6 gitweb - Git web interface (web frontend to Git repositories)
10 To get started with gitweb, run linkgit:git-instaweb[1] from a Git repository.
11 This would configure and start your web server, and run web browser pointing to
17 Gitweb provides a web interface to Git repositories. Its features include:
19 * Viewing multiple Git repositories with common root.
20 * Browsing every revision of the repository.
21 * Viewing the contents of files in the repository at any revision.
22 * Viewing the revision log of branches, history of files and directories,
23 see what was changed when, by who.
24 * Viewing the blame/annotation details of any file (if enabled).
25 * Generating RSS and Atom feeds of commits, for any branch.
26 The feeds are auto-discoverable in modern web browsers.
27 * Viewing everything that was changed in a revision, and step through
28 revisions one at a time, viewing the history of the repository.
29 * Finding commits which commit messages matches given search term.
31 See http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git.git;a=tree;f=gitweb[] or
32 http://repo.or.cz/w/git.git/tree/HEAD:/gitweb/[] for gitweb source code,
33 browsed using gitweb itself.
38 Various aspects of gitweb's behavior can be controlled through the configuration
39 file 'gitweb_config.perl' or '/etc/gitweb.conf'. See the linkgit:gitweb.conf[5]
44 Gitweb can show information from one or more Git repositories. These
45 repositories have to be all on local filesystem, and have to share common
46 repository root, i.e. be all under a single parent repository (but see also
47 "Advanced web server setup" section, "Webserver configuration with multiple
48 projects' root" subsection).
50 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
51 our $projectroot = '/path/to/parent/directory';
52 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
54 The default value for `$projectroot` is '/pub/git'. You can change it during
55 building gitweb via `GITWEB_PROJECTROOT` build configuration variable.
57 By default all Git repositories under `$projectroot` are visible and available
58 to gitweb. The list of projects is generated by default by scanning the
59 `$projectroot` directory for Git repositories (for object databases to be
60 more exact; gitweb is not interested in a working area, and is best suited
61 to showing "bare" repositories).
63 The name of the repository in gitweb is the path to its `$GIT_DIR` (its object
64 database) relative to `$projectroot`. Therefore the repository $repo can be
65 found at "$projectroot/$repo".
68 Projects list file format
69 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
70 Instead of having gitweb find repositories by scanning filesystem
71 starting from $projectroot, you can provide a pre-generated list of
72 visible projects by setting `$projects_list` to point to a plain text
73 file with a list of projects (with some additional info).
75 This file uses the following format:
77 * One record (for project / repository) per line; does not support line
78 continuation (newline escaping).
80 * Leading and trailing whitespace are ignored.
82 * Whitespace separated fields; any run of whitespace can be used as field
83 separator (rules for Perl's "`split(" ", $line)`").
85 * Fields use modified URI encoding, defined in RFC 3986, section 2.1
86 (Percent-Encoding), or rather "Query string encoding" (see
87 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_string#URL_encoding[]), the difference
88 being that SP (" ") can be encoded as "{plus}" (and therefore "{plus}" has to be
89 also percent-encoded).
91 Reserved characters are: "%" (used for encoding), "{plus}" (can be used to
92 encode SPACE), all whitespace characters as defined in Perl, including SP,
93 TAB and LF, (used to separate fields in a record).
95 * Currently recognized fields are:
97 path to repository GIT_DIR, relative to `$projectroot`
99 displayed as repository owner, preferably full name, or email,
102 You can generate the projects list index file using the project_index action
103 (the 'TXT' link on projects list page) directly from gitweb; see also
104 "Generating projects list using gitweb" section below.
107 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
108 foo.git Joe+R+Hacker+<joe@example.com>
109 foo/bar.git O+W+Ner+<owner@example.org>
110 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
113 By default this file controls only which projects are *visible* on projects
114 list page (note that entries that do not point to correctly recognized Git
115 repositories won't be displayed by gitweb). Even if a project is not
116 visible on projects list page, you can view it nevertheless by hand-crafting
117 a gitweb URL. By setting `$strict_export` configuration variable (see
118 linkgit:gitweb.conf[5]) to true value you can allow viewing only of
119 repositories also shown on the overview page (i.e. only projects explicitly
120 listed in projects list file will be accessible).
