Hosting Git Repositories

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Gitolite allows you to setup git hosting on a central server, with fine-grained access control and many more powerful features.

install/setup

If you're installing via your package manager, make sure you get the right one; it's often called gitolite3.

Source code is at https://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite.

If your Unix-fu and ssh-fu are good, take a look at the quick install page. Otherwise follow the documentation flow, skipping whatever you think you don't need.

documentation

(April 2014): There's a book on gitolite out. I've received some emails over the years asking where to donate for gitolite to show your appreciation, and I've always refused politely. Well, if you insist... buy the book :-)

In general, the sections (see links in the navigation bar at the top) should be fairly self-explanatory, and reading through the documentation as it flows (i.e., using the "Next" link at the top right of each page) should work fine. There are some forward references here and there, but you can ignore those links on a first pass.

TROUBLESHOOTING

The emergencies page helps with all sorts of install/setup issues, recovering from lost keys and other self-inflicted wounds, lists some common (and some uncommon!) errors and non-standard configs that may trip you up.

contact/support

security issues

If you think you found a possible security issue, please email me (sitaramc@gmail.com) directly.

mailing list(s)

For all other communications, please use the mailing list. This has some advantages over sending direct to me (if I'm not available, someone else might respond; someone else may have additional info that I may not have thought of, or experiences to share; the issue becomes searchable for future reference; and finally, it keeps me honest!)

NOTE: The first email from a new member is held until I can clear it; subsequent emails from the same email address do not get held up.

Mailing list for support and general discussion:

• Subscribe: gitolite+subscribe@googlegroups.com
• Post: gitolite@googlegroups.com

(If you're unwilling to join the mailing list, you can still send me direct mail if it's something simple, obvious, or quick. But if the issue needs multiple mails and/or some discussion, I prefer the mailing list.)

There's also a low traffic, one-way, mailing list for release and security announcements:

• Subscribe: gitolite-announce+subscribe@googlegroups.com

If you wish to send me code, please see the file called CONTRIBUTING in the source distribution.

IRC

Our IRC channel is #gitolite on libera.chat. I live in India (UTC+0530 time zone), but there are a few regulars (thanks, guys, you know who you are!) from other times zones. That said, it's not heavy traffic and you may have to wait a while for an answer, depending on the time of day and day of week.

There are also many gitolite-knowledgeable people on the git channel #git.

license

The gitolite software is copyright Sitaram Chamarty and is licensed under the GPL v2; please see the file called COPYING in the source distribution.

This documentation, which is maintained separately from the main gitolite source code, is copyright Sitaram Chamarty and is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

However, certain parts are contributed by others who may have chosen other licenses; their names and license will be mentioned in the respective files.

Documentation for a software product will naturally contain code examples. I believe that the principle of fair use should cover use of those snippets; see especially factors 3 and 4 in the list of factors here.

If you're not convinced that it would be fair use, then you may consider those code snippets, as well as associated "comments" if any, to be under the GPLv2 license. Licensing is about intent, and the intent of these examples is that you use them wherever and however you can use gitolite itself.