hg notify inter-repo mechanics

[John Turner]

On Mon, 05 Jan 2015 10:29:46 -0500, Simon King <simon at simonking.org.uk>  
wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 2:06 PM, John Turner <jjturner at energi.com> wrote:
>> On Sun, 04 Jan 2015 15:35:34 -0500, Simon King <simon at simonking.org.uk>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>> On 4 Jan 2015, at 01:28, John Turner <jjturner at energi.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, 03 Jan 2015 09:20:57 -0500, Mads Kiilerich  
>>>> <mads at kiilerich.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On 01/02/2015 07:31 PM, John Turner wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, 01 Jan 2015 13:40:13 -0500, Mads Kiilerich
>>>>>> <mads at kiilerich.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 12/29/2014 06:34 PM, John Turner wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Greetings,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I'm seeking some clarity on the mechanics and/or best-practices  
>>>>>>>> for
>>>>>>>> implementation of hg notify, namely, which side of the execution
>>>>>>>> chain
>>>>>>>> should invoke the mail notification, given a local(n) <-->
>>>>>>>> centralized(1) workflow.
>>>>>>>> ..
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>> .. My initial
>>>>>>>> expectation was that the passive repo (i.e., the central repo)  
>>>>>>>> would
>>>>>>>> invoke the mail notification, and thereby obviate the need to  
>>>>>>>> define
>>>>>>>> a
>>>>>>>> notify config for each local developer, but it appears that hg  
>>>>>>>> notify
>>>>>>>> executes from the active repo only.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Correct, doing it on the central server makes more sense than  
>>>>>>> doing it
>>>>>>> on the "client" side.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The server side hg is however not "passive". The example in the
>>>>>>> beginning of "hg help notify" shows how to use hooks that will be
>>>>>>> invoked on the server side when a client push changes.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> /Mads
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks for offering your advice on this Mads.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hmm... so far no matter what I do, my client-side push does nothing  
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> invoke the server-side hooks.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Then you have to debug your server side setup.
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't think you have told us anything about your server side setup  
>>>>> so
>>>>> any advice will probably be wrong.
>>>>>
>>>>> /Mads
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The the canonical central repo exists on a Windows 2008 R2 box.
>>>> The directory owner of the central repo is a shared domain account:
>>>> 'companydomain\devadmin'
>>>> (this is the account we normally rdp with to work directly in this
>>>> server)
>>>>
>>>> At the same time, I've added my personal domain account to the
>>>> server-side Administrators group, and I've also added my account as a  
>>>> share
>>>> on the actual server-side repo directory (allowing me to map it on my  
>>>> local
>>>> machine, and generally to perform source control operations between  
>>>> my local
>>>> repo and the server repo without running hgweb).
>>>>
>>>> The directory owner of my local repo is "Administrators" (as opposed  
>>>> to
>>>> the shared domain account referenced above, which I suspect may be  
>>>> part of
>>>> the issue..)
>>>>
>>>> Interestingly, when I enable the notify hook on my local machine, and
>>>> push from the rdp-connected server (with server-side notify  
>>>> disabled), it
>>>> DOES send the email - and returns the changegroup hook when I run 'hg
>>>> showconfig hooks' from the server's CLI.
>>>>
>>>> However, the converse is not true - 'hg showconfig hooks' run on my  
>>>> local
>>>> machine CLI with notify locally disabled, and server-side notify  
>>>> enabled
>>>> yields nothing.  At the same time 'hg showconfig hooks' run on the
>>>> server-side CLI via rdp returns the changegroup hook reference.
>>>>
>>>> So I'm 3 for 4:
>>>> - local notify enabled and local push to central sends email
>>>> - central notify enabled and central push to local sends email
>>>> - local notify enabled and central push to local sends email
>>>>
>>>> ..and trying to solve for central notify enabled and local push to
>>>> central.
>>>>
>>>> Hope that gives enough background for anyone and isn't too confusing.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> John
>>>>
>>>
>>> How are you enabling and configuring the notify extension on the  
>>> server?
>>> In the repository’s hgrc file, or in a different config file? Your  
>>> original
>>> mail mentioned “mercurial.ini”, which suggests that you’re configuring  
>>> this
>>> in the config file for a *user* on the server (eg.
>>> C:\Users\devadmin\mercurial.ini).
>>>
>>> If you are pushing to a repository on a mapped network drive, then as  
>>> far
>>> as mercurial is concerned this is a “local” push. There is only a  
>>> single
>>> “hg” process running (as opposed to pushing over http or ssh, where  
>>> there
>>> are 2 hg processes running). The user account that owns the remote
>>> repository is not particularly relevant - mercurial is simply  
>>> performing
>>> filesystem operations directly in the repository. Mercurial doesn’t  
>>> even
>>> need to be installed on the server for this to work.
>>>
>>> However, this also means that mercurial won’t load a user config file  
>>> from
>>> the remote server. The only config file it will read from the server  
>>> will be
>>> the one inside the repository itself, at <repo>/.hg/hgrc. This is  
>>> where you
>>> would need to configure the notify extension.
>>>
>>> In this configuration, it is still your client-side hg process which is
>>> actually loading the extension and sending the email. If you need the  
>>> email
>>> to be sent by the server, then you need to be connecting to an hg  
>>> process
>>> running on the server, either via ssh or http (hgweb).
>>>
>>> Hope that helps,
>>>
>>> Simon
>>
>>
>> Thanks Simon, this clears things up quite a bit!
>>
>> (and for the record, it is the C:\Users\devadmin\mercurial.ini file  
>> that I'm
>> testing with)
>>
>> Given the realities - small dev team, an unfun/unsuccessful first pass  
>> at
>> setting up hgweb on IIS, and not relishing an alternative foray of  
>> setting
>> up ssh connectivity, I think I'll opt to stay with the "local" setup.
>>
>> So if I understand you correctly, I can enable the notify extension on  
>> each
>> dev's machine with shares to central repo - wherein the <repo>\.hg\hgrc
>> config file will be defined for *how/when* to send the email (rather  
>> than in
>> the central %HOME%\mercurial.ini) - but the actual email gets generated  
>> on
>> the client/local side based on that config.  Does that sound feasible?
>>
>
> If you're going down this path, I think you can do *all* the
> configuration in the central <repo>\.hg\hgrc file (including enabling
> the notify extension itself) - you wouldn't need to configure anything
> at all on each dev machine.
>
> By default on Unix, mercurial would refuse to read a config file that
> is owned by another user, since config files effectively contain
> executable code (http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/Trust). However, it
> looks like that doesn't apply on Windows:
>
> http://selenic.com/hg/file/42908c3275c6/mercurial/ui.py#l120
> http://selenic.com/hg/file/42908c3275c6/mercurial/windows.py#l184
>
> If that ever changes, you would need to configure the dev machines
> such that they trust the user account owning the config file.
>
> I think your setup does sound feasible, particularly for a small team,
> but I think it's fair to say that hgweb or ssh would be the preferred
> setup. If IIS was causing a problem, perhaps you could consider
> running hgweb standalone?
>
> Simon

Ok, thanks again Simon - I'll give it a whirl and see how it works with  
all config on the server side!

Cheers,
John