Yolinux.com

gitweb manpage

Search topic Section


GITWEB(1)			  Git Manual			     GITWEB(1)



NAME
       gitweb - Git web interface (web frontend to Git repositories)

SYNOPSIS
       To get started with gitweb, run git-instaweb(1) from a Git repository.
       This would configure and start your web server, and run web browser
       pointing to gitweb.

DESCRIPTION
       Gitweb provides a web interface to Git repositories. Its features
       include:

       o   Viewing multiple Git repositories with common root.

       o   Browsing every revision of the repository.

       o   Viewing the contents of files in the repository at any revision.

       o   Viewing the revision log of branches, history of files and
	   directories, see what was changed when, by who.

       o   Viewing the blame/annotation details of any file (if enabled).

       o   Generating RSS and Atom feeds of commits, for any branch. The feeds
	   are auto-discoverable in modern web browsers.

       o   Viewing everything that was changed in a revision, and step through
	   revisions one at a time, viewing the history of the repository.

       o   Finding commits which commit messages matches given search term.

       See http://repo.or.cz/w/git.git/tree/HEAD:/gitweb/ for gitweb source
       code, browsed using gitweb itself.

CONFIGURATION
       Various aspects of gitweb's behavior can be controlled through the
       configuration file gitweb_config.perl or /etc/gitweb.conf. See the
       gitweb.conf(5) for details.

   Repositories
       Gitweb can show information from one or more Git repositories. These
       repositories have to be all on local filesystem, and have to share
       common repository root, i.e. be all under a single parent repository
       (but see also "Advanced web server setup" section, "Webserver
       configuration with multiple projects' root" subsection).

	   our $projectroot = '/path/to/parent/directory';


       The default value for $projectroot is /pub/git. You can change it
       during building gitweb via GITWEB_PROJECTROOT build configuration
       variable.

       By default all Git repositories under $projectroot are visible and
       available to gitweb. The list of projects is generated by default by
       scanning the $projectroot directory for Git repositories (for object
       databases to be more exact; gitweb is not interested in a working area,
       and is best suited to showing "bare" repositories).

       The name of the repository in gitweb is the path to its $GIT_DIR (its
       object database) relative to $projectroot. Therefore the repository
       $repo can be found at "$projectroot/$repo".

   Projects list file format
       Instead of having gitweb find repositories by scanning filesystem
       starting from $projectroot, you can provide a pre-generated list of
       visible projects by setting $projects_list to point to a plain text
       file with a list of projects (with some additional info).

       This file uses the following format:

       o   One record (for project / repository) per line; does not support
	   line continuation (newline escaping).

       o   Leading and trailing whitespace are ignored.

       o   Whitespace separated fields; any run of whitespace can be used as
	   field separator (rules for Perl's "split(" ", $line)").

       o   Fields use modified URI encoding, defined in RFC 3986, section 2.1
	   (Percent-Encoding), or rather "Query string encoding" (see
	   https://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).

       o   Currently recognized fields are:

	   <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 generate the projects list index file using the project_index
       action (the TXT link on projects list page) directly from gitweb; see
       also "Generating projects list using gitweb" section below.

       Example contents:

	   foo.git	 Joe+R+Hacker+<joe@example.com>
	   foo/bar.git	 O+W+Ner+<owner@example.org>


       By default this file controls only which projects are visible on
       projects list page (note that entries that do not point to correctly
       recognized Git repositories won't be displayed by gitweb). Even if a
       project is not visible on projects list page, you can view it
       nevertheless by hand-crafting a gitweb URL. By setting $strict_export
       configuration variable (see gitweb.conf(5)) to true value you can allow
       viewing only of repositories also shown on the overview page (i.e. only
       projects explicitly listed in projects list file will be accessible).

   Generating projects list using gitweb
       We assume that GITWEB_CONFIG has its default Makefile value, namely
       gitweb_config.perl. Put the following in gitweb_make_index.perl file:

	   read_config_file("gitweb_config.perl");
	   $projects_list = $projectroot;


       Then create the following script to get list of project in the format
       suitable for GITWEB_LIST build configuration variable (or
       $projects_list variable in gitweb config):

	   #!/bin/sh

	   export GITWEB_CONFIG="gitweb_make_index.perl"
	   export GATEWAY_INTERFACE="CGI/1.1"
	   export HTTP_ACCEPT="*/*"
	   export REQUEST_METHOD="GET"
	   export QUERY_STRING="a=project_index"

	   perl -- /var/www/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi


       Run this script and save its output to a file. This file could then be
       used as projects list file, which means that you can set $projects_list
       to its filename.

   Controlling access to Git repositories
       By default all Git repositories under $projectroot are visible and
       available to gitweb. You can however configure how gitweb controls
       access to repositories.

       o   As described in "Projects list file format" section, you can
	   control which projects are visible by selectively including
	   repositories in projects list file, and setting $projects_list
	   gitweb configuration variable to point to it. With $strict_export
	   set, projects list file can be used to control which repositories
	   are available as well.

       o   You can configure gitweb to only list and allow viewing of the
	   explicitly exported repositories, via $export_ok variable in gitweb
	   config file; see gitweb.conf(5) manpage. If it evaluates to true,
	   gitweb shows repositories only if this file named by $export_ok
	   exists in its object database (if directory has the magic file
	   named $export_ok).

