be used in a Change Filter for triggering particular builders.
usetimestamps
parse each revision's commit timestamp (default is True), or ignore it in favor of the current time (so recently processed commits appear together in the waterfall page)
encoding
Set encoding will be used to parse author's name and commit message. Default encoding is 'utf-8'.

A configuration for the Mercurial poller might look like this:

from buildbot.plugins import changes
c['change_source'] = changes.HgPoller(repourl='http://hg.example.org/projects/myrepo',
                                      branch='great_new_feature',
                                      workdir='hg-myrepo')

2.4.3.10. BitbucketPullrequestPoller

class buildbot.changes.bitbucket.BitbucketPullrequestPoller

This BitbucketPullrequestPoller periodically polls Bitbucket for new or updated pull requests. It uses Bitbuckets powerful Pull Request REST API to gather the information needed.

The BitbucketPullrequestPoller accepts the following arguments:

owner
The owner of the Bitbucket repository. All Bitbucket Urls are of the form https://bitbucket.org/owner/slug/.
slug
The name of the Bitbucket repository.
branch
A single branch or a list of branches which should be processed. If it is None (the default) all pull requests are used.
pollInterval
Interval in seconds between polls, default is 10 minutes.
pollAtLaunch
Determines when the first poll occurs. True = immediately on launch, False = wait for one pollInterval (default).
category
Set the category to be used for the changes produced by the BitbucketPullrequestPoller. This will then be set in any changes generated by the BitbucketPullrequestPoller, and can be used in a Change Filter for triggering particular builders.
project
Set the name of the project to be used for the BitbucketPullrequestPoller. This will then be set in any changes generated by the BitbucketPullrequestPoller, and can be used in a Change Filter for triggering particular builders.
pullrequest_filter
A callable which takes one parameter, the decoded Python object of the pull request JSON. If the it returns False the pull request is ignored. It can be used to define custom filters based on the content of the pull request. See the Bitbucket documentation for more information about the format of the response. By default the filter always returns True.
usetimestamps
parse each revision's commit timestamp (default is True), or ignore it in favor of the current time (so recently processed commits appear together in the waterfall page)
encoding
Set encoding will be used to parse author's name and commit message. Default encoding is 'utf-8'.

A minimal configuration for the Bitbucket pull request poller might look like this:

from buildbot.plugins import changes
c['change_source'] = changes.BitbucketPullrequestPoller(
    owner='myname',
    slug='myrepo',
  )

Here is a more complex configuration using a pullrequest_filter. The pull request is only processed if at least 3 people have already approved it:

def approve_filter(pr, threshold):
    approves = 0
    for participant in pr['participants']:
        if participant['approved']:
            approves = approves + 1

    if approves < threshold:
        return False
    return True

from buildbot.plugins import changes
c['change_source'] = changes.BitbucketPullrequestPoller(
    owner='myname',
    slug='myrepo',
    branch='mybranch',
    project='myproject',
    pullrequest_filter=lambda pr : approve_filter(pr,3),
    pollInterval=600,
  )

Warning

Anyone who can create pull requests for the Bitbucket repository can initiate a change, potentially causing the buildmaster to run arbitrary code.

2.4.3.11. GerritChangeSource

class buildbot.changes.gerritchangesource.GerritChangeSource

The GerritChangeSource class connects to a Gerrit server by its SSH interface and uses its event source mechanism, gerrit stream-events.

The GerritChangeSource accepts the following arguments:

gerritserver
the dns or ip that host the gerrit ssh server
gerritport
the port of the gerrit ssh server
username
the username to use to connect to gerrit
identity_file
ssh identity file to for authentication (optional). Pay attention to the ssh passphrase
handled_events
event to be handled (optional). By default processes patchset-created and ref-updated
debug
Print gerrit event in the log (default False). This allows to debug event content, but will eventually fill your logs with useless gerrit event logs.

By default this class adds a change to the buildbot system for each of the following events:

patchset-created
A change is proposed for review. Automatic checks like checkpatch.pl can be automatically triggered. Beware of what kind of automatic task you trigger. At this point, no trusted human has reviewed the code, and a patch could be specially crafted by an attacker to compromise your workers.
ref-updated
A change has been merged into the repository. Typically, this kind of event can lead to a complete rebuild of the project, and upload binaries to an incremental build results server.

But you can specify how to handle Events:

  • Any event with change and patchSet will be processed by universal collector by default.
  • In case you've specified processing function for the given kind of events, all events of this kind will be processed only by this function, bypassing universal collector.

