Deploying Gerrit Code Review

Shawn Pearce, Magnus Bäck,

Stefan Lay, Matthias Sohn
Today's Agenda
Introduction to Gerrit
Access Controls
Scaling Gerrit
Advanced Workflows
Gerrit's History
Android Open Source Project
Peer code review is central to development at Google
Android needed a tool to support open source on Git

Project Lineage
Google Mondrian ⇉ Rietveld ⇉ Gerrit 1.x ⇉ Gerrit 2.x

Contributors
Google, Qualcomm, SAP, Sony Mobile, Wikimedia,
GerritForge, CollabNet, Spotify, Garmin, Kitware, ...
Deployment Options
Database
H2 (built-in), PostgreSQL, MySQL
Servlet Container
Jetty (built-in), Tomcat (war deployment)
Authentication
LDAP, OpenID, Container
For this tutorial we will use H2 and Jetty
Exercise 1 – Install Gerrit
(optional) Create a non-privileged user to run Gerrit
$ sudo adduser gerrit2
$ sudo su gerrit2

Initialize review site (batch mode) and start Gerrit

$ java -jar gerrit.war init --batch -d ~/gerrit_testsite

Server starts automatically on Linux and Mac OS X

On Windows, start by hand in 2 more slides

http://code.google.com/p/gerrit/downloads/detail?name=gerrit-2.6-rc0.war
Exercise 1 – Configure
Gerrit
Edit settings in '~/gerrit_testsite/etc/gerrit.config'

Change
[auth]
type = OPENID
into
[auth]
type = DEVELOPMENT_BECOME_ANY_ACCOUNT

OPENID: requires network access

DEVELOPMENT_BECOME_ANY_ACCOUNT: good for experimentation
Exercise 1 – Restart Gerrit
Restart Gerrit server to pickup config changes:
$ ~/gerrit_testsite/bin/gerrit.sh restart

or if you like to type, restart in two steps:

$ ~/gerrit_testsite/bin/gerrit.sh stop
$ ~/gerrit_testsite/bin/gerrit.sh start

On Windows, start the daemon:

$ java -jar gerrit.war daemon -d ~/gerrit_testsite
Use Ctrl + C to stop
Exercise 2 – Admin User
Check if you have a ssh key pair
$ ls ~/.ssh
authorized_keys config id_rsa id_rsa.pub known_hosts

If necessary generate a key pair with a passphrase

$ ssh-keygen -t rsa

Open Gerrit UI (URL and listen port defined in gerrit.config)

http://localhost:8080/
Exercise 2 – Admin User
Register a new user (The first user has admin rights) 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.
Exercise 2 – Admin User
Add public ssh key (content of ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub)
Exercise 3 – Developer User
The first user created is granted admin rights automatically.
Additional users are ordinary users with no special powers.

Create an ordinary user

- Sign out your admin user
- Click on "Become"
- Click on "New Account"
- Enter name and email
The email address should be the one you use for git

- Enter a different username, "developer" (used later in slides)

- Upload your same public ssh key

Create a Project
A Project corresponds to a git repo located in gerrit.basePath

Use ssh command

$ ssh -p 29418 alexadmin@localhost gerrit create-project --
name myproject

Web alternative
http://localhost:8080/ Projects > Create New Project

Command line alternative

Copy bare Git repository into ~/gerrit_testsite/git/myproject.git
Make Gerrit look for new repositories:
$ ssh -p 29418 alexadmin@localhost gerrit flush-caches
--cache project_list
Exercise 4 – Create a Project
Use ssh command
$ ssh -p 29418 alexadmin@localhost gerrit create-project
--name myproject

Inspect the newly created project

- Go to the WebUI, click Projects > List

- Click on the new project and inspect its properties

- type ls ~/gerrit_testsite/git
 Reviewing Code
Push to the "magic" refs/for/<branch_name>
Gerrit creates a special ref for the commit
Gerrit creates a Change with a Patch-Set

A Change-Id line is needed to match further versions of the

Change
Install the Change-id hook before pushing

Every logged-in user can see and review the change

Exercise 5 – Reviewing Code
$ git clone ssh://developer@localhost:29418/myproject
$ cd myproject

Install the Change-Id hook

$ scp -p -P 29418 developer@localhost:hooks/commit-msg .
git/hooks/

Create a change
$ echo "Hello Gerrit" > hello.txt
$ git add hello.txt
$ git commit -m "My first change"

Push it for review

$ git push origin HEAD:refs/for/master
Exercise 5 – Reviewing Code
Login as the developer user.

