1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
|
## Troubleshooting
### Eclipse/Egit/JGit complains that it "can't open upload pack"?
There are a few ways this can occur:
1. Are you running Java 7?<br />Java 7 introduced SNI support for SSL connections and it is enabled by default.<br />[Java 7 Security Enhancements](http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/security/enhancements-7.html)<br />To disable SNI alerts, add this line to your eclipse.ini file and restart Eclipse.<br /><pre>-Djsse.enableSNIExtension=false</pre>
2. You are using https with a self-signed certificate and you **did not** configure *http.sslVerify=false*
1. Window->Preferences->Team->Git->Configuration
2. Click the *New Entry* button
3. <pre>Key = <em>http.sslVerify</em>
Value = <em>false</em></pre>
3. Gitblit GO's default self-signed certificate is bound to *localhost* and you are trying to clone/push between machines.
1. Review the contents of `makekeystore.cmd`
2. Set *your hostname* in the *HOSTNAME* variable.
3. Execute the script.<br/>This will generate a new certificate and keystore for *your hostname* protected by *server.storePassword*.
4. The repository is clone-restricted and you don't have access.
5. The repository is clone-restricted and your password changed.
6. A regression in Gitblit. :(
### I can not push using git:// protocol on Windows using native Git
This is a long-standing, known bug in the native Git for Windows implementation.
Please see [this thread](https://groups.google.com/d/topic/msysgit/at8D7J-h7mw/discussion) for details.
### Why can't I access Gitblit GO from another machine?
1. Please check *server.httpBindInterface* and *server.httpsBindInterface* in `gitblit.properties`, you may be only be serving on *localhost*.
2. Please see the above answer about "**can't open upload pack**".
3. Ensure that any firewall you may have running on the Gitblit server either has an exception for your specified ports or for the running process.
### How do I run Gitblit GO on port 80 or 443 in Linux?
Linux requires root permissions to serve on ports < 1024.<br/>
Run the server as *root* (security concern) or change the ports you are serving to 8080 (http) and/or 8443 (https).
### Gitblit GO does not list my repositories?!
1. Confirm that the value *git.repositoriesFolder* in `gitblit.properties` actually points to your repositories folder.
2. Confirm that the Gitblit GO process has full read-write-execute permissions to your *git.repositoriesFolder*.
### Gitblit WAR does not list my repositories?!
1. Confirm that the <context-param> *git.repositoriesFolder* value in your `web.xml` file actually points to your repositories folder.
2. Confirm that the servlet container process has full read-write-execute permissions to your *git.repositoriesFolder*.
### Gitblit WAR will not authenticate any users?!
Confirm that the <context-param> *realm.userService* value in your `web.xml` file actually points to a `users.conf` file.
### Gitblit won't open my grouped repository (/group/myrepo.git) or browse my log/branch/tag/ref?!
This is likely an url encoding/decoding problem with forward slashes:
**bad**
http://192.168.1.2/log/myrepo.git/refs/heads/master
**good**
http://192.168.1.2/log/myrepo.git/refs%2Fheads%2Fmaster
**NOTE:**
You can not trust the url in the address bar of your browser since your browser may decode it for presentation. When in doubt, *View Source* of the generated html to confirm the *href*.
There are two possible workarounds for this issue. In `gitblit.properties` or `web.xml`:
1. try setting *web.mountParameters* to *false*.<br/>This changes the url scheme from mounted (*/commit/myrepo.git/abcdef*) to parameterized (*/commit/?r=myrepo.git&h=abcdef*).
2. try changing *web.forwardSlashCharacter* to an asterisk or a **!**
### Running Gitblit behind mod_proxy or some other proxy layer
You must ensure that the proxy does not decode and then re-encode request urls with interpretation of forward-slashes (*%2F*). If your proxy layer does re-encode embedded forward-slashes then you may not be able to browse grouped repositories or logs, branches, and tags **unless** you set *web.mountParameters=false*.
If you are using Apache mod_proxy you may have luck with specifying [AllowEncodedSlashes NoDecode](http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#allowencodedslashes).
### Running Gitblit on Tomcat
Tomcat takes the extra precaution of [disallowing embedded slashes by default](http://tomcat.apache.org/security-6.html#Fixed_in_Apache_Tomcat_6.0.10). This breaks Gitblit urls.
You have a few options on how to handle this scenario:
1. [Tweak Tomcat](http://tomcat.apache.org/security-6.html#Fixed_in_Apache_Tomcat_6.0.10)
Add *-Dorg.apache.tomcat.util.buf.UDecoder.ALLOW_ENCODED_SLASH=true* to *CATALINA_OPTS* or to your JVM launch parameters
2. *web.mountParameters = false* and use non-pretty, parameterized urls
3. *web.forwardSlashCharacter = !* which tells Gitblit to use **!** instead of **/**
#### UTF-8 Filenames
Tomcat also dislikes urls with non-ASCII characters. If your repositories have non-ASCII filenames you will have to modify your connector properties to allow UTF-8 encoded urls.
[Tomcat Character Encoding](http://wiki.apache.org/tomcat/FAQ/CharacterEncoding)
[Tomcat Connector Properties](http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-6.0-doc/config/http.html)
## General Interest Questions
### Gitblit? What kind of name is that?
It's a phonetic play on [bitblt][bitblt] which is an image processing operation meaning *bit-block transfer*.
