cgit

From ArchWiki

cgit is an attempt to create a fast web interface for the git version control system, using a built in cache to decrease pressure on the git server.

Installation

Install the cgit package.

To use cgit a web server must be installed and configured on the system.

Configuration of web server

Apache

Add the following to the end of your /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf:

ScriptAlias /cgit "/usr/lib/cgit/cgit.cgi/"
Alias /cgit-css "/usr/share/webapps/cgit/"
<Directory "/usr/share/webapps/cgit/">
   AllowOverride None
   Options None
   Require all granted
</Directory>
<Directory "/usr/lib/cgit/">
   AllowOverride None
   Options ExecCGI FollowSymlinks
   Require all granted
</Directory>

or alternatively add it to a separate file like etc/httpd/conf/extra/cgit.conf and then add the following to the end of httpd.conf:

# cgit configuration
Include conf/extra/cgit.conf

This allows you to access cgit via your.server.com/cgit. Make sure that Apache is configured to permit CGI execution by having the following uncommented in httpd.conf:

<IfModule !mpm_prefork_module>
   LoadModule cgid_module modules/mod_cgid.so
</IfModule>
<IfModule mpm_prefork_module>
   LoadModule cgi_module modules/mod_cgi.so
</IfModule>

then restart httpd.service to apply these changes. For further details about CGI execution with Apache, see https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/howto/cgi.html.

Lighttpd

The following configuration will let you access cgit through http://your.server.com/git or http://your.server.com/cgit. The cgit url is not perfect (for example you will see "cgit.cgi" in all repos' url) but works.

Create the file /etc/lighttpd/conf.d/cgit.conf:

server.modules += ( "mod_cgi", "mod_alias" )

$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/cgit" {
    server.document-root = "/usr/share/webapps/"
    server.indexfiles = ("cgit.cgi")
    cgi.assign = ("cgit.cgi" => "")
    mimetype.assign = ( ".css" => "text/css" )
}

alias.url += (
    "/git" => "/usr/share/webapps/cgit/cgit.cgi",
)
$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/git" {
    cgi.assign = ( "" => "" )
}

And include this file in /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf:

include "conf.d/cgit.conf"

and restart the lighttpd.service.

Lighttpd sub-domain

This alternative Lighttpd configuration will serve cgit on a sub-domain like git.example.com with optional SSL support, and rewrites creating nice permalinks:

server.modules += ( "mod_cgi", "mod_rewrite" )

#$SERVER["socket"] == ":443" {
$SERVER["socket"] == ":80" {
    #ssl.engine                    = "enable"
    #ssl.pemfile                   = "/etc/lighttpd/ssl/git.example.com.pem"

    server.name          = "git.example.com"
    server.document-root = "/usr/share/webapps/cgit/"

    index-file.names     = ( "cgit.cgi" )
    cgi.assign           = ( "cgit.cgi" => "" )
    mimetype.assign      = ( ".css" => "text/css" )
    url.rewrite-once     = (
        "^/cgit/cgit.css"   => "/cgit.css",
        "^/cgit/cgit.png"   => "/cgit.png",
        "^/([^?/]+/[^?]*)?(?:\?(.*))?$"   => "/cgit.cgi?url=$1&$2",
    )
}

Nginx

Using fcgiwrap

The following configuration uses fcgiwrap and will serve cgit on a subdomain like git.example.com.

Start and enable fcgiwrap.socket. Then, configure Nginx:

/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
worker_processes          1;
 
events {
  worker_connections      1024;
}
 
http {
  include                 mime.types;
  default_type            application/octet-stream;
  sendfile                on;
  keepalive_timeout       65;
  gzip                    on;
 
  # Cgit
  server {
    listen                80;
    server_name           git.example.com;
    root                  /usr/share/webapps/cgit;
    try_files             $uri @cgit;

    # Configure HTTP transport
    location ~ /.+/(info/refs|git-upload-pack) {
        include             fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param       SCRIPT_FILENAME     /usr/lib/git-core/git-http-backend;
        fastcgi_param       PATH_INFO           $uri;
        fastcgi_param       GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL 1;
        fastcgi_param       GIT_PROJECT_ROOT    /srv/git;
        fastcgi_param       HOME                /srv/git;
        fastcgi_pass        unix:/run/fcgiwrap.sock;
    }

    location @cgit {
      include             fastcgi_params;
      fastcgi_param       SCRIPT_FILENAME /usr/lib/cgit/cgit.cgi;
      fastcgi_param       PATH_INFO       $uri;
      fastcgi_param       QUERY_STRING    $args;
      fastcgi_param       HTTP_HOST       $server_name;
      fastcgi_pass        unix:/run/fcgiwrap.sock;
    }
  }
}

Using uwsgi

The following example will setup cgit using the native cgi plugin for uwsgi.

