gitweb on shared hosting

gitweb on shared hosting

[Mircea Bardac]

Hi everybody,

I don't know if this is possible or not, but I'm trying with no results.

Is it possible to install gitweb on a shared hosting system, with no root 
access. Reading the INSTALL document reveals only information for 
configuration on build-time/install as root.

I expected it to be installable just as any other web application:
* get gitweb.cgi and related files + place them on the webserver
* modify a config file (gitweb.cgi) to update the paths + gitweb options
* (eventually) adjust server configuration for CGI in the wanted dir
DONE.

Also, having configuration information spread across several files 
(README/INSTALL/gitweb.cgi) doesn't help much.

It is also very strange to have README/"How to configure gitweb for your local 
system" saying "You can specify the following configuration variables when 
buiding GIT". That means I have to rebuild GIT (actually, only 
gitweb/gitweb.cgi) to configure gitweb => I need to download the sources by 
hand instead of using the already installed gitweb on my system (the one 
which came with the git package).

Is there any strong reason to have configuration at build-time at all? It 
would be a lot easier IMO to have it *just* by config files. I'm saying this 
because most of the install process is manual anyway (copying/moving files).


Many thanks,
Mircea

-- 
http://mircea.bardac.net

Re: gitweb on shared hosting

[Martin Koegler]

> I don't know if this is possible or not, but I'm trying with no results.
> 
> Is it possible to install gitweb on a shared hosting system, with no root 
> access. Reading the INSTALL document reveals only information for 
> configuration on build-time/install as root.

It is possible to install gitweb without root access, if you have:
1) A system to compile C programs for the hosting system
2) A directory to copy the binaries to on the hosting system. I would not make it accessible via the webserver.
3) A directory published by the webserver for static files
4) A directory which supports running perl cgis

If the requirements are met, do the following:
a) Extract git sources
b) Change in the Makefile PREFIX to the directories for the binaries
c) run make
d) If you compile on the hosting system, simple run make install. If
not, create a directory with the same patch as the binary directory on
the hosting system, run make install and copy the content of binary
directory to the hosting system (preserving the x-bits).
e) Copy gitweb/git-favicon.png, gitweb/git-logo.png and gitweb/gitweb.css onto your webserver.
f) Install gitweb/gitweb.cgi as perl CGI program. gitweb.cgi needs some configuration. You can
specify them either in a seperate configuration file or change the default settings in gitweb.cgi.

You should check the following options:
our $GIT = "/homes/user/bin/git"; #  path to the git binary 
our $projectroot = "/pub/git"; # path to the directoriy containing all git repositories
our @stylesheets = ("gitweb.css"); # URL to stylesheet
our $logo = "git-logo.png"; # URL to image
our $favicon = "git-favicon.png"; # URL to image

If the webserver has read (and execute for the binaries) rights on all
files (including the repositories), gitweb should work.

mfg Martin Kögler

Re: gitweb on shared hosting

[Jakub Narebski]

Mircea Bardac wrote:

> It is also very strange to have README/"How to configure gitweb for your local 
> system" saying "You can specify the following configuration variables when 
> buiding GIT". That means I have to rebuild GIT (actually, only 
> gitweb/gitweb.cgi) to configure gitweb => I need to download the sources by 
> hand instead of using the already installed gitweb on my system (the one 
> which came with the git package).

First, it is when building gitweb/gitweb.cgi from gitweb/gitweb.perl, but
in practice that is just filling configuration in a few places. See the
places in the source, and later you can edit gitweb.cgi by hand.

> Is there any strong reason to have configuration at build-time at all? It 
> would be a lot easier IMO to have it *just* by config files. I'm saying this 
> because most of the install process is manual anyway (copying/moving files).

You can override configuration using config file (with exception of name of
config file), and put [almost] all configuration in config file.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland
ShadeHawk on #git