# 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.

  * I have tested this 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.

## 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The detailed instructions I used to have in g2 have now been replaced by a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.

<font color="gray">Note that the `GIT_PROJECT_ROOT` variable (see "man
git-http-backend") is no longer optional.  Make sure you set it to some place
outside apache's `DOCUMENT_ROOT`.</font>

## usage

### client side

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.

### server side

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 exactly as given in this document, you should

  * get a shell by using, say, `su -s /bin/bash - apache`
  * run `export HOME=$HOME/gitolite-home`
  * run `export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin`

and *then* you can run `gitolite <subcommand>`