Installing Gitweb on Fedora Linux and Apache

My next natural step after getting my projects up and running with Git was to install a web interface. Gitweb was my choice because:

• it’s available via yum with Fedora
• it provides up-to-date diff information
• it’s part of the overall Git package, so it’s tightly integrated

Installation was ultimately quite simple, but I found the install docs to be less than helpful for people like me who want immediate functionality and will get to the tweaks and details later.

Step 1: Install Gitweb

sudo yum install gitweb

This will install a few files at /var/www/git.  You shouldn’t need to do anything to them.

Step 2: Create /etc/gitweb.conf

You need a configuration file to tell Gitweb where to look for your project.  You can change this folder to wherever your project will be.

$ echo "\\$projectroot = '/srv/git/';" > /etc/gitweb.conf

Step 3: Edit Apache Configuration File

This configuration file assumes you are running your site as a virtual host, in this case /etc/httpd/conf.d/git.conf.

DocumentRoot /var/www/git
ServerName git.yourproject.com

Allow from all
AllowOverride all
Order allow,deny
Options ExecCGI

SetHandler cgi-script

DirectoryIndex gitweb.cgi
SetEnv  GITWEB_CONFIG  /etc/gitweb.conf

Step 3: Tweak Your Repository’s Config File

Gitweb lists two key elements at the start of your project’s page: description and owner.  To have these display something appropriate, edit ~~~/srv/git/yourproject.git/description~~~

My Awesome Project

… and add this to /srv/git/yourproject/.git/config

[gitweb]
owner = "Mark McBride"

Step 4: Restart Apache

That’s it.  Just restart Apache and you should find Gitweb running at the domain you’ve specified.

References:

• Phil Sergi, http://www.philsergi.com/2008/04/gitweb-apache-gentoo.html
• Gitweb Wiki, http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/Gitweb