Tutorial: Installing Review Board on Ubuntu
posted by Geoff Ford on 09 Jul 2009
Review Board is an open source tool that allows you to conduct code reviews in an easy informal yet structured manner.
It does away with 'over-the-shoulder' reviews and makes email review hell a thing of the past. Each review has its own set of comments and patches in one place, which all developers on the project can see.
I have just finished installing Review Board on Ubuntu Jaunty and thought it might be useful to set out.
This is a step-by-step nothing missing tutorial from a clean Ubuntu install to your first review request.
1. Setting up a Server
I chose to use Apache2 with mod_python, as advised by the Review Board team. Apparently there are some issues with running it as fastcgi. To get an apache install capable of serving python pages:
sudo apt-get install apache2 sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-python sudo a2enmod python
2. Setting up storage
First we need to get MySQL and the python bindings for MySQL
sudo apt-get install mysql-server sudo apt-get install python-mysqldb
For faster responses, we are going to install memcache and its python bindings.
sudo apt-get install memcached sudo apt-get install memcached-dev sudo apt-get install python-memcache
You will need to create a database and a database user for Review Board using the following.
mysql -uroot -p mysql> create database reviewboard; Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec) mysql> create user 'rb'@'localhost' identified by 'rb_password'; Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql> grant all on reviewboard.* to 'rb'@'localhost' Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec) mysql> exit Bye
3. Setting up Subversion
Review Board requires a Subversion client and python bindings, as well as the patch tool.
sudo apt-get install patch sudo apt-get install subversion sudo apt-get install python-svn
4. Getting Review Board
Review Board is installed using easy_install. If you don't already have setup tools installed you will need to install it first.
sudo apt-get install python-setuptools sudo easy_install reviewboard
5. Creating your site
In this tutorial I am assuming that you are creating a dedicated server for Review Board. This means that Review Board will be default site. Installing as a subdomain is readily supported but I have not tested it.
Start the site creator with:
sudo rb-site install /var/www/reviewboard
To serve Review Board as the root site, use the following settings:
- Domain = localhost
- Root Path = /
- Media URL = media/
- Database Type = mysql
- Database Name = reviewboard
- Database server = localhost
- Database username = 'rb' & password = 'rb_password' or whatever you used earlier in step 2
- Cache Type = memcache
- Memcache Server = memcached://localhost:11211/ (This should be the default)
- Webserver = apache
- Python loader = modpython
- Admin account - enter your details here
Then wait for all the little green ticks to appear.
6. Configuring your site
First you need to allow the apache server to manage the uploads directory with:
sudo chown -R www-data /var/www/reviewboard/htdocs/media/uploads
Then you need to copy the site configuration into apache and enable. We are also going to disable the default site and then restart the apache server.
sudo cp /var/www/reviewboard/conf/apache-modpython.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/reviewboard sudo a2dissite default sudo a2ensite reviewboard sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
7. Creating your Repository settings
It's time to fire up your browser and head to http://localhost/ and log in with the administrator credentials.
Head to Admin -> Repositories -> Add Repository and fill in the details and hit save.
8. post-review
post-review is a little tool that makes it easy to send review requests to Review Board. Withoutpost-review you have to manually create the diff file and upload it.
Installation is via easy_install:
sudo easy_install RBTools
On windows you will have to do a few extra steps to get post-review working nicely.
- Install DiffUtils
- Change the name of
C:\Python25\Scripts\post-reviewtoC:\Python25\Scripts\post-review.py - Add
C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\binandC:\Python25\Scriptsto the path environment variable
At the top of your subversion checkout create a file called .reviewboardrc and add this line to it:
REVIEWBOARD_URL = "http://localhost"
If your checkout is not on the same machine as the Review Board server you will need to changelocalhost to either the servers IP address or domain name.
9. Your first Review Request
Go make some changes in your code and save them. On the command line cd into the directory that contains your checkout and .reviewboardrc file and run post-review or post-review.py if you are using windows.
The first time you will be asked to enter your Review Board login username and password.
Go to http://localhost and click on 'Outgoing Reviews'. There will one item with a title of [Draft]. Click on [Draft] to complete the Review Request. Fill in all the necessary fields and then click on publish.
All done
By now you should have a running install of Review Board with your first Review Request. At this point you will need to get others to sign up and start submitting and reviewing.
There is a comprehensive User Guide available.