Git Web and CGit

To configure Git Web on a server, you need to install git and gitweb packages. With Apache, the configuration is already included within gitweb package. With Nginx, you need FastCGI (fcgiwrap package on Debian) and some configuration in an host file.

Let’s suppose you host Git repositories in /home/git on your server. You would like to setup a web server (Apache or Nginx) to be able to use git over HTTP and to browse your repositories using the Git Web interface.

Documentation:

Gitweb configuration

Here is an example of /home/git/gitweb.conf:

# path to git projects (<project>.git)
$projectroot = "/home/git";

# directory to use for temp files
$git_temp = "/tmp";

# target of the home link on top of all pages
#$home_link = $my_uri || "/";

# html text to include at home page
#$home_text = "indextext.html";

# file with project list; by default, simply scan the projectroot dir.
#$projects_list = $projectroot;

# stylesheet to use
#@stylesheets = ("static/gitweb.css");

# javascript code for gitweb
#$javascript = "static/gitweb.js";

# logo to use
#$logo = "static/git-logo.png";
#$logo_url = "http://localhost/git";
#$logo_label = "Localhost Git Repositories";

# the 'favicon'
#$favicon = "static/git-favicon.png";

# git-diff-tree(1) options to use for generated patches
#@diff_opts = ("-M");
@diff_opts = ();

# This prevents gitweb to show hidden repositories
#$export_ok = "git-daemon-export-ok";
#$strict_export = 1;

# This lets it make the URLs you see in the header
#@git_base_url_list = ( 'git://localhost/git' );

# Features: syntax highlighting and blame view
$feature{'highlight'}{'default'} = [1];
$feature{'blame'}{'default'} = [1];

Apache configuration

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName localhost

    SetEnv GIT_PROJECT_ROOT /home/git
    SetEnv GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL

    AliasMatch ^/git/(.*/objects/[0-9a-f]{2}/[0-9a-f]{38})$          /home/git/$1
    AliasMatch ^/git/(.*/objects/pack/pack-[0-9a-f]{40}.(pack|idx))$ /home/git/$1
    # Remove git-receive-pack in next line to forbid push to this server
    ScriptAliasMatch \
            "(?x)^/git/(.*/(HEAD | \
                            info/refs | \
                            objects/info/[^/]+ | \
                            git-(upload|receive)-pack))$" \
            /usr/libexec/git-core/git-http-backend/$1

    ScriptAlias /git/ /usr/share/gitweb/gitweb.cgi/
    Alias /git /usr/share/gitweb
    <Directory "/usr/share/gitweb/">
        AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
        DirectoryIndex gitweb.cgi
        Options +ExecCGI

        AllowOverride None
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all

        SetEnv GITWEB_CONFIG /home/git/gitweb.conf
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Nginx configuration

server {
    listen 80 default_server;
    listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on;
    #root /var/www/...;
    # Server name is used in the title of GitWeb pages
    server_name localhost;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html;
    }

    # Git over HTTP
    location ~ ^/git/.*\.git/objects/([0-9a-f]+/[0-9a-f]+|pack/pack-[0-9a-f]+.(pack|idx))$ {
        root /home/git;
    }
    # Remove git-receive-pack in next line to forbid push to this server
    location ~ ^/git/(.*\.git/(HEAD|info/refs|objects/info/.*|git-(upload|receive)-pack))$ {
        rewrite ^/git(/.*)$ $1 break;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/fcgiwrap.socket;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME     /usr/lib/git-core/git-http-backend;
        fastcgi_param PATH_INFO           $uri;
        fastcgi_param GIT_PROJECT_ROOT    /home/git;
        fastcgi_param GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL "";
        include fastcgi_params;
    }

    # Git web
    location /git/static/ {
        alias /usr/share/gitweb/static/;
    }
    location /git/ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/fcgiwrap.socket;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME     /usr/share/gitweb/gitweb.cgi;
        fastcgi_param PATH_INFO           $uri/git;
        fastcgi_param GITWEB_CONFIG       /home/git/gitweb.conf;
        fastcgi_param GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL "";
        include fastcgi_params;
    }
}

Tips & Tricks

  • Gitweb is written in Perl so to use FastCGI you need to install libcgi-fast-perl. On Debian:

    apt-get install libcgi-fast-perl

  • To color files with syntax highlighting, you need to install highlight program. On Debian:

    apt-get install highlight

CGit

CGit is a fast Git web interface written in C. As there are issues with Debian packaging (https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=515793), you may need to follow instructions on http://git.zx2c4.com/cgit/tree/README to download, compile and install the latest release.

Let’s say cgit files are installed in /var/www/htdocs/cgit/. The web server needs to be configured to serve the static files and the CGI, exactly like gitweb. Here is an extract of an Nginx configuration file:

location ~ ^/cgit\.(png|css)$ { root /var/www/htdocs/cgit/; }
location ~ ^/cgit(/.*) {
    fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/fcgiwrap.socket;
    fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /var/www/htdocs/cgit/cgit.cgi;
    fastcgi_param PATH_INFO       $1;
    fastcgi_param CGIT_CONFIG     /home/git/cgitrc;
    include fastcgi_params;
}

Here is an example of /home/git/cgitrc:

# Here are some default values
css=/cgit.css
favicon=/favicon.ico
logo=/cgit.png
root-title=Git repository browser
root-desc=a fast webinterface for the git dscm

# Global settings
cache-size=1000
enable-commit-graph=1
enable-git-config=1
enable-index-links=1
enable-log-filecount=1
enable-log-linecount=1
max-atom-items=100
max-repo-count=10000
max-stats=year
remove-suffix=1
snapshots=tar.gz tar.bz2 zip
strict-export=git-daemon-export-ok

# Custom configuration
virtual-root=/cgit
cache-root=/var/cache/cgit
#project-list=/home/git/projects.list
scan-path=/home/git/
clone-prefix=http://localhost/git/
readme=README

# Syntax highlighting
source-filter=/usr/lib/cgit/filters/syntax-highlighting.sh

To create a cache directory (if it doesn’t already exist), run something like:

mkdir -p /var/cache/cgit
chown -R www-data: /var/cache/cgit