Configuration Settings

Environment settings

While most configuration is handled by configuration files, some options which may be semi-permanent can also be controlled through the environment.

BRZ_EMAIL

Override the email id used by Breezy. Typical format:

"John Doe <jdoe@example.com>"

See also the email configuration option.

BRZ_PROGRESS_BAR

Override the progress display. Possible values are “none” or “text”. If the value is “none” then no progress bar is displayed. The value “text” draws the ordinary command line progress bar.

BRZ_SIGQUIT_PDB

Control whether SIGQUIT behaves normally or invokes a breakin debugger.

  • 0 = Standard SIGQUIT behavior (normally, exit with a core dump)

  • 1 = Invoke breakin debugger (default)

BRZ_HOME

Override the home directory used by Breezy.

BRZ_SSH

Select a different SSH implementation.

BRZ_PDB

Control whether to launch a debugger on error.

  • 0 = Standard behavior

  • 1 = Launch debugger

BZR_REMOTE_PATH

Path to the Bazaar or Breezy executable to use when using the bzr+ssh protocol.

See also the bzr_remote_path configuration option.

BRZ_EDITOR

Path to the editor Breezy should use for commit messages, etc.

BRZ_LOG

Location of the Breezy log file. You can check the current location by running brz version.

The log file contains debug information that is useful for diagnosing or reporting problems with Breezy.

Setting this to NUL on Windows or /dev/null on other platforms will disable logging.

BRZ_PLUGIN_PATH

The path to the plugins directory that Breezy should use. If not set, Breezy will search for plugins in:

  • the user specific plugin directory (containing the user plugins),

  • the breezy directory (containing the core plugins),

  • the site specific plugin directory if applicable (containing the site plugins).

If BRZ_PLUGIN_PATH is set in any fashion, it will change the the way the plugin are searched.

As for the PATH variables, if multiple directories are specified in BRZ_PLUGIN_PATH they should be separated by the platform specific appropriate character (‘:’ on Unix, ‘;’ on windows)

By default if BRZ_PLUGIN_PATH is set, it replaces searching in user. However it will continue to search in core and site unless they are explicitly removed.

If you need to change the order or remove one of these directories, you should use special values:

  • -user, -core, -site will remove the corresponding path from the default values,

  • +user, +core, +site will add the corresponding path before the remaining default values (and also remove it from the default values).

Note that the special values ‘user’, ‘core’ and ‘site’ should be used literally, they will be substituted by the corresponding, platform specific, values.

The examples below use ‘:’ as the separator, windows users should use ‘;’.

Overriding the default user plugin directory:

BRZ_PLUGIN_PATH='/path/to/my/other/plugins'

Disabling the site directory while retaining the user directory:

BRZ_PLUGIN_PATH='-site:+user'

Disabling all plugins (better achieved with –no-plugins):

BRZ_PLUGIN_PATH='-user:-core:-site'

Overriding the default site plugin directory:

BRZ_PLUGIN_PATH='/path/to/my/site/plugins:-site':+user

BRZ_DISABLE_PLUGINS

Under special circumstances (mostly when trying to diagnose a bug), it’s better to disable a plugin (or several) rather than uninstalling them completely. Such plugins can be specified in the BRZ_DISABLE_PLUGINS environment variable.

In that case, brz will stop loading the specified plugins and will raise an import error if they are explicitly imported (by another plugin that depends on them for example).

Disabling myplugin and yourplugin is achieved by:

BRZ_DISABLE_PLUGINS='myplugin:yourplugin'

BRZ_PLUGINS_AT

When adding a new feature or working on a bug in a plugin, developers often need to use a specific version of a given plugin. Since python requires that the directory containing the code is named like the plugin itself this make it impossible to use arbitrary directory names (using a two-level directory scheme is inconvenient). BRZ_PLUGINS_AT allows such directories even if they don’t appear in BRZ_PLUGIN_PATH .

Plugins specified in this environment variable takes precedence over the ones in BRZ_PLUGIN_PATH.

The variable specified a list of plugin_name@plugin path, plugin_name being the name of the plugin as it appears in python module paths, plugin_path being the path to the directory containing the plugin code itself (i.e. plugins/myplugin not plugins). Use ‘:’ as the list separator, use ‘;’ on windows.

