176 lines
5.2 KiB
Markdown
176 lines
5.2 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Set Up A GitWeb Server"
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blurb: "Set up a VPS with a simple, web-based code repository visualizer using
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Lighttpd and GitWeb."
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...
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## Introduction
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Git comes with a CGI script called GitWeb, a simple web-based visualizer.
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Today we will set up a virtual server on DigitalOcean that will use GitWeb to
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visualize a Git repository.
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## 1. Create a DigitalOcean droplet
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Create a new droplet from the DigitalOcean dashboard. For now, we go with the
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smallest virtual server currently available. We also add an SSH key so we can
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authenticate without a password.
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## 2. Log in to the droplet remotely
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After the droplet is created, we can see its IP address on the dashboard. We
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use this IP address to log in to our virtual server:
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$ ssh root@XX.XX.XXX.XXX
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## 3. Silence locale warnings
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After successfully logging in, one of the messages we are greeted with is a
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warning about the locale.
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-bash: warning: setlocale: LC_ALL: cannot change locale (en_US.UTF-8)
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We can make this annoying message go away by creating a locale file manually:
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# localedef -i en_US -f UTF-8 en_US.UTF-8
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## 4. Add a user account to administer the Git repositories
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Next, we create a user account that will administer the git repositories, so we
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don't always have to do it as `root`.
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# adduser git --disabled-password
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We have to add our SSH key to the `git` user's `authorized_keys` file.
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# su git
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$ cd
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$ mkdir .ssh && chmod 700 .ssh
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$ touch .ssh/authorized_keys && chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys
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$ exit
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# cat ~/.ssh/authorized_keys >> /home/git/.ssh/authorized_keys
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## 5. Install necessary packages
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Lighttpd is the default web server that GitWeb tries to use if available. For
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simplicity, that's what we'll use.
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# apt-get update
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# apt-get install git lighttpd gitweb
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## 6. Configure Lighttpd
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We will need to make some changes to Lighttpd's config file.
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# nano /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
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1. Update the value for `server.document-root`:
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`server.document-root = "/usr/share/gitweb"`
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2. Add `index.cgi` to `index-file.names`:
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`index-file.names = ( "index.php", "index.html", "index.cgi" )`
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## 7. Enable Lighttpd modules
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Since GitWeb uses CGI, we will have to enable Lighttpd's CGI module. We will
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also need the setenv module. First we need to configure them.
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# nano /etc/lighttpd/conf-available/05-setenv.conf
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Add the following line:
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::: filename-for-code-block
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`/etc/lighttpd/conf-available/05-setenv.conf`
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:::
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...
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setenv.add-environment = ( "PATH" => env.PATH, "GITWEB_CONFIG" => env.GITWEB_CONFIG )
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Next, edit the CGI module config file.
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# nano /etc/lighttpd/conf-available/10-cgi.conf
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Add:
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::: filename-for-code-block
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`/etc/lighttpd/conf-available/10-cgi.conf`
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:::
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...
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cgi.assign = (
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".cgi" => ""
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)
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Once that's done, enable `mod_cgi` and `mod_setenv` with:
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# lighty-enable-mod cgi setenv
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# service lighttpd force-reload
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## 8. Edit the Lighttpd service init files
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We need to edit the Lighttpd service startup files to define the
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`GITWEB_CONFIG` environment variable that we used in the previous step.
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# systemctl edit lighttpd.service
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This will start up an editor and create an `override.conf` file. Add the
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following two lines:
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::: filename-for-code-block
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`/etc/systemd/system/lighttpd.service.d/override.conf`
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:::
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[Service]
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Environment="GITWEB_CONFIG=./gitweb_config.perl"
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Then, save the file and exit the editor. To finish, we need to run these two
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commands:
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# systemctl daemon-reload
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# service lighttpd restart
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## 9. Upload a Git repository
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We are now ready to upload a Git respository we wish to visualize with our
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server. First, lets transfer ownership of the respository directory to our user
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`git` we created earlier.
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# chown git /var/lib/git/
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# chgrp git /var/lib/git/
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Now we can log out of the server with `exit`. On our local machine, we clone a
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`bare` copy of the repo we want to upload.
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$ git clone --bare my_project my_project.git
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Now we can upload this bare repo to our server.
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$ scp -r my_project.git git@XX.XX.XXX.XXX:/var/lib/git
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We can tell Git to automatically add group write permissions to our repo with:
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$ ssh git@XX.XX.XXX.XXX
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$ cd /var/lib/git/my_project.git
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$ git init --bare --shared
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## 10. Visit the GitWeb server
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When we visit the server's IP address with our browser, `http://XX.XX.XXX.XXX`,
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we should see a GitWeb `projects` page. We can now explore our project's code
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with our web browser.
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## Resources
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Here is a list of the resources that were used to figure out how to accomplish
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the task in this post.
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- [Git Documentation Book - Chapter 4: Git on the Server](https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Git-on-the-Server-The-Protocols)
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- [Lighttpd Configuration Tutorial](https://redmine.lighttpd.net/projects/lighttpd/wiki/TutorialConfiguration)
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- [LinuxQuestions.org - Perl CGI:Can't locate CGI.pm](https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/programming-9/perl-cgi-can%27t-locate-cgi-pm-330706/)
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- [Nicketa's GitHub Gist - LC_CTYPE.md](https://gist.github.com/nicks9188/a19f39d62780055a68c22b89a9799c25)
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