Access the Change in the browser:

Direct link: http://localhost:8080/1

Click on hello.txt, double click on the content and enter some text

Click on "Review"
Exercise 5 – Reviewing Code
By default every logged-in user can review

But: +1 is not sufficient to submit (merge) the change.

Submitting a Change
Submitting: merging into the target branch

Default workflow:
A change can be submitted if it:
- has highest vote in every label category
- has no lowest vote in any label category

Normally project committers are allowed to submit.

Exercise – Create Group
The developer user needs permissions to submit
Permissions can be modified by any admin (more details later)

- Log in as admin
- People > Create New Group
- Name "myproject-committers"
- Add developer user
Exercise – Grant Access
Projects > List > myproject
Projects > Access
Add permissions:
Exercise – Submit Change
Log in as developer again, click Review button
Addressing Review Issues
- A version of a Change is called a Patch Set
- A Patch Set is represented by a Git commit
- A new Patch Set "replaces" an older one

- A Patch Set must not use another Patch Set as parent

- A new Patch Set is created by amend:

git commit --amend
Exercise – Be Human
Create another change
$ echo "Hello EclipseCon in Reston" > conference.txt
$ git add conference.txt
$ git commit -m "Greet EclipseCon"

Push this for review

$ git push origin HEAD:refs/for/master
Exercise – Being Human
Exercise – Address Issues
Create another version of the change
$ echo "Hello EclipseCon in Boston" > conference.txt
$ git add conference.txt
$ git commit --amend
Note: Do NOT use -m here, the Change-Id would be replaced

Push it for review

$ git push origin HEAD:refs/for/master
Submit Behavior
Submit Action: set on project level

- Fast Forward Only: no merges, linear history

- Merge If Necessary: default, like git merge*
- Always Merge: like git merge --no-ff*
- Rebase If Necessary: rebase*
- Cherry Pick: cherry pick the patch set, ignoring lineage

* content merge only if Automatically resolve conflicts is set

Scaling Gerrit
The Boondocks
Scaling Gerrit
Memory
Size of Git on disk, plus 2G (or more)
~8G Java heap, 24G heap not uncommon

Replication and Slaves

Multiple servers with local Git repositories
Geographical distribution
Shared ACLs, users, groups
Use Optimized git clone
"Import" and register two new Git repositories:
$ mv linux_*.git ~/gerrit_testsite/git
$ ssh -p 29418 alexadmin@localhost gerrit flush-caches

Clone Linux kernel repository:

$ git clone ssh://alexadmin@localhost:29418/linux_orig t1
Cloning into 't1'...
remote: Counting objects: ...

Clone with optimized support:

$ git clone ssh://alexadmin@localhost:29418/linux_opt t2
Cloning into 't2'... JGit and Gerrit magic.
Unlike anything else.
remote: ...
Scaling Up JGit
Wed. 11:15 - 11:50
Harborview Ballroom 2
Access Controls
Access Control Overview
● Fine-grained, per-reference controls of
creations, deletions, reviews, reads, and
writes, ...

● Server-wide capabilities allow administrators

to delegate some administrative duties.
Permission Assignment
Permissions can only be granted to groups.
Users (or groups) may be added to groups.
Special built-in groups:
Anonymous Users -- users not signed in (anyone! everyone!)
Registered Users -- any signed in user (everyone!)
Project Owners -- substitution placeholder (more later)

Default groups:
Administrators -- granted all capabilities
Non-Interactive Users -- assigned to
Inheritance
ACL
● "Registered users" can
read all branches.
Project ACL of ● "Super users" can
A approve changes.
inherit from

Project
B
ACL
● "Registered users" can
read all branches.
ACL of ● "Super users" can approve
changes.
● "CI system user" can mark
changes as verified.
An ACL Entry
An ACL Entry
Reference pattern (what branches the grants impact)

Permission or capability

Group (of users or nested groups) that can use this power.

Range of permitted votes/scores.

