NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | SERVICES | URL TRANSLATION | EXAMPLES | ENVIRONMENT | GIT | COLOPHON

GIT-HTTP-BACKEND(1)              Git Manual              GIT-HTTP-BACKEND(1)

NAME         top

       git-http-backend - Server side implementation of Git over HTTP

SYNOPSIS         top

       git http-backend

DESCRIPTION         top

       A simple CGI program to serve the contents of a Git repository to Git
       clients accessing the repository over http:// and https:// protocols.
       The program supports clients fetching using both the smart HTTP
       protocol and the backwards-compatible dumb HTTP protocol, as well as
       clients pushing using the smart HTTP protocol.
       It verifies that the directory has the magic file
       "git-daemon-export-ok", and it will refuse to export any Git
       directory that hasn’t explicitly been marked for export this way
       (unless the GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL environmental variable is set).
       By default, only the upload-pack service is enabled, which serves git
       fetch-pack and git ls-remote clients, which are invoked from git
       fetch, git pull, and git clone. If the client is authenticated, the
       receive-pack service is enabled, which serves git send-pack clients,
       which is invoked from git push.

SERVICES         top

       These services can be enabled/disabled using the per-repository
       configuration file:
       http.getanyfile
           This serves Git clients older than version 1.6.6 that are unable
           to use the upload pack service. When enabled, clients are able to
           read any file within the repository, including objects that are
           no longer reachable from a branch but are still present. It is
           enabled by default, but a repository can disable it by setting
           this configuration item to false.
       http.uploadpack
           This serves git fetch-pack and git ls-remote clients. It is
           enabled by default, but a repository can disable it by setting
           this configuration item to false.
       http.receivepack
           This serves git send-pack clients, allowing push. It is disabled
           by default for anonymous users, and enabled by default for users
           authenticated by the web server. It can be disabled by setting
           this item to false, or enabled for all users, including anonymous
           users, by setting it to true.

URL TRANSLATION         top

       To determine the location of the repository on disk, git http-backend
       concatenates the environment variables PATH_INFO, which is set
       automatically by the web server, and GIT_PROJECT_ROOT, which must be
       set manually in the web server configuration. If GIT_PROJECT_ROOT is
       not set, git http-backend reads PATH_TRANSLATED, which is also set
       automatically by the web server.

EXAMPLES         top

       All of the following examples map http://$hostname/git/foo/bar.git to
       /var/www/git/foo/bar.git.
       Apache 2.x
           Ensure mod_cgi, mod_alias, and mod_env are enabled, set
           GIT_PROJECT_ROOT (or DocumentRoot) appropriately, and create a
           ScriptAlias to the CGI:
               SetEnv GIT_PROJECT_ROOT /var/www/git
               SetEnv GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL
               ScriptAlias /git/ /usr/libexec/git-core/git-http-backend/
           To enable anonymous read access but authenticated write access,
           require authorization for both the initial ref advertisement
           (which we detect as a push via the service parameter in the query
           string), and the receive-pack invocation itself:
               RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} service=git-receive-pack [OR]
               RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /git-receive-pack$
               RewriteRule ^/git/ - [E=AUTHREQUIRED:yes]
               <LocationMatch "^/git/">
                       Order Deny,Allow
                       Deny from env=AUTHREQUIRED
                       AuthType Basic
                       AuthName "Git Access"
                       Require group committers
                       Satisfy Any
                       ...
               </LocationMatch>
           If you do not have mod_rewrite available to match against the
           query string, it is sufficient to just protect git-receive-pack
           itself, like:
               <LocationMatch "^/git/.*/git-receive-pack$">
                       AuthType Basic
                       AuthName "Git Access"
                       Require group committers
                       ...
               </LocationMatch>
           In this mode, the server will not request authentication until
           the client actually starts the object negotiation phase of the
           push, rather than during the initial contact. For this reason,
           you must also enable the http.receivepack config option in any
           repositories that should accept a push. The default behavior, if
           http.receivepack is not set, is to reject any pushes by
           unauthenticated users; the initial request will therefore report
           403 Forbidden to the client, without even giving an opportunity
           for authentication.
           To require authentication for both reads and writes, use a
           Location directive around the repository, or one of its parent
           directories:
               <Location /git/private>
                       AuthType Basic
                       AuthName "Private Git Access"
                       Require group committers
                       ...
               </Location>
           To serve gitweb at the same url, use a ScriptAliasMatch to only
           those URLs that git http-backend can handle, and forward the rest
           to gitweb:
               ScriptAliasMatch \
                       "(?x)^/git/(.*/(HEAD | \
                                       info/refs | \
                                       objects/(info/[^/]+ | \
                                                [0-9a-f]{2}/[0-9a-f]{38} | \
                                                pack/pack-[0-9a-f]{40}\.(pack|idx)) | \
                                       git-(upload|receive)-pack))$" \
                       /usr/libexec/git-core/git-http-backend/$1
               ScriptAlias /git/ /var/www/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi/
           To serve multiple repositories from different gitnamespaces(7) in
           a single repository:
               SetEnvIf Request_URI "^/git/([^/]*)" GIT_NAMESPACE=$1
               ScriptAliasMatch ^/git/[^/]*(.*) /usr/libexec/git-core/git-http-backend/storage.git$1
       Accelerated static Apache 2.x
           Similar to the above, but Apache can be used to return static
           files that are stored on disk. On many systems this may be more
           efficient as Apache can ask the kernel to copy the file contents
           from the file system directly to the network:
               SetEnv GIT_PROJECT_ROOT /var/www/git
               AliasMatch ^/git/(.*/objects/[0-9a-f]{2}/[0-9a-f]{38})$          /var/www/git/$1
               AliasMatch ^/git/(.*/objects/pack/pack-[0-9a-f]{40}.(pack|idx))$ /var/www/git/$1
               ScriptAlias /git/ /usr/libexec/git-core/git-http-backend/
           This can be combined with the gitweb configuration:
               SetEnv GIT_PROJECT_ROOT /var/www/git
               AliasMatch ^/git/(.*/objects/[0-9a-f]{2}/[0-9a-f]{38})$          /var/www/git/$1
               AliasMatch ^/git/(.*/objects/pack/pack-[0-9a-f]{40}.(pack|idx))$ /var/www/git/$1
               ScriptAliasMatch \
                       "(?x)^/git/(.*/(HEAD | \
                                       info/refs | \
                                       objects/info/[^/]+ | \
                                       git-(upload|receive)-pack))$" \
                       /usr/libexec/git-core/git-http-backend/$1
               ScriptAlias /git/ /var/www/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi/
       Lighttpd
           Ensure that mod_cgi, mod_alias, mod_auth, mod_setenv are loaded,
           then set GIT_PROJECT_ROOT appropriately and redirect all requests
           to the CGI:
               alias.url += ( "/git" => "/usr/lib/git-core/git-http-backend" )
               $HTTP["url"] =~ "^/git" {
                       cgi.assign = ("" => "")
                       setenv.add-environment = (
                               "GIT_PROJECT_ROOT" => "/var/www/git",
                               "GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL" => ""
                       )
               }
           To enable anonymous read access but authenticated write access:
               $HTTP["querystring"] =~ "service=git-receive-pack" {
                       include "git-auth.conf"
               }
               $HTTP["url"] =~ "^/git/.*/git-receive-pack$" {
                       include "git-auth.conf"
               }
           where git-auth.conf looks something like:
               auth.require = (
                       "/" => (
                               "method" => "basic",
                               "realm" => "Git Access",
                               "require" => "valid-user"
                              )
               )
               # ...and set up auth.backend here
           To require authentication for both reads and writes:
               $HTTP["url"] =~ "^/git/private" {
                       include "git-auth.conf"
               }

ENVIRONMENT         top

       git http-backend relies upon the CGI environment variables set by the
       invoking web server, including:
       ·   PATH_INFO (if GIT_PROJECT_ROOT is set, otherwise PATH_TRANSLATED)
       ·   REMOTE_USER
       ·   REMOTE_ADDR
       ·   CONTENT_TYPE
       ·   QUERY_STRING
       ·   REQUEST_METHOD
       The GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL environmental variable may be passed to
       git-http-backend to bypass the check for the "git-daemon-export-ok"
       file in each repository before allowing export of that repository.
       The GIT_HTTP_MAX_REQUEST_BUFFER environment variable (or the
       http.maxRequestBuffer config variable) may be set to change the
       largest ref negotiation request that git will handle during a fetch;
       any fetch requiring a larger buffer will not succeed. This value
       should not normally need to be changed, but may be helpful if you are
       fetching from a repository with an extremely large number of refs.
       The value can be specified with a unit (e.g., 100M for 100
       megabytes). The default is 10 megabytes.
       The backend process sets GIT_COMMITTER_NAME to $REMOTE_USER and
       GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL to ${REMOTE_USER}@http.${REMOTE_ADDR}, ensuring
       that any reflogs created by git-receive-pack contain some identifying
       information of the remote user who performed the push.
       All CGI environment variables are available to each of the hooks
       invoked by the git-receive-pack.

GIT         top

       Part of the git(1) suite

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the git (Git distributed version control system)
       project.  Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://git-scm.com/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this manual page,
       see ⟨http://git-scm.com/community⟩.  This page was obtained from the
       project's upstream Git repository ⟨https://github.com/git/git.git⟩ on
       2017-07-05.  If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML ver‐
       sion of the page, or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date
       source for the page, or you have corrections or improvements to the
       information in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original man‐
       ual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.org
Git 2.9.2.277.g2949358           07/16/2016              GIT-HTTP-BACKEND(1)

Pages that refer to this page: git(1)giteveryday(7)gitnamespaces(7)