cgit - cgi for git
-This is an attempt to create a fast web interface for the git scm, using a
-frontside cache to decrease server io-pressure.
+This is an attempt to create a fast web interface for the git scm, using a
+builtin cache to decrease server io-pressure.
-When cgit is invoked, it looks for a cached page matching the request. If no
-such cachefile exist (or it has expired), it is (re)generated. Finally, the
-cachefile is returned to the client.
-If the cachefile has expired, but cgit is unable to lock the cachefile, the
-client will get the stale cachefile after all. This is done to favour page
+Installation
+
+Building cgit involves building a proper version of git. How to do this
+depends on how you obtained the cgit sources:
+
+a) If you're working in a cloned cgit repository, you first need to
+initialize and update the git submodule:
+
+ $ git submodule init # register the git submodule in .git/config
+ $ $EDITOR .git/config # if you want to specify a different url for git
+ $ git submodule update # clone/fetch and checkout correct git version
+
+b) If you're building from a cgit tarball, you can download a proper git
+version like this:
+
+ $ make get-git
+
+
+When either a) or b) has been performed, you can build and install cgit like
+this:
+
+ $ make
+ $ sudo make install
+
+This will install cgit.cgi and cgit.css into "/var/www/htdocs/cgit". You can
+configure this location (and a few other things) by providing a "cgit.conf"
+file (see the Makefile for details).
+
+
+Dependencies:
+ -git 1.5.3
+ -zip lib
+ -crypto lib
+ -openssl lib
+
+
+Apache configuration
+
+A new Directory-section must probably be added for cgit, possibly something
+like this:
+
+ <Directory "/var/www/htdocs/cgit/">
+ AllowOverride None
+ Options ExecCGI
+ Order allow,deny
+ Allow from all
+ </Directory>
+
+
+Runtime configuration
+
+The file /etc/cgitrc is read by cgit before handling a request. In addition
+to runtime parameters, this file also contains a list of the repositories
+displayed by cgit.
+
+A template cgitrc is shipped with the sources, and all parameters and default
+values are documented in this file.
+
+
+The cache
+
+When cgit is invoked it looks for a cachefile matching the request and
+returns it to the client. If no such cachefile exist (or if it has expired),
+the content for the request is written into the proper cachefile before the
+file is returned.
+
+If the cachefile has expired but cgit is unable to obtain a lock for it, the
+stale cachefile is returned to the client. This is done to favour page
throughput over page freshness.
-Also, when a cachefile is generated, a few cache-related http-headers are
-created: "Modified" is set to current time(2), while "Expires" is set to
-time(2) + <cachefile TTL> * 60 (unless the TTL is negative, in which case it
-is read as "60 * 60 * 24 * 365"). This is done to avoid repeated requests for
-already visited pages.
+The generated content contains the complete response to the client, including
+the http-headers "Modified" and "Expires".
+
+
+The missing features
+
+* Submodule links in the directory listing page have a fixed format per
+ repository. This should probably be extended to a generic map between
+ submodule path and url.
+
+* Branch- and tag-lists in the summary page can get very long, they should
+ probably only show something like the ten "latest modified" branches and
+ a similar number of "most recent" tags.
-The following cache-related options can be set in /etc/cgitrc:
+* There should be a new page for browsing refs/heads and refs/tags, with links
+ from the summary page whenever the branch/tag lists overflow.
- cache-root=<path> root directory for cache files
- cache-root-ttl=<min> TTL for the repo listing page
- cache-repo-ttl=<min> TTL for repo summary pages
- cache-dynamic-ttl=<min> TTL for pages with symbolic references
- cache-static-ttl=<min> TTL for pages with sha1 references
+* The log-page should have more/better search options (author, committer,
+ pickaxe, paths) and possibly support arbitrary revision specifiers.
-The cachefiles are split into different directories, based on the requested
-repository and page:
+* A set of test-scripts is required before cgit-1.0 can be released.
- Repo listing: <cachedir>/index.html
- Repo summary: <cachedir>/<repo>/index.html
- Repo subpage: <cachedir>/<repo>/<page>/<querystring>.html
+Patches/bugreports/suggestions/comments are always welcome, please feel free
+to contact the author: hjemli@gmail.com
git.ckatri.com / cgit.git / blobdiff