Disable permission inheritance

References in ACLs

Read refs/heads/*
Push refs/for/refs/heads/*
Label Code-Review refs/heads/master
Label Verify ^refs/heads/release-[0-9]\.[0-9]$
 Exclusive Flag

git ls-remote --heads ssh://alexadmin@localhost:

29418/myproject
.... refs/heads/master
.... refs/heads/sekret

git ls-remote --heads ssh://developer@localhost:

29418/myproject
.... refs/heads/master
Example: Contributor
refs/heads/* Permits accessing branches
Can see all changes
ALLOW Read
Enable users to vote thumbs up
Label Code-Review −1..+1 or thumbs down on changes.
No real impact, just warm-fuzzy.

refs/for/refs/heads/* Enable contributions

ALLOW Push
Example: Maintainer
refs/heads/*
− Can reject a change
Label Code-Review −2..+2 + Can accept a change

Label Verify −1..+1 Submit to project branch, adding

change to next version, and to the
ALLOW Submit project's permanent history.

refs/tags/* Create new release tags

ALLOW Push Annotated Tag

Example: CI system
refs/heads/*
Continuous integration can vote:
Label Verified −1..+1 −1 = change did not compile
+1 = compiles, passed tests

Create only nightly tags

refs/tags/nightly/*
ALLOW Push Annotated Tag
Exercise – Typical ACL
● All registered users can upload and submit changes and
have the full range of the Verified and Code-Review
labels.

● The “Wizards” group can also push annotated tags and

are the only ones who may approve (i.e. Code Review
+2) and submit changes for branches whose names end
with “-release”.
Read Permission
Controls who can:
● see a branch in the web UI
● access the branch via Git
○ fetch
○ clone
○ push
● see changes uploaded for the branch
● see changes merged into the branch
Push Permission
Controls who can:
● upload changes for review
○ if reference is refs/for/refs/heads/...

● push commits directly into a branch

○ if reference is refs/heads/...

● delete a branch or non-fast forward update

○ if “Force” flag is set
Submit Permission
Controls who can:

Submit a change that has required approvals

Unlike Push refs/heads/... enforces workflow

Forge {Author,Committer}

Controls who can:

Forge Author upload commits by another

Forge Committer upload commits or tags by another

Compares email address stored by Git...

... with email addresses in Gerrit.
Push Annotated Tag
Controls who can
● push annotated tags (“git tag -a”).

Tags live in the refs/tags namespace, so

assigning this to refs/tags/* makes sense.
refs/heads/* does not.
ACL Data Store

git
refs/heads/master
Main.java
MyClass.java

refs/meta/config
groups
project.config
 project.config
[project]
description = Rights inherited by all other projects
state = active

[access "refs/*"]
read = group Administrators
read = group Anonymous Users
forgeAuthor = group Registered Users

[access "refs/for/refs/*"]
push = group Registered Users

[access "refs/heads/*"]
label-Code-Review = -1..+1 group Registered Users
Exercise – Propose ACL
Mortal users that can't change the permissions directly can
propose changes in the web UI and have them reviewed
like any other code change.

Let's try it out! Update some permissions but instead of

clicking Save Changes, click Save for Review.

You'll get an error message. Why?

Exercise – Explore
refs/meta/config
Update project configuration through refs/meta/config:
$ git init cfg ; cd cfg
$ git remote add origin ssh://developer@localhost:29418/All-Projects
$ git pull origin refs/meta/config
$ vi project.config
$ git commit -a -m 'Updated permissions'
$ git push origin HEAD:refs/meta/config

Try doing this for a “real” project (instead of a permission-

only project like All-Projects).

What existing tool can you use to batch edit these files?
Advanced Workflows
Default Rules
Define default rules in Prolog:
$ git init rules ; cd rules
$ git remote add origin ssh://adminalex@localhost:29418/myproject
$ git pull origin refs/meta/config
$ vi rules.pl

submit_rule(submit(CR, V)) :-
gerrit:max_with_block(-1, 1, 'Verified', V),
gerrit:max_with_block(-2, 2, 'Code-Review', CR).

