Create a git server and setup cgit web app (on Nginx)

My git server is all I need to setup to actually kill 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 git’s guide on setting up a server plus some specific stuff for (btw i use) Arch Linux (Arch Linux Wiki: Git server and Step by step guide on setting up git server in arch linux (pushable)).

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.

Prerequisites

I might get tired of saying this (it’s just copy paste, basically)… but similar as before (check my website and mail entries):

• (This time, optional) A domain name if you want to have a “front end” to show your repositories. Got mine on Epik (affiliate link, btw).
  • With a CNAME for “git” and (optionally) “www.git”, or some other name for your sub-domains.
• A VPS or somewhere else to host. I’m using Vultr (also an affiliate link).
  • ssh configured.
  • (Optionally, if doing the domain name thingy) With nginx and certbot setup and running.
  • Of course, git already installed (it should be a must have always).

git server

If not installed already, install the git package:

pacman -S git

On Arch Linux, when you install the git package, a git 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 /home/git like if git was a “normal” user. So, create the git folder (with corresponding permissions) under /home and set the git user’s home to /home/git:

mkdir /home/git
chown git:git /home/git
usermod -d /home/git git

Also, the git user is “expired” by default and will be locked (needs a password), change that with:

chage -E -1 git
passwd git

Give it a strong one and remember to use PasswordAuthentication no for ssh (as you should). Create the .ssh/authorized_keys for the git user and set the permissions accordingly:

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

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 ssh‘s built in ssh-copy-id (for that you may want to check your ssh configuration in case you don’t let people access your server with user/password).

Next, and almost finally, we need to edit the git-daemon service, located at /usr/lib/systemd/system/ (called git-daemon@.service):

...
ExecStart=-/usr/lib/git-core/git-daemon --inetd --export-all --base-path=/home/git --enable=receive-pack
...

I just appended --enable=receive-pack and note that I also changed the --base-path to reflect where I want to serve my repositories from (has to match what you set when changing git user’s home).

Now, go ahead and start and enable the git-daemon socket:

systemctl start git-daemon.socket
systemctl enable git-daemon.socket

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 “cd‘ed” into the /home/git directory):

mkdir {repo_name}.git
cd {repo_name}.git

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).

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 here.

cgit

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 Arch Linux Wiki: Cgit so you can go there and get more in-depth configurations.

Install the cgit and fcgiwrap packages:

pacman -S cgit fcgiwrap

Now, just start and enable the fcgiwrap socket:

systemctl start fcgiwrap.socket
systemctl enable fcgiwrap.socket

Next, the way I configure nginx is creating a separate file {module}.conf (git.conf in this case) under /etc/nginx/sites-available and create a symlink to /etc/nginx/sites-enabled as stated in my nginx setup entry. Add the following lines to your git.conf file:

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;
    }
}

Where the server_name line depends on you, I have mine setup to git.luevano.xyz and www.git.luevano.xyz. Optionally run certbot --nginx to get a certificate for those domains if you don’t have already.

Now, all that’s left is to configure cgit. Create the configuration file /etc/cgitrc with the following content (my personal options, pretty much the default):

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}

...

Where you can uncomment the robots line to let web crawlers (like Google’s) to index your git web app. And at the end keep all your repositories (the ones you want to make public), for example for my dotfiles I have:

...
repo.url=.dots
repo.path=/home/git/.dots.git
repo.owner=luevano
repo.desc=These are my personal dotfiles.
...

Otherwise you could let cgit to automatically detect your repositories (you have to be careful if you want to keep “private” repos) using the option scan-path and setup .git/description 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 cgitrc(5).

Finally, if you want further support for highlighting, other compressed snapshots or support for markdown, checkout the optional dependencies for cgit and also the Arch Wiki goes in detail on how to setup highlighting with two different packages.