In this document:
Please make sure you understand the following points first.
gitolite is somewhat unusual as far as "server" software goes -- every userid on the server is a potential "gitolite host".
gitolite depends heavily on ssh pubkey (passwordless) access. Do not assume you know all about ssh -- most people don't. If in doubt, use a dedicated userid on both client and server for installation and administration of gitolite.
To make matters worse, ssh problems in gitolite don't always look like ssh problems. See doc/6-ssh-troubleshooting.mkd for help.
We assume the admin user is "sitaram", and his workstation is called "client". The hosting user is "git", and the server is called "server". Substitute your values as needed.
$GIT_PATH variable in the "rc" fileauthorized_keys file formatfrom your workstation, copy your ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub file to the server.
Put it in /tmp/sitaram.pub.
(U) on the server, as root, do the install (urpmi, yum, apt-get, etc.).
on the server, "su - git", then as "git" user, run gl-setup
/tmp/sitaram.pub.
on the client, run cd; git clone git@server:gitolite-admin
from your workstation, copy your ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub file to the server.
Put it in /tmp/sitaram.pub.
(U) on the server, as root, do the following:
cd $HOME
git clone git://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite gitolite-source
cd gitolite-source
# now checkout whatever branch you want; for early adopters I suggest
# "pu", as in "git checkout -t origin/pu" for recent gits
mkdir -p /usr/local/share/gitolite/conf /usr/local/share/gitolite/hooks
src/gl-system-install /usr/local/bin /usr/local/share/gitolite/conf /usr/local/share/gitolite/hooks
on the server, "su - git", then as "git" user, run gl-setup
/tmp/sitaram.pub.
on the client, run cd; git clone git@server:gitolite-admin
WARNING: if you use this method you'd better know enough about ssh to be able to keep your keys straight, and you'd also better have password access to the server so that if you screw up the keys you can still get on, or be able to "su - git" from some other user on the server.
from your workstation, copy your ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub file to the server.
Put it in /tmp/sitaram.pub.
if $HOME/bin is not on the default PATH, fiddle with your .bashrc or
.bash_profile or similar files and add it somehow.
(U) on the server, as "git", do the following:
cd $HOME
git clone git://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite gitolite-source
# now checkout whatever branch you want; for early adopters I suggest
# "pu", as in "git checkout -t origin/pu" for recent gits
cd gitolite-source
mkdir -p $HOME/bin $HOME/share/gitolite/conf $HOME/share/gitolite/hooks
src/gl-system-install $HOME/bin $HOME/share/gitolite/conf $HOME/share/gitolite/hooks
on the server, still as "git", run gl-setup /tmp/sitaram.pub.
on the client, run cd; git clone git@server:gitolite-admin
This used to be the most common install method for a long time, and it is still the one I use for most of my testing. The main advantage of this method is that it forces you to solve the ssh pubkey problem before attempting to install. Sadly, it also forces the admin to use a different URL for gitolite repos than normal users, which seems to confuse a heck of a lot of people who don't read the prominently displayed messages and/or the documentation.
This method is verbosely documented in doc/7-install-transcript.mkd, including outputs of the commands concerned.
With the first two methods of installation, it's trivial to create multiple gitolite instances (say one for each department, on some mega company-wide server). You can even do this without giving shell access to the admins. Here's an example with just two "departments", and their admins Alice and Bob:
webbrowser_repos and webserver_repossu - webbrowser_repos, then gl-setup alice.pubwebserver_repos and bob.pub, and so on for others)That's it. The URL for all web browser projects is now something like
webbrowser_repos@server:reponame, and similarly for the others.
Notice that you only have to do this once for each "department", and it's really just one command after creating the userid. None of these admins need to have a command line on the server, so don't give them the passwords if you don't need to -- the pubkey will allow them to be gitolite admins on their domain, and that's quite enough for normal operations.
Thanks to Matt Perzel, the easy-install command now takes an optional 4th
parameter, which is the "nickname" of the gitolite server. It gets defined in
~/.ssh/config, and if not used it defaults to "gitolite".
So if you used the following command to install gitolite to 2 different servers:
./src/gl-easy-install -q git my.1st.git.server admin_user1 gitolite_server_1
./src/gl-easy-install -q git my.2nd.git.server admin_user1 gitolite_server_2
you will find that ~/gitolite_server_1-admin and ~/gitolite_server_2-admin
have been created as respective clones. Or you can re-clone elsewhere:
cd ~/admin1; git clone gitolite_server_1:gitolite-admin.git
cd ~/admin2; git clone gitolite_server_2:gitolite-admin.git
Upgrading gitolite is easy. In each method above, just re-do the step that is
marked "(U)". Also, if you're using either of the two methods that use the
src/gl-system-install command, please make sure you give it the same
arguments!
Also, remember that some new features may require additional settings in your
~/.gitolite.rc file.
When people have trouble installing gitolite, they often try to change a bunch of things manually on the server. This usually makes things worse ;-) so here's how to clean the slate.
~/.ssh/config and delete the paragraph starting with host
gitolite, if present.~/gitolite-admin~/.ssh/authorized_keys and delete all lines between # gitolite
start and # gitolite end inclusive.~/.gitolite, ~/.gitolite.rc and
~/repositories/gitolite-admin.gitThere's some duplication between this and the previous section, but uninstalling gitolite is described in great detail in doc/9-uninstall.mkd