$ git add rules.pl

$ git commit -a -m 'Default Prolog rules'
$ git push origin HEAD:refs/meta/config
Verified-by Skips Verified
Update rules.pl to make Verified label optional:
submit_rule(submit(CR)) :-
gerrit:commit_message_matches('^Verified-by: '),
!,
gerrit:max_with_block(-2, 2, 'Code-Review', CR).

submit_rule(submit(CR, V)) :-
gerrit:max_with_block(-1, 1, 'Verified', V),
gerrit:max_with_block(-2, 2, 'Code-Review', CR).

Create a change with commit message:

Greetings EclipseCon, Boston

Verified-by: Person on my left

Notice Verified label is not used in web interface.

Need CQ >= 2 Lines
Append to project.config to declare CQ label in web UI
[label "CQ"]
value = 0 CQ Pending
value = +1 CQ Approved

Replace rules.pl to check for 2 new lines and need CQ

submit_rule(submit(CR, V, CQ)) :-
gerrit:commit_stats(_, Inserted, _), Inserted >= 2, !,
base(CR, V),
gerrit:max_with_block(0, 1, 'CQ', CQ).

submit_rule(submit(CR, V)) :-
base(CR, V).

base(CR, V) :-
gerrit:max_with_block(-1, 1, 'Verified', V),
gerrit:max_with_block(-2, 2, 'Code-Review', CR).
No Self Approvals
Replace rules.pl to ignore self-approved Code-Review +2
submit_rule(submit(CR, V, N)) :-
gerrit:commit_author(A),
gerrit:max_with_block(-2, 2, 'Code-Review', label(_, ok(A))),
N = label('Non-Author Code-Review', need(_)),
base(CR, V),
!.

submit_rule(submit(CR, V)) :-
base(CR, V).

base(CR, V) :-
gerrit:max_with_block(-1, 1, 'Verified', V),
gerrit:max_with_block(-2, 2, 'Code-Review', CR).
Thanks! Other Cool Stuff
Plugins/Extensions External group systems; User avatars; External accounts (future)

Integrations Jenkins/Hudson CI; JIRA/Bugzilla; index by bug numbers

Mylyn Reviews Gerrit Connector; Skalli Project Portal

stream-events Monitor server activity in real time, react to events (e.g. CI)

Draft changes Private reviews, double check diff before review

Workflow by file Add (or simplify) review flow for Documentation, etc.

REST API Stable JSON based REST API

CI systems can insert comments directly on lines of code.

code.google.com/p/gerrit
Scaling Gerrit (continued)

Memory Usage
Gerrit Loves Memory
Git data
Paged into Java heap on demand
Custom block cache implementation
Works around Java mmap() limitations

ACLs, Accounts, Groups, Diffs

Cached to speed up authorization, display
Java Container
container.heapLimit
Bytes of memory JVM can use for Gerrit (Java -Xmx flag), e.g. 24g

container.javaOptions
Additional flags to pass to JVM, e.g. -d64 -server

core.packedGitOpenFiles
Defines open files ulimit. Gerrit sets process ulimit to MAX(1024, packedGitOpenFiles * 2)
Minimum ulimit selected by gerrit.sh is 1024.
JGit Cache Settings
core.packedGitLimit (10 MiB)
Max. bytes to load and cache in memory from pack files.

core.packedGitOpenFiles (128)
Max. number of pack files to have open at once.

core.packedGitWindowSize (8 kiB)
Bytes of a pack file to load into memory in a single read operation.

core.deltaBaseCacheLimit (10 MiB)

Max. bytes for caching base objects that multiple deltafied objects reference.

core.streamFileThreshold (25% of heap)

Largest object size, in bytes, allocated as a contiguous byte array.
Servers should set this to be larger than the size of their common big files.
Gerrit Cache Settings
cache.directory Local disk cache, holds data across restarts
cache.<name>.maxAge Maximum age to keep an entry in the cache
cache.<name>.memoryLimit Total cost (size) of entries to retain in memory
cache.<name>.diskLimit Total size in bytes of cache entries on disk
http://localhost:8080/Documentation/config-gerrit.html#_a_id_cache_a_section_cache

