Gerrit Code Review - Command Line Tools

Client

Client commands and hooks can be downloaded via scp, wget or curl from Gerrit’s daemon, and then executed on the client system.

To download a client command or hook, use scp or an http client:

$ scp -p -P 29418 john.doe@review.example.com:bin/gerrit-cherry-pick ~/bin/
$ scp -p -P 29418 john.doe@review.example.com:hooks/commit-msg .git/hooks/

$ curl -Lo ~/bin/gerrit-cherry-pick http://review.example.com/tools/bin/gerrit-cherry-pick
$ curl -Lo .git/hooks/commit-msg http://review.example.com/tools/hooks/commit-msg

For more details on how to determine the correct SSH port number, see Testing Your SSH Connection.

Commands

gerrit-cherry-pick: Download and cherry-pick one or more changes (commits).

Hooks

Client hooks can be installed into a local Git repository, improving the developer experience when working with a Gerrit Code Review server.

commit-msg: Automatically generate Change-Id: tags in commit messages.

Server

Aside from the standard Git server side actions, Gerrit supports several other commands over its internal SSH daemon. As Gerrit does not provide an interactive shell, the commands must be triggered from an ssh client, for example:

  $ ssh -p 29418 review.example.com gerrit ls-projects

For more details on how to determine the correct SSH port number, see Testing Your SSH Connection.

User Commands

gerrit apropos: Search Gerrit documentation index.
gerrit ban-commit: Bans a commit from a project’s repository.
gerrit copy-approvals: Copy all inferred approvals labels to the latest patch-set.
gerrit check-project-access: Check if user(s) can read non-config refs of a project
gerrit create-branch: Create a new project branch.
gerrit ls-groups: List groups visible to the caller.
gerrit ls-members: List the membership of a group visible to the caller.
gerrit ls-projects: List projects visible to the caller.
gerrit query: Query the change search index.
'gerrit receive-pack': 'Deprecated alias for git receive-pack.'
gerrit rename-group: Rename an account group.
gerrit review: Verify, approve and/or submit a patch set from the command line.
gerrit set-head: Change the HEAD reference of a project.
gerrit set-project: Change a project’s settings.
gerrit set-project-parent: Change the project permissions are inherited from.
gerrit set-reviewers: Add or remove reviewers on a change.
gerrit set-topic: Set the topic for a change.
gerrit stream-events: Monitor events occurring in real time.
gerrit version: Show the currently executing version of Gerrit.
git receive-pack: Standard Git server side command for client side git push.

Also implements the magic associated with uploading commits for review. See Creating Changes.
git upload-pack: Standard Git server side command for client side git fetch.

Administrator Commands

gerrit close-connection: Close the specified SSH connection.
gerrit convert-ref-storage: Convert ref storage to reftable (experimental).
gerrit create-account: Create a new user account.
gerrit create-group: Create a new account group.
gerrit create-project: Create a new project and associated Git repository.
gerrit flush-caches: Flush some/all server caches from memory.
gerrit gc: Run the Git garbage collection.
gerrit index activate: Activate the latest index version available.
gerrit index start: Start the online indexer.
gerrit index changes: Index one or more changes.
gerrit index changes-in-project: Index all the changes in one or more projects.
gerrit logging ls-level: List loggers and their logging level.
gerrit logging set-level: Set the logging level of loggers.
gerrit ls-user-refs: Lists refs visible for a specified user.
gerrit migrate-externalids-to-insensitive: Migrate external-ids to case insensitive.
gerrit plugin add: Alias for 'gerrit plugin install'.
gerrit plugin enable: Enable plugins.
gerrit plugin install: Install/Add a plugin.
gerrit plugin ls: List the installed plugins.
gerrit plugin reload: Reload/Restart plugins.
gerrit plugin remove: Disable plugins.
gerrit plugin rm: Alias for 'gerrit plugin remove'.
gerrit reload-config: Apply an updated gerrit.config.
gerrit set-account: Change an account’s settings.
gerrit sequence set: Set new sequence value.
gerrit sequence show: Display current sequence value.
gerrit set-members: Set group members.
gerrit show-caches: Display current cache statistics.
gerrit show-connections: Display active client SSH connections.
gerrit show-queue: Display the background work queues, including replication.
gerrit test-submit rule: Test prolog submit rules.
gerrit test-submit type: Test prolog submit type.
kill: Kills a scheduled or running task.
ps: Alias for 'gerrit show-queue'.
suexec: Execute a command as any registered user account.

Trace

For executing SSH commands tracing can be enabled by setting the --trace and --trace-id <trace-id> options. It is recommended to use the ID of the issue that is being investigated as trace ID.

  $ ssh -p 29418 review.example.com gerrit create-project --trace --trace-id issue/123 foo/bar

It is also possible to omit the trace ID and get a unique trace ID generated.

  $ ssh -p 29418 review.example.com gerrit create-project --trace foo/bar

Enabling tracing results in additional logs with debug information that are written to the error_log. All logs that correspond to the traced request are associated with the trace ID. The trace ID is printed to the stderr command output:

  TRACE_ID: 1534174322774-7edf2a7b

Given the trace ID an administrator can find the corresponding logs and investigate issues more easily.

Setting a deadline

When invoking an SSH command it’s possible that the client sets a deadline after which the request should be aborted. To do this the --deadline <deadline> option must be set on the request. Values must be specified using standard time unit abbreviations ('ms', 'sec', 'min', etc.).

  $ ssh -p 29418 review.example.com gerrit create-project --deadline 5m foo/bar

Part of Gerrit Code Review