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<h1>Create a git server and setup cgit web app (on Nginx)</h1>
<p>My git server is all I need to setup to actually <em>kill</em> my other server (I’ve been moving from servers on these last 2-3 blog entries), that’s why I’m already doing this entry. I’m basically following <a href="https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-on-the-Server-Setting-Up-the-Server">git’s guide on setting up a server</a> plus some specific stuff for (btw i use) Arch Linux (<a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Git_server#Web_interfaces">Arch Linux Wiki: Git server</a> and <a href="https://miracoin.wordpress.com/2014/11/25/step-by-step-guide-on-setting-up-git-server-in-arch-linux-pushable/">Step by step guide on setting up git server in arch linux (pushable)</a>).</p>
<p>Note that this is mostly for personal use, so there’s no user/authentication control other than that of SSH. Also, most if not all commands here are run as root.</p>
<h2 id="prerequisites">Prerequisites</h2>
<p>I might get tired of saying this (it’s just copy paste, basically)… but similar as before (check my <a href="https://blog.luevano.xyz/a/website_with_nginx.html">website</a> and <a href="https://blog.luevano.xyz/a/mail_server_with_postfix.html">mail</a> entries):</p>
<ul>
<li>(This time, optional) A domain name if you want to have a “front end” to show your repositories. Got mine on <a href="https://www.epik.com/?affid=da5ne9ru4">Epik</a> (affiliate link, btw).<ul>
<li>With a <strong>CNAME</strong> for “git” and (optionally) “www.git”, or some other name for your sub-domains.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>A VPS or somewhere else to host. I’m using <a href="https://www.vultr.com/?ref=8732849">Vultr</a> (also an affiliate link).<ul>
<li><code>ssh</code> configured.</li>
<li>(Optionally, if doing the domain name thingy) With <code>nginx</code> and <code>certbot</code> setup and running.</li>
<li>Of course, <code>git</code> already installed (it should be a must have always).</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="git-server">git server</h2>
<p>If not installed already, install the <code>git</code> package:</p>
<pre><code class="language-sh">pacman -S git
</code></pre>
<p>On Arch Linux, when you install the <code>git</code> package, a <code>git</code> user is automatically created, so all you have to do is decide where you want to store the repositories, for me, I like them to be on <code>/home/git</code> like if <code>git</code> was a “normal” user. So, create the <code>git</code> folder (with corresponding permissions) under <code>/home</code> and set the <code>git</code> user’s home to <code>/home/git</code>:</p>
<pre><code class="language-sh">mkdir /home/git
chown git:git /home/git
usermod -d /home/git git
</code></pre>
<p>Also, the <code>git</code> user is “expired” by default and will be locked (needs a password), change that with:</p>
<pre><code class="language-sh">chage -E -1 git
passwd git
</code></pre>
<p>Give it a strong one and remember to use <code>PasswordAuthentication no</code> for <code>ssh</code> (as you should). Create the <code>.ssh/authorized_keys</code> for the <code>git</code> user and set the permissions accordingly:</p>
<pre><code class="language-sh">mkdir /home/git/.ssh
chmod 700 /home/git/.ssh
touch /home/git/.ssh/authorized_keys
chmod 600 /home/git/.ssh/authorized_keys
chown -R git:git /home/git
</code></pre>
<p>Now is a good idea to copy over your local SSH public keys to this file, to be able to push/pull to the repositories. Do it by either manually copying it or using <code>ssh</code>‘s built in <code>ssh-copy-id</code> (for that you may want to check your <code>ssh</code> configuration in case you don’t let people access your server with user/password).</p>
<p>Next, and almost finally, we need to edit the <code>git-daemon</code> service, located at <code>/usr/lib/systemd/system/</code> (called <code>git-daemon@.service</code>):</p>
<pre><code class="language-ini">...
ExecStart=-/usr/lib/git-core/git-daemon --inetd --export-all --base-path=/home/git --enable=receive-pack
...