$ ssh -p 29418 alexadmin@localhost gerrit show-caches

Gerrit Code Review 2.6-rc0 now 00:09:18 PDT
uptime 44 min 17 sec

Name |Entries | AvgGet |Hit Ratio|

| Mem Disk Space| |Mem Disk|
--------------------------------+---------------------+---------+---------+
accounts | 2 | 2.0ms | 99% |
accounts_byemail | 3 | 700.0us | 62% |
...
Scaling Gerrit
Concurrent Requests
Database Connections
database.poolLimit (8)
Limit on open database connections; resources of DB must be considered.
Need at least sshd.threads + 4 database connections to avoid deadlocks.

database.poolMinIdle (4)
Minimum number of connections to keep idle in the pool.

database.poolMaxIdle (4)
Maximum number of connections to keep idle in the pool.

database.poolMaxWait (30sec)
Max. time request processing thread will wait to acquire a database connection.
Jetty HTTP Daemon
httpd.acceptorThreads (2)
Worker threads dedicated to accepting new incoming TCP connections.

httpd.minThreads / httpd.maxThreads (25)

Minimum/Maximum number of spare threads to keep.

httpd.maxQueued (50)
Maximum number of connections which can enter the queue waiting for a worker thread.

httpd.maxWait (5min)
Maximum time for a project clone, fetch or push request over smart HTTP.
SSH Daemon
sshd.threads (1.5xCPUs)
Number of threads to execute SSH command requests.

sshd.batchThreads (0)
Number of threads for SSH command requests from Non-Interactive Users.

sshd.streamThreads (1+CPUs)
Number of threads for formatting events to asynchronous streaming clients.

sshd.commandStartThreads (2)
Number of threads used to start new SSH commands.

sshd.maxConnectionsPerUser (64)
Maximum number of concurrent SSH sessions for a user account.
receive-pack (git push)
receive.maxObjectSizeLimit (0)
Maximum Git object size that receive-pack will accept.
Use this to prevent pushing objects which are too large to Gerrit.

receive.threadPoolSize (number of CPUs)

Number of threads to process received Git data.
Database updates use changeUpdateThreads.

receive.changeUpdateThreads (disabled)
Number of threads to perform database metadata updates.
Slower databases can benefit from parallel updates if users frequently push multiple changes.

receive.timeout (2min)
Upper bound on time taken to process change data received from client.
Exercise – Inspect State
Display active client SSH connections
$ ssh -p 29418 localhost gerrit show-connections

Display the background work queues, including replication

$ ssh -p 29418 localhost gerrit show-queue

Display current cache statistics

$ ssh -p 29418 localhost gerrit show-caches

Flush some/all server caches from memory

$ ssh -p 29418 localhost gerrit flush-caches --all | --list | --cache
<NAME>

Find command details here

http://localhost:8080/Documentation/cmd-index.html
Exercise – Monitor Activity
Monitor events occurring in real time
$ ssh -p 29418 localhost gerrit stream-events

keep this open and try this from a second shell:

- upload a new patchset
- submit a change

Explore the server logs at '~/gerrit_testsite/logs'

If a command hangs jstack and jconsole are your

friend
Scaling Gerrit
Going Faster
Exercise – Manage Git GC
$ ssh -p 29418 localhost gerrit gc [--all] <NAME> ...
--all run gc for all projects sequentially

GC configuration:
defined in ~/.gitconfig of the system user that runs the Gerrit server
or in specific <project>.git/config

Exercise:
- type $ git help config and explore the gc configuration options
- run gc on a project (if it's new you may need to tweak the gc configuration)
- find the gc log and check gc statistics
Speed Up git clone
Make our project history larger:
$ for a in {1..99};do echo $a >a;git add a;git commit -m $a;done
$ git push ~/gerrit_testsite/git/myproject.git master

Clone to a new client:

$ git clone ssh://alexadmin@localhost:29418/myproject t2
Cloning into 't2'...
remote: Counting objects: 300, done

Make it faster:
$ ssh -p 29418 alexadmin@localhost gerrit gc myproject
$ git clone ssh://alexadmin@localhost:29418/myproject t3
Cloning into 't3'...
remote: Total 300 (delta 0), reused 300 (delta 0)
Distribute Load
Replicate to other servers
Enable replication plugin
Configure remotes in site_path/etc/replication.config

Gerrit Slaves
Only serve Git over SSH

Enforce same Read access permissions, using same user and groups.
container.slave = true
database.database = ... same address as master ...
cache.<name>.maxAge = 15min # or some other low value