	   For example git-daemon(1) by default (unless --export-all option is
	   used) allows pulling only for those repositories that have
	   git-daemon-export-ok file. Adding

	       our $export_ok = "git-daemon-export-ok";

	   makes gitweb show and allow access only to those repositories that
	   can be fetched from via git:// protocol.

       o   Finally, it is possible to specify an arbitrary perl subroutine
	   that will be called for each repository to determine if it can be
	   exported. The subroutine receives an absolute path to the project
	   (repository) as its only parameter (i.e. "$projectroot/$project").

	   For example, if you use mod_perl to run the script, and have dumb
	   HTTP protocol authentication configured for your repositories, you
	   can use the following hook to allow access only if the user is
	   authorized to read the files:

	       $export_auth_hook = sub {
		       use Apache2::SubRequest ();
		       use Apache2::Const -compile => qw(HTTP_OK);
		       my $path = "$_[0]/HEAD";
		       my $r	= Apache2::RequestUtil->request;
		       my $sub	= $r->lookup_file($path);
		       return $sub->filename eq $path
			   && $sub->status == Apache2::Const::HTTP_OK;
	       };


   Per-repository gitweb configuration
       You can 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, see git-config(1)).

       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, see gitweb.conf(5)); 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 to $projects_list_description_width in the
	   projects list page, which is 25 characters by default; see
	   gitweb.conf(5)) 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, usually installed in
	   /usr/share/git-core/templates/. 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.

	   The configuration variables $projects_list_group_categories and
	   $project_list_default_category are described in gitweb.conf(5)

       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.

	   This is per-repository enhancement / version of global prefix-based
	   @git_base_url_list gitweb configuration variable (see
	   gitweb.conf(5)).

       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, i.e. real name field from getpwuid(3)) if $projects_list is
	   unset (gitweb scans $projectroot for repositories); if
	   $projects_list points to file with list of repositories, then
	   project owner defaults to value from this file for given
	   repository.

       various gitweb.* config variables (in config)
	   Read description of %feature hash for detailed list, and
	   descriptions. See also "Configuring gitweb features" section in
	   gitweb.conf(5)

ACTIONS, AND URLS
       Gitweb can use path_info (component) based URLs, or it can pass all
       necessary information via query parameters. The typical gitweb URLs are
       broken down in to five components:

	   .../gitweb.cgi/<repo>/<action>/<revision>:/<path>?<arguments>



       repo
	   The repository the action will be performed on.

	   All actions except for those that list all available projects, in
	   whatever form, require this parameter.

       action
	   The action that will be run. Defaults to projects_list if repo is
	   not set, and to summary otherwise.

       revision
	   Revision shown. Defaults to HEAD.

       path
	   The path within the <repository> that the action is performed on,
	   for those actions that require it.

       arguments
	   Any arguments that control the behaviour of the action.

       Some actions require or allow to specify two revisions, and sometimes
       even two pathnames. In most general form such path_info (component)
       based gitweb URL looks like this:

	   .../gitweb.cgi/<repo>/<action>/<revision_from>:/<path_from>..<revision_to>:/<path_to>?<arguments>


       Each action is implemented as a subroutine, and must be present in
       %actions hash. Some actions are disabled by default, and must be turned
       on via feature mechanism. For example to enable blame view add the
       following to gitweb configuration file:

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


   Actions:
       The standard actions are:

       project_list
	   Lists the available Git repositories. This is the default command
	   if no repository is specified in the URL.

       summary
	   Displays summary about given repository. This is the default
	   command if no action is specified in URL, and only repository is
	   specified.

       heads, remotes
	   Lists all local or all remote-tracking branches in given
	   repository.

	   The latter is not available by default, unless configured.

       tags
	   List all tags (lightweight and annotated) in given repository.

       blob, tree
	   Shows the files and directories in a given repository path, at
	   given revision. This is default command if no action is specified
	   in the URL, and path is given.

       blob_plain
	   Returns the raw data for the file in given repository, at given
	   path and revision. Links to this action are marked raw.

       blobdiff
	   Shows the difference between two revisions of the same file.

       blame, blame_incremental
	   Shows the blame (also called annotation) information for a file. On
	   a per line basis it shows the revision in which that line was last
	   changed and the user that committed the change. The incremental
	   version (which if configured is used automatically when JavaScript
	   is enabled) uses Ajax to incrementally add blame info to the
	   contents of given file.

	   This action is disabled by default for performance reasons.

       commit, commitdiff
	   Shows information about a specific commit in a repository. The
	   commit view shows information about commit in more detail, the
	   commitdiff action shows changeset for given commit.

       patch
	   Returns the commit in plain text mail format, suitable for applying
	   with git-am(1).

       tag
	   Display specific annotated tag (tag object).

       log, shortlog
	   Shows log information (commit message or just commit subject) for a
	   given branch (starting from given revision).

	   The shortlog view is more compact; it shows one commit per line.

       history
	   Shows history of the file or directory in a given repository path,
	   starting from given revision (defaults to HEAD, i.e. default
	   branch).

	   This view is similar to shortlog view.

       rss, atom
	   Generates an RSS (or Atom) feed of changes to repository.

WEBSERVER CONFIGURATION
       This section explains how to configure some common webservers to run
       gitweb. In all cases, /path/to/gitweb in the examples is the directory
       you ran installed gitweb in, and contains gitweb_config.perl.

       If you've configured a web server that isn't listed here for gitweb,
       please send in the instructions so they can be included in a future
       release.

   Apache as CGI
       Apache must be configured to support CGI scripts in the directory in
       which gitweb is installed. Let's assume that it is /var/www/cgi-bin
       directory.

	   ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "/var/www/cgi-bin/"

	   <Directory "/var/www/cgi-bin">
	       Options Indexes FollowSymlinks ExecCGI
	       AllowOverride None
	       Order allow,deny
	       Allow from all
	   </Directory>


       With that configuration the full path to browse repositories would be:

	   http://server/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi

   Apache with mod_perl, via ModPerl::Registry
       You can use mod_perl with gitweb. You must install Apache::Registry
       (for mod_perl 1.x) or ModPerl::Registry (for mod_perl 2.x) to enable
       this support.

       Assuming that gitweb is installed to /var/www/perl, the following
       Apache configuration (for mod_perl 2.x) is suitable.

	   Alias /perl "/var/www/perl"

	   <Directory "/var/www/perl">
	       SetHandler perl-script
	       PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::Registry
	       PerlOptions +ParseHeaders
	       Options Indexes FollowSymlinks +ExecCGI
	       AllowOverride None
	       Order allow,deny
	       Allow from all
	   </Directory>


       With that configuration the full path to browse repositories would be:

	   http://server/perl/gitweb.cgi

   Apache with FastCGI
       Gitweb works with Apache and FastCGI. First you need to rename, copy or
       symlink gitweb.cgi to gitweb.fcgi. Let's assume that gitweb is
       installed in /usr/share/gitweb directory. The following Apache
       configuration is suitable (UNTESTED!)

	   FastCgiServer /usr/share/gitweb/gitweb.cgi
	   ScriptAlias /gitweb /usr/share/gitweb/gitweb.cgi

	   Alias /gitweb/static /usr/share/gitweb/static
	   <Directory /usr/share/gitweb/static>
	       SetHandler default-handler
	   </Directory>


       With that configuration the full path to browse repositories would be:

	   http://server/gitweb

ADVANCED WEB SERVER SETUP
       All of those examples use request rewriting, and need mod_rewrite (or
       equivalent; examples below are written for Apache).

   Single URL for gitweb and for fetching
       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 clonable Git URL and
       as browseable gitweb interface. If you then start your git-daemon(1)
       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. You don't really need it in above example; it
       is required only if your configuration file is in different place than
       built-in (during compiling gitweb) gitweb_config.perl or
       /etc/gitweb.conf. See gitweb.conf(5) for details, especially
       information about precedence rules.

       If you use the rewrite rules from the example you might also need
       something like the following in your gitweb configuration file
       (/etc/gitweb.conf following example):

	   @stylesheets = ("/some/absolute/path/gitweb.css");
	   $my_uri    = "/";
	   $home_link = "/";
	   $per_request_config = 1;


       Nowadays though gitweb should create HTML base tag when needed (to set
       base URI for relative links), so it should work automatically.

   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 configuration files in the following
       way.

       The virtual host configuration (in Apache configuration file) should
       look 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  [QSA,L,PT]

	       # look for a public_git directory 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>


       Here actual project root is passed to gitweb via GITWEB_PROJECT_ROOT
       environment variable from a web server, so you need to put the
       following line in gitweb configuration file (/etc/gitweb.conf in above
       example):

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


       Note that this requires to be set for each request, so either
       $per_request_config must be false, or the above must be put in code
       referenced by $per_request_config;

       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
       accessible 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 configuration file, 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

       i.e. without gitweb.cgi part, by using a configuration such as the
       following. This configuration assumes that /var/www/gitweb is the
       DocumentRoot of your webserver, contains the gitweb.cgi script and
       complementary static files (stylesheet, favicon, JavaScript):

	   <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 (described in "Single URL for gitweb and for
       fetching" section). 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.

BUGS
       Please report any bugs or feature requests to git@vger.kernel.org[1],
       putting "gitweb" in the subject of email.

SEE ALSO
       gitweb.conf(5), git-instaweb(1)

       gitweb/README, gitweb/INSTALL

GIT
       Part of the git(1) suite

NOTES
	1. git@vger.kernel.org
	   mailto:git@vger.kernel.org



Git 2.38.4			  05/16/2024			     GITWEB(1)