Gerrit emails

Gerrit emails

[Eli Zaretskii]

Gerrit-generated emails I get from the list have the addressee headers
set as follows:

  From: "Christian Biesinger (Code Review)" <gerrit@gnutoolchain-gerrit.osci.io>
  To: Christian Biesinger <cbiesinger@google.com>,	gdb-patches@sourceware.org
  Cc: Tom de Vries <tdevries@suse.de>,	Simon Marchi <simon.marchi@polymtl.ca>
  Reply-To: cbiesinger@google.com, simon.marchi@polymtl.ca, tdevries@suse.de, cbiesinger@google.com, gdb-patches@sourceware.org

(It could be that some of these are generated by the list server, not
by Gerrit itself.)

This causes Emacs's Rmail to produce duplicate addresses in the reply
email:

  To: cbiesinger@google.com, simon.marchi@polymtl.ca, tdevries@suse.de, cbiesinger@google.com, gdb-patches@sourceware.org
  Cc: cbiesinger@google.com,	gdb-patches@sourceware.org, tdevries@suse.de,	simon.marchi@polymtl.ca

And that forces me to manually edit the email headers of the response
before sending, which is a nuisance.

Can this be fixed not to produce duplicate addresses, please?

TIA

Re: Gerrit emails

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Simon Marchi <simark@simark.ca>
> Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 10:22:04 -0400
> 
> Ok, so the addresses are duplicated between the "To:" and the "Reply-to:" fields.

I think the fact that some of them appear in CC might also matter.
Also note that cbiesinger@google.com appears twice in Reply-To.

> I am not sure what a client is expected to do in that case.  There seems to be some
> divergence between clients, for example Thunderbird doesn't duplicate the addresses
> when I hit "Reply all".  Perhaps Rmail can be modified to not put an address in CC
> if it sees it's already in the To field?

The logic in Rmail for how to generate the To: and CC: headers is
complex and tries to support quite a few use cases.  It never gave me
any trouble, in all the years that I'm using it.  Changing it for this
single server would be unwise, IMO, because it will most probably
break much more important use cases.

> I did not find any setting in Gerrit to omit the "Reply-to" field of the sent messages,
> so I fear it won't be possible to change it in the immediate.  I can try to look
> at modifying Gerrit from source, but that will take a bit of time.

That's just too bad.  Thanks for trying.

Are you sure the Reply-To comes from Gerrit and not from the list
server?

Re: Gerrit emails

[Simon Marchi]

On 2019-10-17 10:44 a.m., Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> From: Simon Marchi <simark@simark.ca>
>> Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 10:22:04 -0400
>>
>> Ok, so the addresses are duplicated between the "To:" and the "Reply-to:" fields.
> 
> I think the fact that some of them appear in CC might also matter.
> Also note that cbiesinger@google.com appears twice in Reply-To.

Right, those in CC are also in Reply-to.  But there's not overlap between To and CC.

>> I am not sure what a client is expected to do in that case.  There seems to be some
>> divergence between clients, for example Thunderbird doesn't duplicate the addresses
>> when I hit "Reply all".  Perhaps Rmail can be modified to not put an address in CC
>> if it sees it's already in the To field?
> 
> The logic in Rmail for how to generate the To: and CC: headers is
> complex and tries to support quite a few use cases.  It never gave me
> any trouble, in all the years that I'm using it.  Changing it for this
> single server would be unwise, IMO, because it will most probably
> break much more important use cases.

Agreed.

>> I did not find any setting in Gerrit to omit the "Reply-to" field of the sent messages,
>> so I fear it won't be possible to change it in the immediate.  I can try to look
>> at modifying Gerrit from source, but that will take a bit of time.
> 
> That's just too bad.  Thanks for trying.
> 
> Are you sure the Reply-To comes from Gerrit and not from the list
> server?

I am 95% sure that Gerrit adds it.  When I looked at other messages on the list (such as
this one), they don't have Reply-to.

Also, I receive some messages in double, when I am in the To: field and because I am
also registered to the gdb-patches list.  If I compare two identical messages I received,
they both have the same Reply-to header.  So it would mean that it's Gerrit that adds it,
since the version I receive directly from Gerrit has the header.

I don't think that Reply-to header is so important for us.  On the list, I presume everybody
just does "Reply all".

Simon

Re: Gerrit emails

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Cc: gdb-patches@sourceware.org
> From: Simon Marchi <simark@simark.ca>
> Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 10:55:02 -0400
> 
> I don't think that Reply-to header is so important for us.  On the
> list, I presume everybody just does "Reply all".

I certainly do (except in very rare special occasions).

Thanks.

Re: Gerrit emails

[Sergio Durigan Junior]

On Thursday, October 17 2019, Simon Marchi wrote:

> On 2019-10-17 3:12 a.m., Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Gerrit-generated emails I get from the list have the addressee headers
>> set as follows:
>> 
>>   From: "Christian Biesinger (Code Review)" <gerrit@gnutoolchain-gerrit.osci.io>
>>   To: Christian Biesinger <cbiesinger@google.com>,	gdb-patches@sourceware.org
>>   Cc: Tom de Vries <tdevries@suse.de>,	Simon Marchi <simon.marchi@polymtl.ca>
>>   Reply-To: cbiesinger@google.com, simon.marchi@polymtl.ca, tdevries@suse.de, cbiesinger@google.com, gdb-patches@sourceware.org
>> 
>> (It could be that some of these are generated by the list server, not
>> by Gerrit itself.)
>> 
>> This causes Emacs's Rmail to produce duplicate addresses in the reply
>> email:
>> 
>>   To: cbiesinger@google.com, simon.marchi@polymtl.ca, tdevries@suse.de, cbiesinger@google.com, gdb-patches@sourceware.org
>>   Cc: cbiesinger@google.com,	gdb-patches@sourceware.org, tdevries@suse.de,	simon.marchi@polymtl.ca
>> 
>> And that forces me to manually edit the email headers of the response
>> before sending, which is a nuisance.
>> 
>> Can this be fixed not to produce duplicate addresses, please?
>> 
>> TIA
>
> Hi Eli,
>
> Ok, so the addresses are duplicated between the "To:" and the "Reply-to:" fields.