123 Generating projects list using gitweb
124 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
126 We assume that GITWEB_CONFIG has its default Makefile value, namely
127 'gitweb_config.perl'. Put the following in 'gitweb_make_index.perl' file:
128 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
129 read_config_file("gitweb_config.perl");
130 $projects_list = $projectroot;
131 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
133 Then create the following script to get list of project in the format
134 suitable for GITWEB_LIST build configuration variable (or
135 `$projects_list` variable in gitweb config):
137 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
140 export GITWEB_CONFIG="gitweb_make_index.perl"
141 export GATEWAY_INTERFACE="CGI/1.1"
142 export HTTP_ACCEPT="*/*"
143 export REQUEST_METHOD="GET"
144 export QUERY_STRING="a=project_index"
146 perl -- /var/www/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi
147 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
149 Run this script and save its output to a file. This file could then be used
150 as projects list file, which means that you can set `$projects_list` to its
154 Controlling access to Git repositories
155 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
156 By default all Git repositories under `$projectroot` are visible and
157 available to gitweb. You can however configure how gitweb controls access
160 * As described in "Projects list file format" section, you can control which
161 projects are *visible* by selectively including repositories in projects
162 list file, and setting `$projects_list` gitweb configuration variable to
163 point to it. With `$strict_export` set, projects list file can be used to
164 control which repositories are *available* as well.
166 * You can configure gitweb to only list and allow viewing of the explicitly
167 exported repositories, via `$export_ok` variable in gitweb config file; see
168 linkgit:gitweb.conf[5] manpage. If it evaluates to true, gitweb shows
169 repositories only if this file named by `$export_ok` exists in its object
170 database (if directory has the magic file named `$export_ok`).
172 For example linkgit:git-daemon[1] by default (unless `--export-all` option
173 is used) allows pulling only for those repositories that have
174 'git-daemon-export-ok' file. Adding
176 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
177 our $export_ok = "git-daemon-export-ok";
178 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
180 makes gitweb show and allow access only to those repositories that can be
181 fetched from via `git://` protocol.
183 * Finally, it is possible to specify an arbitrary perl subroutine that will
184 be called for each repository to determine if it can be exported. The
185 subroutine receives an absolute path to the project (repository) as its only
186 parameter (i.e. "$projectroot/$project").
188 For example, if you use mod_perl to run the script, and have dumb
189 HTTP protocol authentication configured for your repositories, you
190 can use the following hook to allow access only if the user is
191 authorized to read the files:
193 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
194 $export_auth_hook = sub {
195 use Apache2::SubRequest ();
196 use Apache2::Const -compile => qw(HTTP_OK);
197 my $path = "$_[0]/HEAD";
198 my $r = Apache2::RequestUtil->request;
199 my $sub = $r->lookup_file($path);
200 return $sub->filename eq $path
201 && $sub->status == Apache2::Const::HTTP_OK;
203 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
206 Per-repository gitweb configuration
207 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
208 You can configure individual repositories shown in gitweb by creating file
209 in the 'GIT_DIR' of Git repository, or by setting some repo configuration
210 variable (in 'GIT_DIR/config', see linkgit:git-config[1]).
212 You can use the following files in repository:
215 A html file (HTML fragment) which is included on the gitweb project
216 "summary" page inside `<div>` block element. You can use it for longer
217 description of a project, to provide links (for example to project's
218 homepage), etc. This is recognized only if XSS prevention is off
219 (`$prevent_xss` is false, see linkgit:gitweb.conf[5]); a way to include
220 a README safely when XSS prevention is on may be worked out in the
223 description (or `gitweb.description`)::
224 Short (shortened to `$projects_list_description_width` in the projects
225 list page, which is 25 characters by default; see
226 linkgit:gitweb.conf[5]) single line description of a project (of a
227 repository). Plain text file; HTML will be escaped. By default set to
229 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
230 Unnamed repository; edit this file to name it for gitweb.
231 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
233 from the template during repository creation, usually installed in
234 '/usr/share/git-core/templates/'. You can use the `gitweb.description` repo
235 configuration variable, but the file takes precedence.
237 category (or `gitweb.category`)::
238 Singe line category of a project, used to group projects if
239 `$projects_list_group_categories` is enabled. By default (file and
240 configuration variable absent), uncategorized projects are put in the
241 `$project_list_default_category` category. You can use the
242 `gitweb.category` repo configuration variable, but the file takes
245 The configuration variables `$projects_list_group_categories` and
246 `$project_list_default_category` are described in linkgit:gitweb.conf[5]
248 cloneurl (or multiple-valued `gitweb.url`)::
249 File with repository URL (used for clone and fetch), one per line.
250 Displayed in the project summary page. You can use multiple-valued
251 `gitweb.url` repository configuration variable for that, but the file
254 This is per-repository enhancement / version of global prefix-based
255 `@git_base_url_list` gitweb configuration variable (see
256 linkgit:gitweb.conf[5]).
