Review Bot is a tool for automating tasks on code uploaded to Review Board, and posting the results as a code review. Review Bot was built to automate the execution of static analysis tools.
Review Bot is:
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Extensible: Writing plugins is simple using a convenient API to retrieve code files and craft a review. If more power is needed, tools can access the full Review Board API.
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Scalable: Review Bot is built using Celery and can scale out to service very large Review Board instances.
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Integrated Configuration: Tools are configured through the Review Board admin panel, including settings uniquely defined for each task.
Review Bot requires installation of a Review Board extension, a message broker, and at least one Review Bot worker.
RabbitMQ is the recommended message broker. Although Review Bot is tested with RabbitMQ, any of the Celery [supported brokers](http://docs.celeryproject.org/en/latest/getting- started/brokers/) should work.
Please see the broker specific documentation for installation instructions.
Review Bot 1.0 is a fairly major departure from the previous pre-releases (0.1 and 0.2), and requires Review Board 3.0 or newer. If you're using an older version of Review Board, please see the documentation for the 0.1 or 0.2 branches.
If you're updating from a previous version of Review Bot, you'll need to uninstall the old extension module first. The configuration of the old extension works somewhat differently than it used to, so you may want to first make a note of which tools are used and what their configuration is. You can then uninstall the old version by running:
pip uninstall Review_Bot_ExtensionTo install the Review Bot extension, on the Review Board server, run:
pip install reviewbot-extensionOnce done, reload Apache, then log in to Review Board's administration interface and select "Extensions" at the top of the page. If you don't see the "Review Bot" extension, click "Scan for installed extensions". Click "Enable" on the extension to enable it.
If you had previously installed Review Bot 0.1 or 0.2, you'll need to uninstall the old worker first:
pip uninstall ReviewBotTo install the worker, run:
pip install reviewbot-workerThe worker can be started using the reviewbot command:
reviewbot worker -b <broker_url>This will start up the worker, which is a celery app. For more info on this process, see the documentation on Celery Applications and Workers.
When a worker starts, it will check to see what tools are available. Installing the Review Bot worker will automatically install tools which are written in Python, but some other tools require separate installation.
The available tools are:
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BuildBot "try"
This tool will attempt to build the patch using the BuildBot "try" command". The necessary dependencies for buildbot are automatically installed along with the worker.
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CPPCheck, a tool for static C/C++ code analysis
CPPCheck is available through most system package managers. For example, on Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get install cppcheck
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CPPLint, static code checker for C++
The necessary dependencies for CPPLint are automatically installed with the worker.
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JSHint, a JavaScript code quality tool
JSHint is available through npm. This requires nodejs to be installed on the system:
sudo npm install -g jshint
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PEP-8, the Python style guide checker
The necessary dependencies for PEP-8 are automatically installed with the worker.
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PMD
PMD can be installed through many system package managers, or downloaded and installed manually. Using PMD requires the path to the PMD executable (often called
run.sh) to be configured. See "Worker Configuration" below. -
Pyflakes, a passive checker of Python programs
The necessary dependencies for Pyflakes are automatically installed with the worker.
After the Review Bot extension is enabled, it needs to be configured. On the Review Bot entry in the extension list, click on "Configure".
There are two items that need to be set here: the user, and the broker URL. If you were previously using Review Bot 0.1 or 0.2, select the existing Review Bot user. Otherwise, click "create a new user for Review Bot".
For the broker URL, put in the URL of your RabbitMQ or other celery broker.
After saving the configuration, the page will attempt to contact the broker and check for workers. The "Broker Status" box will indicate whether everything is set up correctly.
In most cases, the worker does not require any configuration. When you start the Review Bot worker it will print a message, "Loading config file", with the path to the configuration file. If you need to configure the worker, create this file.
At the moment, the only configuration necessary is if you want to use the PMD
tool, which requires configuration of the path to the PMD executable (because
PMD does not have a standard installation procedure). The path should be set to
the location of PMD's run script, which is sometimes called pmd and sometimes
called run.sh, depending on the method of installation.
pmd_path = '/usr/local/bin/pmd'Once the extension itself has been configured, you need to add one or more tool configurations. In the admin site, "Integrations" at the top. Then click "Add a new configuration" under the Review Bot section.
Each tool configuration allows you to specify a tool to run, the conditions for when that tool is run, and some options for how it is run.
First, give the configuration a name. You can then choose a set of conditions for when the tool should run. If you would like it to run on every change, choose "Always match". Otherwise, you can select a set of conditions (such as a repository, or an assigned group).
Next, choose which tool to run. It's important to note that the tools will only run if they're currently available on a running worker node. Finally, you can set a handful of tool-specific options.
You can configure the same tool multiple times via multiple configurations. This is useful in cases where you might have two different groups that have different needs. Note that if the conditions for two configurations of the same tool both match, the tool will run twice.