</code></pre>
<p>I just appended <code>--enable=receive-pack</code> and note that I also changed the <code>--base-path</code> to reflect where I want to serve my repositories from (has to match what you set when changing <code>git</code> user’s home).</p>
<p>Now, go ahead and start and enable the <code>git-daemon</code> socket:</p>
<pre><code class="language-sh">systemctl start git-daemon.socket
systemctl enable git-daemon.socket
</code></pre>
<p>You’re basically done. Now you should be able to push/pull repositories to your server… except, you haven’t created any repository in your server, that’s right, they’re not created automatically when trying to push. To do so, you have to do the following sequence (assuming you’re “<code>cd</code>‘ed” into the <code>/home/git</code> directory):</p>
<pre><code class="language-sh">mkdir {repo_name}.git
cd {repo_name}.git
</code></pre>
<p>Those two lines above will need to be run each time you want to add a new repository to your server (yeah, kinda lame… although there are options to “automate” this, I like it this way).</p>
<p>After that you can already push/pull to your repository. I have my repositories (locally) set up so I can push to more than one remote at the same time (my server, GitHub, GitLab, etc.), which is detailed <a href="https://gist.github.com/rvl/c3f156e117e22a25f242">here</a>.</p>
<h2 id="cgit">cgit</h2>
<p>This bit is optional if you only wanted a git server (really easy to set up), this is so you can have a web application. This is basically a copy paste of <a href="https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Cgit#Nginx">Arch Linux Wiki: Cgit</a> so you can go there and get more in-depth configurations.</p>
<p>Install the <code>cgit</code> and <code>fcgiwrap</code> packages:</p>
<pre><code class="language-sh">pacman -S cgit fcgiwrap
</code></pre>
<p>Now, just start and enable the <code>fcgiwrap</code> socket:</p>
<pre><code class="language-sh">systemctl start fcgiwrap.socket
systemctl enable fcgiwrap.socket
</code></pre>
<p>Next, the way I configure <code>nginx</code> is creating a separate file <code>{module}.conf</code> (<code>git.conf</code> in this case) under <code>/etc/nginx/sites-available</code> and create a symlink to <code>/etc/nginx/sites-enabled</code> as stated in my <a href="https://blog.luevano.xyz/a/website_with_nginx.html"><code>nginx</code> setup entry</a>. Add the following lines to your <code>git.conf</code> file:</p>
<pre><code class="language-nginx">server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
root /usr/share/webapps/cgit;
server_name {yoursubdomain}.{yourdomain};
try_files $uri @cgit;
location @cgit {
include fastcgi_params;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root/cgit.cgi;
fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $uri;
fastcgi_param QUERY_STRING $args;
fastcgi_param HTTP_HOST $server_name;
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/fcgiwrap.sock;
}
}
</code></pre>
<p>Where the <code>server_name</code> line depends on you, I have mine setup to <code>git.luevano.xyz</code> and <code>www.git.luevano.xyz</code>. Optionally run <code>certbot --nginx</code> to get a certificate for those domains if you don’t have already.</p>
<p>Now, all that’s left is to configure <code>cgit</code>. Create the configuration file <code>/etc/cgitrc</code> with the following content (my personal options, pretty much the default):</p>
<pre><code class="language-apache">css=/cgit.css
source-filter=/usr/lib/cgit/filters/syntax-highlighting-edited.sh
logo=/cgit.png
enable-http-clone=1
# robots=noindex, nofollow
virtual-root=/
repo.url={url}
repo.path={dir_path}
repo.owner={owner}
repo.desc={short_description}
...
</code></pre>
<p>Where you can uncomment the <code>robots</code> line to let web crawlers (like Google’s) to index your <code>git</code> web app. And at the end keep all your repositories (the ones you want to make public), for example for my <a href="https://git.luevano.xyz/.dots"><em>dotfiles</em></a> I have:</p>
<pre><code class="language-apache">...
repo.url=.dots
repo.path=/home/git/.dots.git
repo.owner=luevano
repo.desc=These are my personal dotfiles.
...
</code></pre>
<p>Otherwise you could let <code>cgit</code> to automatically detect your repositories (you have to be careful if you want to keep “private” repos) using the option <code>scan-path</code> and setup <code>.git/description</code> for each repository. I will add more to my actual configuration, but for now it is useful as it is. For more, you can check <a href="https://man.archlinux.org/man/cgitrc.5">cgitrc(5)</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, if you want further support for highlighting, other compressed snapshots or support for markdown, checkout the optional dependencies for <code>cgit</code> and also the Arch Wiki goes in detail on how to setup highlighting with two different packages.</p>
<hr>
<div class="article-info">
<p>By David Luévano</p>
<p>Created: Sun, Mar 21, 2021 @ 19:00 UTC</p>
<p>Modified: Fri, Jun 04, 2021 @ 07:59 UTC</p>
<div class="article-tags">
<p>Tags:
<a href="https://blog.luevano.xyz/tag/@english.html">english</a>, <a href="https://blog.luevano.xyz/tag/@server.html">server</a>, <a href="https://blog.luevano.xyz/tag/@tools.html">tools</a>, <a href="https://blog.luevano.xyz/tag/@tutorial.html">tutorial</a> </p>
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