GIT web Interface

=================

The one working on:

http://git.kernel.org/

From the git version 1.4.0 gitweb is bundled with git.

How to configure gitweb for your local system

---------------------------------------------

See also the "Build time configuration" section in the INSTALL

file for gitweb (in gitweb/INSTALL).

You can specify the following configuration variables when building GIT:

* GIT_BINDIR

Points where to find the git executable. You should set it up to

the place where the git binary was installed (usually /usr/bin) if you

don't install git from sources together with gitweb. [Default: $(bindir)]

* GITWEB_SITENAME

Shown in the title of all generated pages, defaults to the server name

(SERVER_NAME CGI environment variable) if not set. [No default]

* GITWEB_PROJECTROOT

The root directory for all projects shown by gitweb. Must be set

correctly for gitweb to find repositories to display. See also

"Gitweb repositories" in the INSTALL file for gitweb. [Default: /pub/git]

* GITWEB_PROJECT_MAXDEPTH

The filesystem traversing limit for getting the project list; the number

is taken as depth relative to the projectroot. It is used when

GITWEB_LIST is a directory (or is not set; then project root is used).

Is is meant to speed up project listing on large work trees by limiting

search depth. [Default: 2007]

* GITWEB_LIST

Points to a directory to scan for projects (defaults to project root

if not set / if empty) or to a file with explicit listing of projects

(together with projects' ownership). See "Generating projects list

using gitweb" in INSTALL file for gitweb to find out how to generate

such file from scan of a directory. [No default, which means use root

directory for projects]

* GITWEB_EXPORT_OK

Show repository only if this file exists (in repository). Only

effective if this variable evaluates to true. [No default / Not set]

* GITWEB_STRICT_EXPORT

Only allow viewing of repositories also shown on the overview page.

This for example makes GITWEB_EXPORT_OK to decide if repository is

available and not only if it is shown. If GITWEB_LIST points to

file with list of project, only those repositories listed would be

available for gitweb. [No default]

* GITWEB_HOMETEXT

Points to an .html file which is included on the gitweb project

overview page ('projects_list' view), if it exists. Relative to

gitweb.cgi script. [Default: indextext.html]

* GITWEB_SITE_HEADER

Filename of html text to include at top of each page. Relative to

gitweb.cgi script. [No default]

* GITWEB_SITE_FOOTER

Filename of html text to include at bottom of each page. Relative to

gitweb.cgi script. [No default]

* GITWEB_HOME_LINK_STR

String of the home link on top of all pages, leading to $home_link

(usually main gitweb page, which means projects list). Used as first

part of gitweb view "breadcrumb trail": <home> / <project> / <view>.

[Default: projects]

* GITWEB_SITENAME

Name of your site or organization to appear in page titles. Set it

to something descriptive for clearer bookmarks etc. If not set

(if empty) gitweb uses "$SERVER_NAME Git", or "Untitled Git" if

SERVER_NAME CGI environment variable is not set (e.g. if running

gitweb as standalone script). [No default]

* GITWEB_BASE_URL

Git base URLs used for URL to where fetch project from, i.e. full

URL is "$git_base_url/$project". Shown on projects summary page.

Repository URL for project can be also configured per repository; this

takes precedence over URLs composed from base URL and a project name.

Note that you can setup multiple base URLs (for example one for

git:// protocol access, another for http:// access) from the gitweb

config file. [No default]

* GITWEB_CSS

Points to the location where you put gitweb.css on your web server

(or to be more generic, the URI of gitweb stylesheet). Relative to the

base URI of gitweb. Note that you can setup multiple stylesheets from

the gitweb config file. [Default: gitweb.css]

* GITWEB_LOGO

Points to the location where you put git-logo.png on your web server

(or to be more generic URI of logo, 72x27 size, displayed in top right

corner of each gitweb page, and used as logo for Atom feed). Relative

to base URI of gitweb. [Default: git-logo.png]

* GITWEB_FAVICON

Points to the location where you put git-favicon.png on your web server

(or to be more generic URI of favicon, assumed to be image/png type;

web browsers that support favicons (website icons) may display them

in the browser's URL bar and next to site name in bookmarks). Relative

to base URI of gitweb. [Default: git-favicon.png]

* GITWEB_JS

Points to the localtion where you put gitweb.js on your web server

(or to be more generic URI of JavaScript code used by gitweb).