259 You can use the `gitweb.owner` repository configuration variable to set
260 repository's owner. It is displayed in the project list and summary
263 If it's not set, filesystem directory's owner is used (via GECOS field,
264 i.e. real name field from *getpwuid*(3)) if `$projects_list` is unset
265 (gitweb scans `$projectroot` for repositories); if `$projects_list`
266 points to file with list of repositories, then project owner defaults to
267 value from this file for given repository.
270 You can use the `gitweb.homepage` repository configuration variable to
271 set the repository's home page URL. If set, it is displayed on the
272 project summary page.
274 various `gitweb.*` config variables (in config)::
275 Read description of `%feature` hash for detailed list, and descriptions.
276 See also "Configuring gitweb features" section in linkgit:gitweb.conf[5]
281 Gitweb can use path_info (component) based URLs, or it can pass all necessary
282 information via query parameters. The typical gitweb URLs are broken down in to
285 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
286 .../gitweb.cgi/<repo>/<action>/<revision>:/<path>?<arguments>
287 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
290 The repository the action will be performed on.
292 All actions except for those that list all available projects,
293 in whatever form, require this parameter.
296 The action that will be run. Defaults to 'projects_list' if repo
297 is not set, and to 'summary' otherwise.
300 Revision shown. Defaults to HEAD.
303 The path within the <repository> that the action is performed on,
304 for those actions that require it.
307 Any arguments that control the behaviour of the action.
309 Some actions require or allow to specify two revisions, and sometimes even two
310 pathnames. In most general form such path_info (component) based gitweb URL
313 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
314 .../gitweb.cgi/<repo>/<action>/<revision_from>:/<path_from>..<revision_to>:/<path_to>?<arguments>
315 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
318 Each action is implemented as a subroutine, and must be present in %actions
319 hash. Some actions are disabled by default, and must be turned on via feature
320 mechanism. For example to enable 'blame' view add the following to gitweb
323 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
324 $feature{'blame'}{'default'} = [1];
325 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
330 The standard actions are:
333 Lists the available Git repositories. This is the default command if no
334 repository is specified in the URL.
337 Displays summary about given repository. This is the default command if
338 no action is specified in URL, and only repository is specified.
342 Lists all local or all remote-tracking branches in given repository.
344 The latter is not available by default, unless configured.
347 List all tags (lightweight and annotated) in given repository.
351 Shows the files and directories in a given repository path, at given
352 revision. This is default command if no action is specified in the URL,
356 Returns the raw data for the file in given repository, at given path and
357 revision. Links to this action are marked 'raw'.
360 Shows the difference between two revisions of the same file.
364 Shows the blame (also called annotation) information for a file. On a
365 per line basis it shows the revision in which that line was last changed
366 and the user that committed the change. The incremental version (which
367 if configured is used automatically when JavaScript is enabled) uses
368 Ajax to incrementally add blame info to the contents of given file.
370 This action is disabled by default for performance reasons.
374 Shows information about a specific commit in a repository. The 'commit'
375 view shows information about commit in more detail, the 'commitdiff'
376 action shows changeset for given commit.
379 Returns the commit in plain text mail format, suitable for applying with
383 Display specific annotated tag (tag object).
387 Shows log information (commit message or just commit subject) for a
388 given branch (starting from given revision).
390 The 'shortlog' view is more compact; it shows one commit per line.
393 Shows history of the file or directory in a given repository path,
394 starting from given revision (defaults to HEAD, i.e. default branch).
396 This view is similar to 'shortlog' view.
400 Generates an RSS (or Atom) feed of changes to repository.
403 WEBSERVER CONFIGURATION
404 -----------------------
405 This section explains how to configure some common webservers to run gitweb. In
406 all cases, `/path/to/gitweb` in the examples is the directory you ran installed
407 gitweb in, and contains `gitweb_config.perl`.
409 If you've configured a web server that isn't listed here for gitweb, please send
410 in the instructions so they can be included in a future release.
