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:
· Viewing multiple Git repositories with common root.
· Browsing every revision of the repository.
· Viewing the contents of files in the repository at any revision.
· Viewing the revision log of branches, history of files and directories, see what was changed when, by who.
· Viewing the blame/annotation details of any file (if enabled).
· Generating RSS and Atom feeds of commits, for any branch. The feeds are auto-discoverable in modern web
browsers.
· Viewing everything that was changed in a revision, and step through revisions one at a time, viewing the
history of the repository.
· Finding commits which commit messages matches given search term.
See http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git.git;a=tree;f=gitweb or 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
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 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+<[email protected]>
foo/bar.git O+W+Ner+<[email protected]>
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.
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 $export_ok = "git-daemon-export-ok";
makes gitweb show and allow access only to those repositories that can be fetched from via git://
protocol.
· Finally, it is possible to specify an arbitrary perl subroutine that will be called for each repository to
determine if it can be exported. The subroutine receives an absolute path to the project (repository) as
its only parameter (i.e. "$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)
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];
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
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
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(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 folder in unix users' home
# http://git.example.org/~<user>/
RewriteRule ^/\~([^\/]+)(/|/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>
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 [email protected][1], putting "gitweb" in the subject of
email.
SEE ALSO
gitweb.conf(5), git-instaweb(1)
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