Example:

Using a specific version of myplugin: BRZ_PLUGINS_AT='myplugin@/home/me/bugfixes/123456-myplugin

BRZPATH

The path where Breezy should look for shell plugin external commands.

http_proxy, https_proxy

Specifies the network proxy for outgoing connections, for example:

http_proxy=http://proxy.example.com:3128/
https_proxy=http://proxy.example.com:3128/

Configuration files

Location

Configuration files are located in $HOME/.bazaar on Unix and C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Breezy\2.0 on Windows. (You can check the location for your system by using brz version.)

There are three primary configuration files in this location:

  • breezy.conf describes default configuration options,

  • locations.conf describes configuration information for specific branch locations,

  • authentication.conf describes credential information for remote servers.

Each branch can also contain a configuration file that sets values specific to that branch. This file is found at .bzr/branch/branch.conf within the branch. This file is visible to all users of a branch, if you wish to override one of the values for a branch with a setting that is specific to you then you can do so in locations.conf.

General format

An ini file has three types of contructs: section headers, section options and comments.

Comments

A comment is any line that starts with a “#” (sometimes called a “hash mark”, “pound sign” or “number sign”). Comment lines are ignored by Breezy when parsing ini files.

Section headers

A section header is a word enclosed in brackets that starts at the begining of a line. A typical section header looks like this:

[DEFAULT]

The only valid section headers for breezy.conf currently are [DEFAULT] and [ALIASES]. Section headers are case sensitive. The default section provides for setting options which can be overridden with the branch config file.

For locations.conf, the options from the section with the longest matching section header are used to the exclusion of other potentially valid section headers. A section header uses the path for the branch as the section header. Some examples include:

[http://mybranches.isp.com/~jdoe/branchdir]
[/home/jdoe/branches/]

Section options

A section option resides within a section. A section option contains an option name, an equals sign and a value. For example:

email            = John Doe <jdoe@isp.com>
gpg_signing_key  = Amy Pond <amy@example.com>

A option can reference other options by enclosing them in curly brackets:

my_branch_name = feature_x
my_server      = bzr+ssh://example.com
push_location   = {my_server}/project/{my_branch_name}

Option policies

Options defined in a section affect the named directory or URL plus any locations they contain. Policies can be used to change how an option value is interpreted for contained locations. Currently there are three policies available:

none:

the value is interpreted the same for contained locations. This is the default behaviour.

norecurse:

the value is only used for the exact location specified by the section name.

appendpath:

for contained locations, any additional path components are appended to the value.

Policies are specified by keys with names of the form “<option_name>:policy”. For example, to define the push location for a tree of branches, the following could be used:

[/top/location]
push_location = sftp://example.com/location
push_location:policy = appendpath

With this configuration, the push location for /top/location/branch1 would be sftp://example.com/location/branch1.

Section local options

Some options are defined automatically inside a given section and can be refered to in this section only.

For example, the appendpath policy can be used like this:

[/home/vila/src/bzr/bugs]
mypush = lp:~vila/bzr
mypush:policy=appendpath

Using relpath to achieve the same result is done like this:

[/home/vila/src/bzr/bugs]
mypush = lp:~vila/bzr/{relpath}

In both cases, when used in a directory like /home/vila/src/bzr/bugs/832013-expand-in-stack we’ll get:

$ brz config mypush
lp:~vila/bzr/832013-expand-in-stack

Another such option is basename which can be used like this:

[/home/vila/src/bzr]
mypush = lp:~vila/bzr/{basename}

When used in a directory like /home/vila/src/bzr/bugs/832013-expand-in-stack we’ll get:

$ brz config mypush
lp:~vila/bzr/832013-expand-in-stack

Note that basename here refers to the base name of relpath which itself is defined as the relative path between the section name and the location it matches.

Another such option is branchname, which refers to the name of a colocated branch. For non-colocated branches, it behaves like basename. It can be used like this:

[/home/vila/src/bzr/bugs]
mypush = lp:~vila/bzr/{branchname}

When used with a colocated branch named 832013-expand-in-stack, we’ll get:

brz config mypush
lp:~vila/bzr/832013-expand-in-stack

When an option is local to a Section, it cannot be referred to from option values in any other section from the same Store nor from any other Store.