414 Apache must be configured to support CGI scripts in the directory in
415 which gitweb is installed. Let's assume that it is '/var/www/cgi-bin'
418 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
419 ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "/var/www/cgi-bin/"
421 <Directory "/var/www/cgi-bin">
422 Options Indexes FollowSymlinks ExecCGI
427 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
429 With that configuration the full path to browse repositories would be:
431 http://server/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi
433 Apache with mod_perl, via ModPerl::Registry
434 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
435 You can use mod_perl with gitweb. You must install Apache::Registry
436 (for mod_perl 1.x) or ModPerl::Registry (for mod_perl 2.x) to enable
439 Assuming that gitweb is installed to '/var/www/perl', the following
440 Apache configuration (for mod_perl 2.x) is suitable.
442 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
443 Alias /perl "/var/www/perl"
445 <Directory "/var/www/perl">
446 SetHandler perl-script
447 PerlResponseHandler ModPerl::Registry
448 PerlOptions +ParseHeaders
449 Options Indexes FollowSymlinks +ExecCGI
454 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
456 With that configuration the full path to browse repositories would be:
458 http://server/perl/gitweb.cgi
462 Gitweb works with Apache and FastCGI. First you need to rename, copy
463 or symlink gitweb.cgi to gitweb.fcgi. Let's assume that gitweb is
464 installed in '/usr/share/gitweb' directory. The following Apache
465 configuration is suitable (UNTESTED!)
467 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
468 FastCgiServer /usr/share/gitweb/gitweb.cgi
469 ScriptAlias /gitweb /usr/share/gitweb/gitweb.cgi
471 Alias /gitweb/static /usr/share/gitweb/static
472 <Directory /usr/share/gitweb/static>
473 SetHandler default-handler
475 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
477 With that configuration the full path to browse repositories would be:
482 ADVANCED WEB SERVER SETUP
483 -------------------------
484 All of those examples use request rewriting, and need `mod_rewrite`
485 (or equivalent; examples below are written for Apache).
487 Single URL for gitweb and for fetching
488 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
489 If you want to have one URL for both gitweb and your `http://`
490 repositories, you can configure Apache like this:
492 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
494 ServerName git.example.org
495 DocumentRoot /pub/git
496 SetEnv GITWEB_CONFIG /etc/gitweb.conf
498 # turning on mod rewrite
501 # make the front page an internal rewrite to the gitweb script
502 RewriteRule ^/$ /cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi
504 # make access for "dumb clients" work
505 RewriteRule ^/(.*\.git/(?!/?(HEAD|info|objects|refs)).*)?$ \
506 /cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi%{REQUEST_URI} [L,PT]
508 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
510 The above configuration expects your public repositories to live under
511 '/pub/git' and will serve them as `http://git.domain.org/dir-under-pub-git`,
512 both as clonable Git URL and as browseable gitweb interface. If you then
513 start your linkgit:git-daemon[1] with `--base-path=/pub/git --export-all`
514 then you can even use the `git://` URL with exactly the same path.
516 Setting the environment variable `GITWEB_CONFIG` will tell gitweb to use the
517 named file (i.e. in this example '/etc/gitweb.conf') as a configuration for
518 gitweb. You don't really need it in above example; it is required only if
519 your configuration file is in different place than built-in (during
520 compiling gitweb) 'gitweb_config.perl' or '/etc/gitweb.conf'. See
521 linkgit:gitweb.conf[5] for details, especially information about precedence
524 If you use the rewrite rules from the example you *might* also need
525 something like the following in your gitweb configuration file
526 ('/etc/gitweb.conf' following example):
527 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
528 @stylesheets = ("/some/absolute/path/gitweb.css");
531 $per_request_config = 1;