### Why use Gitblit?
It's a small tool that allows you to easily manage shared repositories and doesn't require alot of setup or git kung-foo.
### Who is the target user for Gitblit?
Small workgroups that require centralized repositories.
Gitblit is not meant to be a social coding resource like [Github](http://github.com) or [Bitbucket](http://bitbucket.com) with 100s or 1000s of users. Gitblit is designed to fulfill the same function as your centralized Subversion or CVS server.
### Why does Gitblit exist when there is Git and Gitweb?
As a Java developer I prefer that as much of my tooling as possible is Java.
Originally, I was going to use [Mercurial](http://mercurial.selenic.com) but...
- MercurialEclipse [shells to Python, writes to System.out, and captures System.in](http://mercurial.808500.n3.nabble.com/Hg4J-Mercurial-pure-Java-library-tp2693090p2694555.html)
Parsing command-line output is fragile and suboptimal.<br/>Unfortunately this is necessary because Mercurial is an application, not a library.
- Mercurial HTTP/HTTPS needs to run as CGI through Apache/IIS/etc, as mod_python through Apache, or served with a built-in http server.
This requires setup and maintenance of multiple, mixed 3rd party components.
Gitblit eliminates all that complication with its 100% Java stack and simple single configuration file.
Additionally, Git and Gitweb do not offer repository creation or user management.
### Do I need real Git?
No (mostly). Gitblit is based on [JGit][jgit] which is a pure Java implementation of the [Git version control system][git].
Everything you need for Gitblit (except Java) is either bundled in the distribution file or automatically downloaded on execution.
#### mostly
JGit does not fully support the git-gc featureset (garbage collection) so you may want native Git to periodically run git-gc until [JGit][jgit] fully supports this feature.
### Can I run Gitblit in conjunction with my existing Git tooling?
Yes.
### Do I need a JDK or can I use a JRE?
Gitblit will run just fine with a JRE. Gitblit can optionally use `keytool` from the JDK to generate self-signed certificates, but normally Gitblit uses [BouncyCastle][bouncycastle] for that need.
### Does Gitblit use a database to store its data?
No. Gitblit stores its repository configuration information within the `.git/config` file and its user information in `users.conf` or whatever filename is configured in `gitblit.properties`.
### Can I manually edit users.conf, gitblit.properties, or .git/config?
Yes. You can manually manipulate all of them and (most) changes will be immediately available to Gitblit.<br/>Exceptions to this are noted in `gitblit.properties`.
**NOTE:**
Care must be taken to preserve the relationship between user roles and repository names.<br/>Please see the *User Roles* section of the [setup](/setup.html) page for details.
### Can I restrict access to branches or paths within a repository?
No, not out-of-the-box. Access restrictions apply to the repository as a whole.
Gitblit's simple authentication and authorization mechanism can be used to facilitate one or more of the [workflows outlined here](http://progit.org/book/ch5-1.html).
Should you require more fine-grained access controls you might consider writing a Groovy *prereceive* script to block updating branch refs based on some permissions file. I would be interested in a generic, re-usable script to include with Gitblit, should someone want to implement it.
Alternatively, you could use [gitolite](https://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite) and SSH for your repository access.
### Can I authenticate users against XYZ?
Yes. The user service is pluggable. You may write your own complete user service by implementing the *com.gitblit.IUserService* interface. Or you may subclass *com.gitblit.GitblitUserService* and override just the authentication. Set the fully qualified classname as the *realm.userService* property.
### Why doesn't Gitblit support SSH?
Gitblit could integrate [Apache Mina][mina] to provide SSH access. However, doing so violates Gitblit's first design principle: [KISS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle).<br/>
SSH support requires creating, exchanging, and managing SSH keys (arguably not more complicated than managing users). While this is possible, JGit's SmartHTTP implementation is a simpler and universal transport mechanism.
You might consider running [Gerrit](http://gerrit.googlecode.org) which does integrate [Apache Mina][mina] and supports SSH or you might consider serving [Git][git] on Linux which would offer real SSH support and also allow use of [many other compelling Git solutions](https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/InterfacesFrontendsAndTools).
### What types of Search does Gitblit support?
As of 0.9.0, Gitblit supports Lucene-based searching.
If Lucene indexing is disabled, Gitblit falls back to brute-force commit-traversal search. Commit-traversal search supports case-insensitive searching of *commit message* (default), *author*, and *committer*.
To search by *author* or *committer* use the following syntax in the search box:
author: james
committer: james
Alternatively, you could enable the search type dropdown list in your `gitblit.properties` file.
### Why did you call the setting federation.N.frequency instead of federation.N.period?!
Yes, yes I know that you are really specifying the period, but Frequency sounds better to me. :)
### Can Gitblit be translated?
Yes. Most messages are localized to a standard Java properties file.
[bitblt]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_blit "Wikipedia Bitblt"
[jgit]: http://eclipse.org/jgit "Eclipse JGit Site"
[git]: http://git-scm.com "Official Git Site"
[mina]: http://mina.apache.org "Apache Mina"
[bouncycastle]: http://bouncycastle.org "The Legion of the Bouncy Castle"
|
