gitblit/src/site/faq.mkd

## 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 &lt;context-param&gt; *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 &lt;context-param&gt; *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.<br/>
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)<br/>
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.<br/>
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].<br/>
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*.<br/>

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"