Relative to base URI of gitweb. [Default: gitweb.js]

* GITWEB_CONFIG

This Perl file will be loaded using 'do' and can be used to override any

of the options above as well as some other options -- see the "Runtime

gitweb configuration" section below, and top of 'gitweb.cgi' for their

full list and description. If the environment variable GITWEB_CONFIG

is set when gitweb.cgi is executed, then the file specified in the

environment variable will be loaded instead of the file specified

when gitweb.cgi was created. [Default: gitweb_config.perl]

* GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM

This Perl file will be loaded using 'do' as a fallback if GITWEB_CONFIG

does not exist. If the environment variable GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM is set

when gitweb.cgi is executed, then the file specified in the environment

variable will be loaded instead of the file specified when gitweb.cgi was

created. [Default: /etc/gitweb.conf]

Runtime gitweb configuration

----------------------------

You can adjust gitweb behaviour using the file specified in `GITWEB_CONFIG`

(defaults to 'gitweb_config.perl' in the same directory as the CGI), and

as a fallback `GITWEB_CONFIG_SYSTEM` (defaults to /etc/gitweb.conf).

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 the "Gitweb config file" (with an example of config file), and

the "Gitweb repositories" sections in INSTALL file for gitweb.

The gitweb config file is a fragment of perl code. You can set variables

using "our $variable = value"; text from "#" character until the end

of a line is ignored. See perlsyn(1) man page for details.

Below is the list of variables which you might want to set in gitweb config.

See the top of 'gitweb.cgi' for the full list of variables and their

descriptions.

Gitweb config file variables

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can set, among others, the following variables in gitweb config files

(with the exception of $projectroot and $projects_list this list does

not include variables usually directly set during build):

* $GIT

Core git executable to use. By default set to "$GIT_BINDIR/git", which

in turn is by default set to "$(bindir)/git". If you use git from binary

package, set this to "/usr/bin/git". This can just be "git" if your

webserver has a sensible PATH. If you have multiple git versions

installed it can be used to choose which one to use.

* $version

Gitweb version, set automatically when creating gitweb.cgi from

gitweb.perl. You might want to modify it if you are running modified

gitweb.

* $projectroot

Absolute filesystem path which will be prepended to project path;

the path to repository is $projectroot/$project. Set to

$GITWEB_PROJECTROOT during installation. This variable have to be

set correctly for gitweb to find repositories.

* $projects_list

Source of projects list, either directory to scan, or text file

with list of repositories (in the "<URI-encoded repository path> SP

<URI-encoded repository owner>" line format; actually there can be

any sequence of whitespace in place of space (SP)). Set to

$GITWEB_LIST during installation. If empty, $projectroot is used

to scan for repositories.

* $my_url, $my_uri

Full URL and absolute URL of gitweb script;

in earlier versions of gitweb you might have need to set those

variables, now there should be no need to do it.

* $home_link

Target of the home link on top of all pages (the first part of view

"breadcrumbs"). By default set to absolute URI of a page ($my_uri).

* @stylesheets

List of URIs of stylesheets (relative to base URI of a page). You

might specify more than one stylesheet, for example use gitweb.css

as base, with site specific modifications in separate stylesheet

to make it easier to upgrade gitweb. You can add 'site' stylesheet

for example by using

push @stylesheets, "gitweb-site.css";

in the gitweb config file.

* $logo_url, $logo_label

URI and label (title) of GIT logo link (or your site logo, if you choose

to use different logo image). By default they point to git homepage;

in the past they pointed to git documentation at www.kernel.org.

* $projects_list_description_width

The width (in characters) of the projects list "Description" column.

Longer descriptions will be cut (trying to cut at word boundary);

full description is available as 'title' attribute (usually shown on

mouseover). By default set to 25, which might be too small if you

use long project descriptions.

* @git_base_url_list

List of git base URLs used for URL to where fetch project from, shown

in project summary page. Full URL is "$git_base_url/$project".

You can setup multiple base URLs (for example one for git:// protocol

access, and one for http:// "dumb" protocol access). Note that per

repository configuration in 'cloneurl' file, or as values of gitweb.url

project config.

* $default_blob_plain_mimetype

Default mimetype for blob_plain (raw) view, if mimetype checking

doesn't result in some other type; by default 'text/plain'.

* $default_text_plain_charset

Default charset for text files. If not set, web server configuration

would be used.

* $mimetypes_file

File to use for (filename extension based) guessing of MIME types before

trying /etc/mime.types. Path, if relative, is taken currently as

relative to the current git repository.

* $fallback_encoding

Gitweb assumes this charset if line contains non-UTF-8 characters.

Fallback decoding is used without error checking, so it can be even

'utf-8'. Value must be valid encoding; see Encoding::Supported(3pm) man

page for a list. By default 'latin1', aka. 'iso-8859-1'.

* @diff_opts

Rename detection options for git-diff and git-diff-tree. By default

('-M'); set it to ('-C') or ('-C', '-C') to also detect copies, or

set it to () if you don't want to have renames detection.

* $prevent_xss

If true, some gitweb features are disabled to prevent content in

repositories from launching cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. Set this

to true if you don't trust the content of your repositories. The default

is false.

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.

* 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

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 = "/";

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>