I've been thinking about these messages.  I don't think it is benefitial
to include the email addresses of all of the parties involved in the
review process in the Reply-To field.  Ideally, the Reply-To would only
contain gerrit's email address, so that the person can reply to gerrit,
and gerrit will manage the notifications accordingly.  Our instance
still doesn't process emails, but that's about to change (see below).

> I am not sure what a client is expected to do in that case.  There seems to be some
> divergence between clients, for example Thunderbird doesn't duplicate the addresses
> when I hit "Reply all".  Perhaps Rmail can be modified to not put an address in CC
> if it sees it's already in the To field?
>
> I did not find any setting in Gerrit to omit the "Reply-to" field of the sent messages,
> so I fear it won't be possible to change it in the immediate.  I can try to look
> at modifying Gerrit from source, but that will take a bit of time.
>
> Another annoyance on my side is that when I hit "Reply all", it includes the address
> of the sender, gerrit@gnutoolchain-gerrit.osci.io.  However, that domain
> (gnutoolchain-gerrit.osci.io) is not configured to forward mails, so I then receive
> delivery failure notices.  I think we need to work on that, ideally making Gerrit receive
> and process the emails.

I talked to OSCI and they will provide us a mailbox that we can use for
gerrit.  I'm just waiting for them to set it up and give me the
password.  Once we have it, I will modify our configuration file to use
this mailbox, and gerrit says that if receivemail is enabled, the
Reply-To address is set to the same value as the "From" field.

Thanks,

-- 
Sergio
GPG key ID: 237A 54B1 0287 28BF 00EF  31F4 D0EB 7628 65FC 5E36
Please send encrypted e-mail if possible
http://sergiodj.net/

Re: Gerrit emails

[Simon Marchi]

On 2019-10-17 10:52 a.m., Sergio Durigan Junior wrote:
> I talked to OSCI and they will provide us a mailbox that we can use for
> gerrit.  I'm just waiting for them to set it up and give me the
> password.  Once we have it, I will modify our configuration file to use
> this mailbox, and gerrit says that if receivemail is enabled, the
> Reply-To address is set to the same value as the "From" field.

Oh nice, that's perhaps something I can test locally in the mean time.

Simon

Re: Gerrit emails

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Sergio Durigan Junior <sergiodj@redhat.com>
> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>,  gdb-patches@sourceware.org
> Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 10:52:11 -0400
> 
> I talked to OSCI and they will provide us a mailbox that we can use for
> gerrit.  I'm just waiting for them to set it up and give me the
> password.  Once we have it, I will modify our configuration file to use
> this mailbox, and gerrit says that if receivemail is enabled, the
> Reply-To address is set to the same value as the "From" field.

Thanks for taking care of this.  But I'm not sure I understand the
impact of that mailbox the OSCI people will give us -- can you
elaborate?  IOW, the email will now say Reply-To gerrit itself, and
how will the email workflow work from there?

Re: Gerrit emails

[Sergio Durigan Junior]

On Thursday, October 17 2019, Eli Zaretskii wrote:

>> From: Sergio Durigan Junior <sergiodj@redhat.com>
>> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>,  gdb-patches@sourceware.org
>> Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 10:52:11 -0400
>> 
>> I talked to OSCI and they will provide us a mailbox that we can use for
>> gerrit.  I'm just waiting for them to set it up and give me the
>> password.  Once we have it, I will modify our configuration file to use
>> this mailbox, and gerrit says that if receivemail is enabled, the
>> Reply-To address is set to the same value as the "From" field.
>
> Thanks for taking care of this.  But I'm not sure I understand the
> impact of that mailbox the OSCI people will give us -- can you
> elaborate?  IOW, the email will now say Reply-To gerrit itself, and
> how will the email workflow work from there?

The idea is that you will send a comment via email to gerrit itself,
which will then process the email and generate notifications for the
interested parties.  This is good because we make sure that all
discussions are logged in gerrit, and we will keep receiving emails
normally.

Thanks,

-- 
Sergio
GPG key ID: 237A 54B1 0287 28BF 00EF  31F4 D0EB 7628 65FC 5E36
Please send encrypted e-mail if possible
http://sergiodj.net/

Re: Gerrit emails

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Sergio Durigan Junior <sergiodj@redhat.com>
> Cc: simark@simark.ca,  gdb-patches@sourceware.org
> Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 14:14:46 -0400
> 
> > Thanks for taking care of this.  But I'm not sure I understand the
> > impact of that mailbox the OSCI people will give us -- can you
> > elaborate?  IOW, the email will now say Reply-To gerrit itself, and
> > how will the email workflow work from there?
> 
> The idea is that you will send a comment via email to gerrit itself,
> which will then process the email and generate notifications for the
> interested parties.  This is good because we make sure that all
> discussions are logged in gerrit, and we will keep receiving emails
> normally.

SGTM, thanks.