The main configuration file, breezy.conf

breezy.conf allows two sections: [DEFAULT] and [ALIASES]. The default section contains the default configuration options for all branches. The default section can be overriden by providing a branch-specific section in locations.conf.

A typical breezy.conf section often looks like the following:

[DEFAULT]
email             = John Doe <jdoe@isp.com>
editor            = /usr/bin/vim
create_signatures = when-required

The branch location configuration file, locations.conf

locations.conf allows one to specify overriding settings for a specific branch. The format is almost identical to the default section in breezy.conf with one significant change: The section header, instead of saying default, will be the path to a branch that you wish to override a value for. The ‘?’ and ‘*’ wildcards are supported:

[/home/jdoe/branches/nethack]
email = Nethack Admin <nethack@nethack.com>

[http://hypothetical.site.com/branches/devel-branch]
create_signatures = always

The authentication configuration file, authentication.conf

authentication.conf allows one to specify credentials for remote servers. This can be used for all the supported transports and any part of brz that requires authentication (smtp for example).

The syntax of the file obeys the same rules as the others except for the option policies which don’t apply.

For more information on the possible uses of the authentication configuration file see Authentication Settings.

Common options

debug_flags

A comma-separated list of debugging options to turn on. The same values can be used as with the -D command-line option (see help global-options). For example:

debug_flags = hpss

or:

debug_flags = hpss,evil

email

The email address to use when committing a branch. Typically takes the form of:

email = Full Name <account@hostname.tld>

editor

The path of the editor that you wish to use if brz commit is run without a commit message. This setting is trumped by the environment variable BRZ_EDITOR, and overrides the VISUAL and EDITOR environment variables.

log_format

The default log format to use. Standard log formats are long, short and line. Additional formats may be provided by plugins. The default value is long.

check_signatures

Reserved for future use. These options will allow a policy for branches to require signatures.

require

The gnupg signature for revisions must be present and must be valid.

ignore

Do not check gnupg signatures of revisions.

check-available

(default) If gnupg signatures for revisions are present, check them. Breezy will fail if it finds a bad signature, but will not fail if no signature is present.

create_signatures

Defines the behaviour of signing revisions on commits. By default brz will not sign new commits.

always

Sign every new revision that is committed. If the signing fails then the commit will not be made.

when-required

Reserved for future use.

never

Reserved for future use.

In future it is planned that when-required will sign newly committed revisions only when the branch requires them. never will refuse to sign newly committed revisions, even if the branch requires signatures.

dirstate.fdatasync

If true (default), working tree metadata changes are flushed through the OS buffers to physical disk. This is somewhat slower, but means data should not be lost if the machine crashes. See also repository.fdatasync.

gpg_signing_key

The GnuPG user identity to use when signing commits. Can be an e-mail address, key fingerprint or full key ID. When unset or when set to “default” Breezy will use the user e-mail set with whoami.

recurse

Only useful in locations.conf. Defines whether or not the configuration for this section applies to subdirectories:

true

(default) This section applies to subdirectories as well.

false

This section only applies to the branch at this directory and not branches below it.

bzr_remote_path

(Default: “bzr”). The path to the command that should be used to run the smart server for bzr. This value may only be specified in locations.conf, because:

  • it’s needed before branch.conf is accessible

  • allowing remote branch.conf files to specify commands would be a security risk

It is overridden by the BZR_REMOTE_PATH environment variable.

smtp_server

(Default: “localhost”). SMTP server to use when Breezy needs to send email, eg. with merge-directive --mail-to, or the email plugin.

smtp_username, smtp_password

User and password to authenticate to the SMTP server. If smtp_username is set, and smtp_password is not, Breezy will prompt for a password. These settings are only needed if the SMTP server requires authentication to send mail.

locks.steal_dead

By default, brz will automatically break locks held by processes from the same machine and user that are no longer alive. If disabled, it will print a message and you can break the lock manually, if you are satisfied the object is no longer in use.

mail_client

A mail client to use for sending merge requests. By default, brz will try to use mapi on Windows. On other platforms, it will try xdg-email. If either of these fails, it will fall back to editor.

Supported values for specific clients:

claws:

Use Claws. This skips a dialog for attaching files.

evolution:

Use Evolution.

kmail:

Use KMail.

mutt:

Use Mutt.

thunderbird:

Use Mozilla Thunderbird or Icedove. For Thunderbird/Icedove 1.5, this works around some bugs that xdg-email doesn’t handle.

Supported generic values are:

default:

See above.

editor:

Use your editor to compose the merge request. This also uses your commit id, (see brz whoami), smtp_server and (optionally) smtp_username and smtp_password.

mapi:

Use your preferred e-mail client on Windows.

xdg-email:

Use xdg-email to run your preferred mail program

repository.fdatasync

If true (default), repository changes are flushed through the OS buffers to physical disk. This is somewhat slower, but means data should not be lost if the machine crashes. See also dirstate.fdatasync.

submit_branch

The branch you intend to submit your current work to. This is automatically set by brz send, and is also used by the submit: revision spec. This should usually be set on a per-branch or per-location basis.

public_branch

A publically-accessible version of this branch (implying that this version is not publically-accessible). Used (and set) by brz send.

suppress_warnings

A list of strings, each string represent a warning that can be emitted by brz. Mentioning a warning in this list tells bzr to not emit it.

Valid values:

  • format_deprecation:

    whether the format deprecation warning is shown on repositories that are using deprecated formats.

  • insecure_permissions:

    whether a warning is shown if authentication.conf can be read by other users.

default_format

A format name for the default format used when creating branches. See brz help formats for possible values.

Unicode options

output_encoding

A Python unicode encoding name for text output from bzr, such as log information. Values include: utf8, cp850, ascii, iso-8859-1. The default is the terminal encoding prefered by the operating system.

Branch type specific options

These options apply only to branches that use the dirstate-tags or later format. They are usually set in .bzr/branch/branch.conf automatically, but may be manually set in locations.conf or breezy.conf.

append_revisions_only

If set to “True” then revisions can only be appended to the log, not removed. A branch with this setting enabled can only pull from another branch if the other branch’s log is a longer version of its own. This is normally set by brz init --append-revisions-only. If you set it manually, use either ‘True’ or ‘False’ (case-sensitive) to maintain compatibility with previous brz versions (older than 2.2).

parent_location

If present, the location of the default branch for pull or merge. This option is normally set when creating a branch, the first pull or by pull --remember.

push_location

If present, the location of the default branch for push. This option is normally set by the first push or push --remember.

push_strict

If present, defines the --strict option default value for checking uncommitted changes before pushing.

bound_location

The location that commits should go to when acting as a checkout. This option is normally set by bind.

bound

If set to “True”, the branch should act as a checkout, and push each commit to the bound_location. This option is normally set by bind/unbind.

send_strict

If present, defines the --strict option default value for checking uncommitted changes before sending a merge directive.

add.maximum_file_size

Defines the maximum file size the command line “add” operation will allow in recursive mode, with files larger than this value being skipped. You may specify this value as an integer (in which case it is interpreted as bytes), or you may specify the value using SI units, i.e. 10KB, 20MB, 1G. A value of 0 will disable skipping.

External Merge Tools

bzr.mergetool.<name>

Defines an external merge tool called <name> with the given command-line. Arguments containing spaces should be quoted using single or double quotes. The executable may omit its path if it can be found on the PATH.

The following markers can be used in the command-line to substitute filenames involved in the merge conflict:

{base}      file.BASE
{this}      file.THIS
{other}     file.OTHER
{result}    output file
{this_temp} temp copy of file.THIS, used to overwrite output file if merge
            succeeds.

For example:

bzr.mergetool.kdiff3 = kdiff3 {base} {this} {other} -o {result}

Because mergetool and config itself both use curly braces as interpolation markers, trying to display the mergetool line results in the following problem:

$ brz config bzr.mergetool.kdiff3='kdiff3 {base} {this} {other} -o {result}'
$ brz config bzr.mergetool.kdiff3
brz: ERROR: Option base is not defined while expanding "kdiff3 {base} {this} {other} -o {result}".

To avoid this, config can be instructed not to try expanding variables:

$ brz config --all bzr.mergetool.kdiff3
branch:
  bzr.mergetool.kdiff3 = kdiff3 {base} {this} {other} -o {result}

bzr.default_mergetool

Specifies which external merge tool (as defined above) should be selected by default in tools such as brz qconflicts.

For example:

bzr.default_mergetool = kdiff3