532 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
533 Nowadays though gitweb should create HTML base tag when needed (to set base
534 URI for relative links), so it should work automatically.
537 Webserver configuration with multiple projects' root
538 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
539 If you want to use gitweb with several project roots you can edit your
540 Apache virtual host and gitweb configuration files in the following way.
542 The virtual host configuration (in Apache configuration file) should look
544 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
546 ServerName git.example.org
547 DocumentRoot /pub/git
548 SetEnv GITWEB_CONFIG /etc/gitweb.conf
550 # turning on mod rewrite
553 # make the front page an internal rewrite to the gitweb script
554 RewriteRule ^/$ /cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi [QSA,L,PT]
556 # look for a public_git folder in unix users' home
557 # http://git.example.org/~<user>/
558 RewriteRule ^/\~([^\/]+)(/|/gitweb.cgi)?$ /cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi \
559 [QSA,E=GITWEB_PROJECTROOT:/home/$1/public_git/,L,PT]
561 # http://git.example.org/+<user>/
562 #RewriteRule ^/\+([^\/]+)(/|/gitweb.cgi)?$ /cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi \
563 [QSA,E=GITWEB_PROJECTROOT:/home/$1/public_git/,L,PT]
565 # http://git.example.org/user/<user>/
566 #RewriteRule ^/user/([^\/]+)/(gitweb.cgi)?$ /cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi \
567 [QSA,E=GITWEB_PROJECTROOT:/home/$1/public_git/,L,PT]
569 # defined list of project roots
570 RewriteRule ^/scm(/|/gitweb.cgi)?$ /cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi \
571 [QSA,E=GITWEB_PROJECTROOT:/pub/scm/,L,PT]
572 RewriteRule ^/var(/|/gitweb.cgi)?$ /cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi \
573 [QSA,E=GITWEB_PROJECTROOT:/var/git/,L,PT]
575 # make access for "dumb clients" work
576 RewriteRule ^/(.*\.git/(?!/?(HEAD|info|objects|refs)).*)?$ \
577 /cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi%{REQUEST_URI} [L,PT]
579 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
581 Here actual project root is passed to gitweb via `GITWEB_PROJECT_ROOT`
582 environment variable from a web server, so you need to put the following
583 line in gitweb configuration file ('/etc/gitweb.conf' in above example):
584 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
585 $projectroot = $ENV{'GITWEB_PROJECTROOT'} || "/pub/git";
586 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
587 *Note* that this requires to be set for each request, so either
588 `$per_request_config` must be false, or the above must be put in code
589 referenced by `$per_request_config`;
591 These configurations enable two things. First, each unix user (`<user>`) of
592 the server will be able to browse through gitweb Git repositories found in
593 '~/public_git/' with the following url:
595 http://git.example.org/~<user>/
597 If you do not want this feature on your server just remove the second
600 If you already use `mod_userdir` in your virtual host or you don't want to
601 use the \'~' as first character, just comment or remove the second rewrite
602 rule, and uncomment one of the following according to what you want.
604 Second, repositories found in '/pub/scm/' and '/var/git/' will be accessible
605 through `http://git.example.org/scm/` and `http://git.example.org/var/`.
606 You can add as many project roots as you want by adding rewrite rules like
607 the third and the fourth.
612 If you enable PATH_INFO usage in gitweb by putting
613 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
614 $feature{'pathinfo'}{'default'} = [1];
615 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
616 in your gitweb configuration file, it is possible to set up your server so
617 that it consumes and produces URLs in the form
619 http://git.example.com/project.git/shortlog/sometag
621 i.e. without 'gitweb.cgi' part, by using a configuration such as the
622 following. This configuration assumes that '/var/www/gitweb' is the
623 DocumentRoot of your webserver, contains the gitweb.cgi script and
624 complementary static files (stylesheet, favicon, JavaScript):
626 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
628 ServerAlias git.example.com
630 DocumentRoot /var/www/gitweb
632 <Directory /var/www/gitweb>
634 AddHandler cgi-script cgi
636 DirectoryIndex gitweb.cgi
639 RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
640 RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
641 RewriteRule ^.* /gitweb.cgi/$0 [L,PT]
644 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
645 The rewrite rule guarantees that existing static files will be properly
646 served, whereas any other URL will be passed to gitweb as PATH_INFO
649 *Notice* that in this case you don't need special settings for
650 `@stylesheets`, `$my_uri` and `$home_link`, but you lose "dumb client"
651 access to your project .git dirs (described in "Single URL for gitweb and
652 for fetching" section). A possible workaround for the latter is the
653 following: in your project root dir (e.g. '/pub/git') have the projects
654 named *without* a .git extension (e.g. '/pub/git/project' instead of
655 '/pub/git/project.git') and configure Apache as follows:
656 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
658 ServerAlias git.example.com
660 DocumentRoot /var/www/gitweb
662 AliasMatch ^(/.*?)(\.git)(/.*)?$ /pub/git$1$3
663 <Directory /var/www/gitweb>
665 AddHandler cgi-script cgi
667 DirectoryIndex gitweb.cgi
670 RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
671 RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
672 RewriteRule ^.* /gitweb.cgi/$0 [L,PT]
675 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
677 The additional AliasMatch makes it so that
679 http://git.example.com/project.git
681 will give raw access to the project's Git dir (so that the project can be
684 http://git.example.com/project
686 will provide human-friendly gitweb access.
688 This solution is not 100% bulletproof, in the sense that if some project has
689 a named ref (branch, tag) starting with 'git/', then paths such as
691 http://git.example.com/project/command/abranch..git/abranch
693 will fail with a 404 error.
698 Please report any bugs or feature requests to git@vger.kernel.org,
699 putting "gitweb" in the subject of email.
703 linkgit:gitweb.conf[5], linkgit:git-instaweb[1]
705 'gitweb/README', 'gitweb/INSTALL'
709 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite