path: root/gitweb/README

GIT web Interface
=================

The one working on:
  http://git.kernel.org/

From the git version 1.4.0 gitweb is bundled with git.


Runtime gitweb configuration
----------------------------

Gitweb obtains configuration data from the following sources in the
following order:

1. built-in values (some set during build stage),
2. common system-wide configuration file (`GITWEB_CONFIG_COMMON`,
   defaults to '/etc/gitweb-common.conf'),
3. either per-instance configuration file (`GITWEB_CONFIG`, defaults to
   'gitweb_config.perl' in the same directory as the installed gitweb),
   or if it does not exists then system-wide configuration file
   (`GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM`, defaults to '/etc/gitweb.conf').

Values obtained in later configuration files override values obtained earlier
in above sequence.

You can read defaults in system-wide GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM from GITWEB_CONFIG
by adding

  read_config_file($GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM);

at very beginning of per-instance GITWEB_CONFIG file.  In this case
settings in said per-instance file will override settings from
system-wide configuration file.  Note that read_config_file checks
itself that the $GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM file exists.

The most notable thing that is not configurable at compile time are the
optional features, stored in the '%features' variable.

Ultimate description on how to reconfigure the default features setting
in your `GITWEB_CONFIG` or per-project in `project.git/config` can be found
as comments inside 'gitweb.cgi'.

See also gitweb.conf(5) manpage.


Projects list file format
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Instead of having gitweb find repositories by scanning filesystem starting
from $projectroot (or $projects_list, if it points to directory), you can
provide list of projects by setting $projects_list to a text file with list
of projects (and some additional info).  This file uses the following
format:

One record (for project / repository) per line, whitespace separated fields;
does not support (at least for now) lines continuation (newline escaping).
Leading and trailing whitespace are ignored, any run of whitespace can be
used as field separator (rules for Perl's "split(' ', $line)").  Keyed by
the first field, which is project name, i.e. path to repository GIT_DIR
relative to $projectroot.  Fields use modified URI encoding, defined in
RFC 3986, section 2.1 (Percent-Encoding), or rather "Query string encoding"
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_string#URL_encoding), the difference
being that SP (' ') can be encoded as '+' (and therefore '+' has to be also
percent-encoded).  Reserved characters are: '%' (used for encoding), '+'
(can be used to encode SPACE), all whitespace characters as defined in Perl,
including SP, TAB and LF, (used to separate fields in a record).

Currently list of fields is
 * <repository path>  - path to repository GIT_DIR, relative to $projectroot
 * <repository owner> - displayed as repository owner, preferably full name,
                        or email, or both

You can additionally use $projects_list file to limit which repositories
are visible, and together with $strict_export to limit access to
repositories (see "Gitweb repositories" section in gitweb/INSTALL).


Per-repository gitweb configuration
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can also configure individual repositories shown in gitweb by creating
file in the GIT_DIR of git repository, or by setting some repo configuration
variable (in GIT_DIR/config).

You can use the following files in repository:
 * README.html
   A .html file (HTML fragment) which is included on the gitweb project
   summary page inside <div> block element. You can use it for longer
   description of a project, to provide links (for example to project's
   homepage), etc. This is recognized only if XSS prevention is off
   ($prevent_xss is false); a way to include a readme safely when XSS
   prevention is on may be worked out in the future.
 * description (or gitweb.description)
   Short (shortened by default to 25 characters in the projects list page)
   single line description of a project (of a repository). Plain text file;
   HTML will be escaped. By default set to
     Unnamed repository; edit this file to name it for gitweb.
   from the template during repository creation. You can use the
   gitweb.description repo configuration variable, but the file takes
   precedence.
 * category (or gitweb.category)
   Singe line category of a project, used to group projects if
   $projects_list_group_categories is enabled. By default (file and
   configuration variable absent), uncategorized projects are put in
   the $project_list_default_category category. You can use the
   gitweb.category repo configuration variable, but the file takes
   precedence.
 * cloneurl (or multiple-valued gitweb.url)
   File with repository URL (used for clone and fetch), one per line.
   Displayed in the project summary page. You can use multiple-valued
   gitweb.url repository configuration variable for that, but the file
   takes precedence.
 * gitweb.owner
   You can use the gitweb.owner repository configuration variable to set
   repository's owner. It is displayed in the project list and summary
   page. If it's not set, filesystem directory's owner is used
   (via GECOS field / real name field from getpwiud(3)).
 * various gitweb.* config variables (in config)
   Read description of %feature hash for detailed list, and some
   descriptions.


Webserver configuration
-----------------------

If you want to have one URL for both gitweb and your http://
repositories, you can configure apache like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName		git.example.org
    DocumentRoot	/pub/git
    SetEnv			GITWEB_CONFIG	/etc/gitweb.conf

    # turning on mod rewrite
    RewriteEngine on

    # make the front page an internal rewrite to the gitweb script
    RewriteRule ^/$  /cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi

    # make access for "dumb clients" work
    RewriteRule ^/(.*\.git/(?!/?(HEAD|info|objects|refs)).*)?$ /cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi%{REQUEST_URI}  [L,PT]
</VirtualHost>

The above configuration expects your public repositories to live under
/pub/git and will serve them as http://git.domain.org/dir-under-pub-git,
both as cloneable GIT URL and as browseable gitweb interface.
If you then start your git-daemon with --base-path=/pub/git --export-all
then you can even use the git:// URL with exactly the same path.