An example:

from buildbot.plugins import changes
class MyGerritChangeSource(changes.GerritChangeSource):
    """Custom GerritChangeSource
    """
    def eventReceived_patchset_created(self, properties, event):
        """Handler events without properties
        """
        properties = {}
        self.addChangeFromEvent(properties, event)

This class will populate the property list of the triggered build with the info received from Gerrit server in JSON format.

In case of patchset-created event, these properties will be:

event.change.branch
Branch of the Change
event.change.id
Change's ID in the Gerrit system (the ChangeId: in commit comments)
event.change.number
Change's number in Gerrit system
event.change.owner.email
Change's owner email (owner is first uploader)
event.change.owner.name
Change's owner name
event.change.project
Project of the Change
event.change.subject
Change's subject
event.change.url
URL of the Change in the Gerrit's web interface
event.patchSet.number
Patchset's version number
event.patchSet.ref
Patchset's Gerrit "virtual branch"
event.patchSet.revision
Patchset's Git commit ID
event.patchSet.uploader.email
Patchset uploader's email (owner is first uploader)
event.patchSet.uploader.name
Patchset uploader's name (owner is first uploader)
event.type
Event type (patchset-created)
event.uploader.email
Patchset uploader's email
event.uploader.name
Patchset uploader's name

In case of ref-updated event, these properties will be:

event.refUpdate.newRev
New Git commit ID (after merger)
event.refUpdate.oldRev
Previous Git commit ID (before merger)
event.refUpdate.project
Project that was updated
event.refUpdate.refName
Branch that was updated
event.submitter.email
Submitter's email (merger responsible)
event.submitter.name
Submitter's name (merger responsible)
event.type
Event type (ref-updated)
event.submitter.email
Submitter's email (merger responsible)
event.submitter.name
Submitter's name (merger responsible)

A configuration for this source might look like:

from buildbot.plugins import changes
c['change_source'] = changes.GerritChangeSource(
    "gerrit.example.com",
    "gerrit_user",
    handled_events=["patchset-created", "change-merged"])

see master/docs/examples/git_gerrit.cfg or master/docs/examples/repo_gerrit.cfg in the Buildbot distribution for a full example setup of Git+Gerrit or Repo+Gerrit of GerritChangeSource.

2.4.3.12. GerritChangeFilter

class buildbot.changes.gerritchangesource.GerritChangeFilter

GerritChangeFilter is a ready to use ChangeFilter you can pass to AnyBranchScheduler in order to filter changes, to create pre-commit builders or post-commit schedulers. It has the same api as Change Filter, except it has additionnal eventtype set of filter (can as well be specified as value, list, regular expression or callable)

An example is following:

from buildbot.plugins import schedulers, util
# this scheduler will create builds when a patch is uploaded to gerrit
# but only if it is uploaded to the "main" branch
schedulers.AnyBranchScheduler(name="main-precommit",
                              change_filter=util.GerritChangeFilter(branch="main",
                                                                    eventtype="patchset-created"),
                              treeStableTimer=15*60,
                              builderNames=["main-precommit"])

# this scheduler will create builds when a patch is merged in the "main" branch
# for post-commit tests
schedulers.AnyBranchScheduler(name="main-postcommit",
                              change_filter=util.GerritChangeFilter("main", "ref-updated"),
                              treeStableTimer=15*60,
                              builderNames=["main-postcommit"])

2.4.3.13. Change Hooks (HTTP Notifications)

Buildbot already provides a web frontend, and that frontend can easily be used to receive HTTP push notifications of commits from services like GitHub or GoogleCode. See Change Hooks for more information.

2.4.3.14. GoogleCodeAtomPoller

The GoogleCodeAtomPoller periodically polls a Google Code Project's commit feed for changes. Works on SVN, Git, and Mercurial repositories. Branches are not understood (yet). It accepts the following arguments:

feedurl
The commit Atom feed URL of the GoogleCode repository (MANDATORY)
pollinterval
Polling frequency for the feed (in seconds). Default is 1 hour (OPTIONAL)

As an example, to poll the Ostinato project's commit feed every 3 hours, the configuration would look like this:

from googlecode_atom import GoogleCodeAtomPoller
c['change_source'] = GoogleCodeAtomPoller(
    feedurl="http://code.google.com/feeds/p/ostinato/hgchanges/basic",
    pollinterval=10800)

Note

You will need to download googlecode_atom.py from the Buildbot source and install it somewhere on your PYTHONPATH first.