Setting up a Git server (+ gitweb) with .htaccess files HOWTO

Setting up a Git server (+ gitweb) with .htaccess files HOWTO

[Matthieu Moy]

Hi,

I've set up a Git server on a machine on which I have a webspace,
permission to run CGI scripts, but no shell or root access. Good news:
it worked :-).

I've documented the process here in case anyone's interested:

  http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/?Host-a-Git-repository-over-HTTP-S

-- 
Matthieu Moy
http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/

Re: Setting up a Git server (+ gitweb) with .htaccess files HOWTO

[Junio C Hamano]

Matthieu Moy <Matthieu.Moy@grenoble-inp.fr> writes:

> I've set up a Git server on a machine on which I have a webspace,
> permission to run CGI scripts, but no shell or root access. Good news:
> it worked :-).
>
> I've documented the process here in case anyone's interested:
>
>   http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/?Host-a-Git-repository-over-HTTP-S

After seeing the section that runs "git init" in a throw-away CGI script,
I started wondering what the point of this site in forbidding a shell
access in the first place.

After all, if you changed that example with a script that feeds its input
to a shell, you would have enough "shell access" to do anything you need.

So...

Well, my reaction at this point was "why bother?", but then I realized
that that reaction is meant for the administrator of that hosting site,
not a user of that site, i.e. you.

Thanks for an amusing read, anyway.

Re: Setting up a Git server (+ gitweb) with .htaccess files HOWTO

[Matthieu Moy]

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

> After seeing the section that runs "git init" in a throw-away CGI script,
> I started wondering what the point of this site in forbidding a shell
> access in the first place.

The sysadmin trusts users enough to allow running arbitrary CGI there.
Not giving shell access greatly limits the accidental mis-uses of the
server, or silly attacks by incompetent users (i.e. "students" ;-) ). A
few years ago, people had shell access on most servers, and they were
using it to run seti@home & other heavy stuff there.

-- 
Matthieu Moy
http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/