Setting the environment variable GITWEB_CONFIG will tell gitweb to use
the named file (i.e. in this example /etc/gitweb.conf) as a
configuration for gitweb.  Perl variables defined in here will
override the defaults given at the head of the gitweb.perl (or
gitweb.cgi).  Look at the comments in that file for information on
which variables and what they mean.

If you use the rewrite rules from the example you'll likely also need
something like the following in your gitweb.conf (or gitweb_config.perl) file:

  @stylesheets = ("/some/absolute/path/gitweb.css");
  $my_uri = "/";
  $home_link = "/";


Webserver configuration with multiple projects' root
----------------------------------------------------

If you want to use gitweb with several project roots you can edit your apache
virtual host and gitweb.conf configuration files like this :

virtual host configuration :

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName			git.example.org
    DocumentRoot		/pub/git
    SetEnv				GITWEB_CONFIG	/etc/gitweb.conf

    # turning on mod rewrite
    RewriteEngine on

    # make the front page an internal rewrite to the gitweb script
    RewriteRule ^/$ 		/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi [QSA,L,PT]

    # look for a public_git folder in unix users' home
    # http://git.example.org/~<user>/
    RewriteRule ^/\~([^\/]+)(/|/gitweb.cgi)?$	/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi [QSA,E=GITWEB_PROJECTROOT:/home/$1/public_git/,L,PT]

    # http://git.example.org/+<user>/
    #RewriteRule ^/\+([^\/]+)(/|/gitweb.cgi)?$	/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi [QSA,E=GITWEB_PROJECTROOT:/home/$1/public_git/,L,PT]

    # http://git.example.org/user/<user>/
    #RewriteRule ^/user/([^\/]+)/(gitweb.cgi)?$	/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi [QSA,E=GITWEB_PROJECTROOT:/home/$1/public_git/,L,PT]

    # defined list of project roots
    RewriteRule ^/scm(/|/gitweb.cgi)?$		/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi [QSA,E=GITWEB_PROJECTROOT:/pub/scm/,L,PT]
    RewriteRule ^/var(/|/gitweb.cgi)?$		/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi [QSA,E=GITWEB_PROJECTROOT:/var/git/,L,PT]

    # make access for "dumb clients" work
    RewriteRule ^/(.*\.git/(?!/?(HEAD|info|objects|refs)).*)?$ /cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi%{REQUEST_URI}  [L,PT]
</VirtualHost>

gitweb.conf configuration :

$projectroot = $ENV{'GITWEB_PROJECTROOT'} || "/pub/git";

These configurations enable two things. First, each unix user (<user>) of the
server will be able to browse through gitweb git repositories found in
~/public_git/ with the following url : http://git.example.org/~<user>/

If you do not want this feature on your server just remove the second rewrite rule.

If you already use mod_userdir in your virtual host or you don't want to use
the '~' as first character just comment or remove the second rewrite rule and
uncomment one of the following according to what you want.

Second, repositories found in /pub/scm/ and /var/git/ will be accesible
through http://git.example.org/scm/ and http://git.example.org/var/.
You can add as many project roots as you want by adding rewrite rules like the
third and the fourth.


PATH_INFO usage
-----------------------
If you enable PATH_INFO usage in gitweb by putting

   $feature{'pathinfo'}{'default'} = [1];

in your gitweb.conf, it is possible to set up your server so that it
consumes and produces URLs in the form

http://git.example.com/project.git/shortlog/sometag

by using a configuration such as the following, that assumes that
/var/www/gitweb is the DocumentRoot of your webserver, and that it
contains the gitweb.cgi script and complementary static files
(stylesheet, favicon):

<VirtualHost *:80>
	ServerAlias git.example.com

	DocumentRoot /var/www/gitweb

	<Directory /var/www/gitweb>
		Options ExecCGI
		AddHandler cgi-script cgi

		DirectoryIndex gitweb.cgi

		RewriteEngine On
		RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
		RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
		RewriteRule ^.* /gitweb.cgi/$0 [L,PT]
	</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

The rewrite rule guarantees that existing static files will be properly
served, whereas any other URL will be passed to gitweb as PATH_INFO
parameter.

Notice that in this case you don't need special settings for
@stylesheets, $my_uri and $home_link, but you lose "dumb client" access
to your project .git dirs. A possible workaround for the latter is the
following: in your project root dir (e.g. /pub/git) have the projects
named without a .git extension (e.g. /pub/git/project instead of
/pub/git/project.git) and configure Apache as follows:

<VirtualHost *:80>
	ServerAlias git.example.com

	DocumentRoot /var/www/gitweb

	AliasMatch ^(/.*?)(\.git)(/.*)?$ /pub/git$1$3
	<Directory /var/www/gitweb>
		Options ExecCGI
		AddHandler cgi-script cgi

		DirectoryIndex gitweb.cgi

		RewriteEngine On
		RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
		RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
		RewriteRule ^.* /gitweb.cgi/$0 [L,PT]
	</Directory>
</VirtualHost>

The additional AliasMatch makes it so that

http://git.example.com/project.git

will give raw access to the project's git dir (so that the project can
be cloned), while

http://git.example.com/project

will provide human-friendly gitweb access.

This solution is not 100% bulletproof, in the sense that if some project
has a named ref (branch, tag) starting with 'git/', then paths such as

http://git.example.com/project/command/abranch..git/abranch

will fail with a 404 error.



Originally written by:
  Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@vrfy.org>

Any comment/question/concern to:
  Git mailing list <git@vger.kernel.org>