# how to setup gitolite to use smart http mode **Note**: "smart http" refers to the feature that came with git 1.6.6, late 2009 or so. The base documentation for this is `man git-http-backend`. Do **NOT** read `Documentation/howto/setup-git-server-over-http.txt` and think that is the same or even relevant -- that is from 2006 and is quite different (and arguably obsolete). ## WARNINGS and important notes * Please read [authentication versus authorisation][auth] first, and make sure you understand what is gitolite's responsibility and what isn't. * The 'gitolite' command (for example, 'gitolite compile', 'gitolite query-rc', and so on) *can* be run on the server, but it's not straightforward. Assuming you installed using the exact same values as in this document: * get a shell by using, say, `su -s /bin/bash - apache` * run `export HOME=$HOME/gitolite-home` * run `export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin` Now you can run `gitolite ` * I have tested only on stock Fedora 16; YDMV * As before, I have not tried making repos available to both ssh *and* http mode clients but it ought to work. If you managed it, I'd appreciate a doc patch describing how you did it. ## additional requirements * requires `GIT_PROJECT_ROOT` (see "man git-http-backend" for what this is) set explicitly (i.e., it is no longer optional). Please set it to some place outside apache's `DOCUMENT_ROOT`. ## assumptions: * apache 2.x and git installed. * httpd runs under the "apache" userid; adjust instructions below if not. * similarly for "/var/www" and other file names/locations. ## instructions The detailed instructions I used to have in g2 have now been replaced by a script called `t/smart-http.root-setup`. **Do NOT run this script as is -- it is actually meant for my testing setup and deletes stuff**. However, it does provide an excellent (and working!) narration of what you need to do to install gitolite in smart http mode. Make a copy of the script, go through it carefully, (possibly removing lines that delete files etc.), change values per your system, and only then run it. ## usage Git URLs look like `http://user:password@server/git/reponame.git`. The custom commands, like "info", "expand" should be handled as follows. The command name will come just after the `/git/`, followed by a `?`, followed by the arguments, with `+` representing a space. Here are some examples: # ssh git@server info curl http://user:password@server/git/info # ssh git@server info repopatt curl http://user:password@server/git/info?repopatt # ssh git@server info repopatt user1 user2 curl http://user:password@server/git/info?repopatt+user1+user2 With a few nice shell aliases, you won't even notice the horrible convolutions here ;-) See t/smart-http for a couple of useful ones.