First, install uwsgi and uwsgi-plugin-cgi.

Add below server block to your configuration:

/etc/nginx/nginx.conf
server {
  listen 80;
  server_name git.example.com;
  root /usr/share/webapps/cgit;

  # Serve static files with nginx
  location ~* ^.+(cgit.(css|png)|favicon.ico|robots.txt) {
    root /usr/share/webapps/cgit;
    expires 30d;
  }
  location / {
    try_files $uri @cgit;
  }
  location @cgit {
    gzip off;
    include uwsgi_params;
    uwsgi_modifier1 9;
    uwsgi_pass unix:/run/uwsgi/cgit.sock;
  }
} 

Add a uwsgi configuration for cgit.

/etc/uwsgi/cgit.ini
[uwsgi]
master = true
plugins = cgi
socket = /run/uwsgi/%n.sock
uid = http
gid = http
procname-master = uwsgi cgit
processes = 1
threads = 2
cgi = /usr/lib/cgit/cgit.cgi

Enable and start the corresponding socket uwsgi@cgit.socket.

Caddy

The following configuration uses fcgiwrap and will serve cgit on a subdomain like git.example.com.

Start and enable fcgiwrap.socket. Then, configure Caddy:

/etc/caddy/conf.d/cgit
git.example.com

reverse_proxy unix//run/fcgiwrap.sock {
	transport fastcgi {
		env SCRIPT_FILENAME /usr/lib/cgit/cgit.cgi
	}
}

handle_path /assets/* {
	root * /usr/share/webapps/cgit
	file_server
}

Configure cgit to point assets to the same directory used in handle_path:

/etc/cgitrc
css=/assets/cgit.css
favicon=/assets/favicon.ico
logo=/assets/cgit.png

h2o

Package h2o-gitAUR has its own CGI wrapper fastcgi-cgi, which supports cgit with the following configuration.

/etc/h2o/h2o.conf
  "git.domain.tld:443":
    listen:
      port: 443
      ssl:
        ...
    paths:
      /cgit.css:
        file.file: /usr/share/webapps/cgit/cgit.css
        file.send-compressed: ON
      /favicon.ico:
        file.file: /usr/share/webapps/cgit/favicon.ico
        file.send-compressed: ON
      /robots.txt:
        file.file: /usr/share/webapps/cgit/robots.txt
      /cgit.png:
        file.file: /usr/share/webapps/cgit/cgit.png
      /:
        fastcgi.spawn: /usr/share/h2o/fastcgi-cgi
        setenv:
          SCRIPT_FILENAME: /usr/lib/cgit/cgit.cgi
        compress: ON

Configuration of cgit

See cgitrc(5) for the list of all configuration options.

Basic configuration

Before you can start adding repositories you will first have to create the basic cgit configuration file at /etc/cgitrc.

#
# cgit config
#

css=/cgit.css
logo=/cgit.png

# Following lines work with the above Apache config
#css=/cgit-css/cgit.css
#logo=/cgit-css/cgit.png

# Following lines work with the above Lighttpd config
#css=/cgit/cgit.css
#logo=/cgit/cgit.png

# Allow http transport git clone
#enable-http-clone=0


# if you do not want that webcrawler (like google) index your site
robots=noindex, nofollow

# if cgit messes up links, use a virtual-root. For example, cgit.example.org/ has this value:
virtual-root=/

Adding repositories

Now you can add your repos:

#
# List of repositories.
# This list could be kept in a different file (e.g. '/etc/cgitrepos')
# and included like this:
#   include=/etc/cgitrepos
#

repo.url=MyRepo
repo.path=/srv/git/MyRepo.git
repo.desc=This is my git repository

# For a non-bare repository (repository with the working tree)
repo.url=MyOtherRepo
repo.path=/srv/git/MyOtherRepo/.git
repo.desc=That's my other git repository

Or else, it is also possible to configure cgit to automatically search for the repo:

scan-path=/srv/git/

If you use the method above, add the descriptions to .git/description file and add the following lines to show the author:

.git/config
[gitweb]
        owner = John Cena <john@riseup.net>

If you are coming from gitweb and want to keep the descriptions and owner information, then use:

enable-git-config=1

Syntax highlighting

cgit supports syntax highlighting when viewing blobs. To enable syntax highlighting, you have several options.

Using python-pygments

Install python-pygments and add the filter in /etc/cgitrc

source-filter=/usr/lib/cgit/filters/syntax-highlighting.py

To change the coloring style, modify the style argument that is passed to HtmlFormatter in the syntax-highlighting.py file. For instance, to change the coloring style to 'tango':

 formatter = HtmlFormatter(encoding='utf-8', style='tango')

To get a list of all coloring styles that are available, do:

 $ python
 >>> from pygments.styles import get_all_styles
 >>> list(get_all_styles())
 ['manni', 'igor', 'xcode', 'vim', 'autumn', 'vs', 'rrt', 'native', 'perldoc', 'borland', 'tango', 'emacs', 'friendly', 'monokai', 'paraiso-dark', 'colorful', 'murphy', 'bw', 'pastie', 'paraiso-light', 'trac', 'default', 'fruity']

Using highlight

Install the highlight package.

Copy /usr/lib/cgit/filters/syntax-highlighting.sh to /usr/lib/cgit/filters/syntax-highlighting-edited.sh. Then, in the copied file, comment out version 2 and comment in version 3. You may want to add --inline-css to the options of highlight for a more colorful output without editing cgit's css file.

 # This is for version 2
 #exec highlight --force -f -I -X -S "$EXTENSION" 2>/dev/null
 
 # This is for version 3
 exec highlight --force --inline-css -f -I -O xhtml -S "$EXTENSION" 2>/dev/null

Enable the filter in /etc/cgitrc

source-filter=/usr/lib/cgit/filters/syntax-highlighting-edited.sh
Note: Editing /usr/lib/cgit/filters/syntax-highlighting.sh directly would lose all the modifications as soon as cgit is updated.

Formatting the about page

cgit can display a formatted about page with Markdown, reStructuredText, man page syntax, text files, and html files.

The script /usr/lib/cgit/filters/about-formatting.sh is used with the about-filter or repo.about-filter in /etc/cgitrc. For example:

about-filter=/usr/lib/cgit/filters/about-formatting.sh
readme=:README.md

The way about-formatting.sh works is by running particular scripts in the html-converters subdirectory based on the input file's extension. The above configuration allows Markdown formatting as long as README.md is located in the root of the repo's default branch and the script is given executable permission.

Integration

Gitosis

If you want to integrate with gitosis you will have to run two commands to give Apache permission to look through the folder.

# chgrp http /srv/gitosis
# chmod a+rx /srv/gitosis

Gitolite

If you added repositories managed by gitolite you have to change the permissions so the web server can access the files.

  • Add the http user to the gitolite group:
    • usermod -aG gitolite http as the root user.
  • Change permission for future repositories:
  • Change permission for the gitolite home directory, and existing repositories. Run the following two commands:
    • chmod g+rX /var/lib/gitolite as the root user.
    • chmod -R g+rX /var/lib/gitolite/repositories as the root user.

Troubleshooting

The following troubleshooting subsections largely outline issues that are caused by the order of settings in the cgit configuration file. To be safe, try to ensure that all global settings are defined before scan-path.

snapshots does not show properly

If you have enabled scan-path as well as snapshots, the order in cgitrc matters. According to cgit mailing list, snapshots should be specified before scan-path

snapshots=tar.gz tar.bz2 zip
scan-path=/path/to/your/repositories

readme files are not found, about tab not shown

If you have added one or more readme entries, which define the files that cgit will search for when populating the about tab, and you are sure that they match the README files in your repository but the about tab does not show, ensure that readme entries are specified before scan-path.

source-filter does not work properly

If you have enabled scan-path, again, the order in cgitrc matters. source-filter should be specified before scan-path, otherwise it will have no effect.

See also