6 git-daemon - A really simple server for Git repositories
11 'git daemon' [--verbose] [--syslog] [--export-all]
12 [--timeout=<n>] [--init-timeout=<n>] [--max-connections=<n>]
13 [--strict-paths] [--base-path=<path>] [--base-path-relaxed]
14 [--user-path | --user-path=<path>]
15 [--interpolated-path=<pathtemplate>]
16 [--reuseaddr] [--detach] [--pid-file=<file>]
17 [--enable=<service>] [--disable=<service>]
18 [--allow-override=<service>] [--forbid-override=<service>]
19 [--access-hook=<path>] [--[no-]informative-errors]
21 [--listen=<host_or_ipaddr>] [--port=<n>]
22 [--user=<user> [--group=<group>]]]
27 A really simple TCP Git daemon that normally listens on port "DEFAULT_GIT_PORT"
28 aka 9418. It waits for a connection asking for a service, and will serve
29 that service if it is enabled.
31 It verifies that the directory has the magic file "git-daemon-export-ok", and
32 it will refuse to export any Git directory that hasn't explicitly been marked
33 for export this way (unless the `--export-all` parameter is specified). If you
34 pass some directory paths as 'git daemon' arguments, you can further restrict
35 the offers to a whitelist comprising of those.
37 By default, only `upload-pack` service is enabled, which serves
38 'git fetch-pack' and 'git ls-remote' clients, which are invoked
39 from 'git fetch', 'git pull', and 'git clone'.
41 This is ideally suited for read-only updates, i.e., pulling from
44 An `upload-archive` also exists to serve 'git archive'.
49 Match paths exactly (i.e. don't allow "/foo/repo" when the real path is
50 "/foo/repo.git" or "/foo/repo/.git") and don't do user-relative paths.
51 'git daemon' will refuse to start when this option is enabled and no
52 whitelist is specified.
55 Remap all the path requests as relative to the given path.
56 This is sort of "Git root" - if you run 'git daemon' with
57 '--base-path=/srv/git' on example.com, then if you later try to pull
58 'git://example.com/hello.git', 'git daemon' will interpret the path
59 as '/srv/git/hello.git'.
62 If --base-path is enabled and repo lookup fails, with this option
63 'git daemon' will attempt to lookup without prefixing the base path.
64 This is useful for switching to --base-path usage, while still
65 allowing the old paths.
67 --interpolated-path=<pathtemplate>::
68 To support virtual hosting, an interpolated path template can be
69 used to dynamically construct alternate paths. The template
70 supports %H for the target hostname as supplied by the client but
71 converted to all lowercase, %CH for the canonical hostname,
72 %IP for the server's IP address, %P for the port number,
73 and %D for the absolute path of the named repository.
74 After interpolation, the path is validated against the directory
78 Allow pulling from all directories that look like Git repositories
79 (have the 'objects' and 'refs' subdirectories), even if they
80 do not have the 'git-daemon-export-ok' file.
83 Have the server run as an inetd service. Implies --syslog.
84 Incompatible with --detach, --port, --listen, --user and --group
87 --listen=<host_or_ipaddr>::
88 Listen on a specific IP address or hostname. IP addresses can
89 be either an IPv4 address or an IPv6 address if supported. If IPv6
90 is not supported, then --listen=hostname is also not supported and
91 --listen must be given an IPv4 address.
92 Can be given more than once.
93 Incompatible with `--inetd` option.
96 Listen on an alternative port. Incompatible with `--inetd` option.
99 Timeout (in seconds) between the moment the connection is established
100 and the client request is received (typically a rather low value, since
101 that should be basically immediate).
104 Timeout (in seconds) for specific client sub-requests. This includes
105 the time it takes for the server to process the sub-request and the
106 time spent waiting for the next client's request.
108 --max-connections=<n>::
109 Maximum number of concurrent clients, defaults to 32. Set it to
113 Log to syslog instead of stderr. Note that this option does not imply
114 --verbose, thus by default only error conditions will be logged.
118 Allow {tilde}user notation to be used in requests. When
119 specified with no parameter, requests to
120 git://host/{tilde}alice/foo is taken as a request to access
121 'foo' repository in the home directory of user `alice`.
122 If `--user-path=path` is specified, the same request is
123 taken as a request to access `path/foo` repository in
124 the home directory of user `alice`.
127 Log details about the incoming connections and requested files.
130 Use SO_REUSEADDR when binding the listening socket.
131 This allows the server to restart without waiting for
132 old connections to time out.
135 Detach from the shell. Implies --syslog.
138 Save the process id in 'file'. Ignored when the daemon
139 is run under `--inetd`.
143 Change daemon's uid and gid before entering the service loop.
144 When only `--user` is given without `--group`, the
145 primary group ID for the user is used. The values of
146 the option are given to `getpwnam(3)` and `getgrnam(3)`
147 and numeric IDs are not supported.
149 Giving these options is an error when used with `--inetd`; use
150 the facility of inet daemon to achieve the same before spawning
151 'git daemon' if needed.
153 Like many programs that switch user id, the daemon does not reset
154 environment variables such as `$HOME` when it runs git programs,
155 e.g. `upload-pack` and `receive-pack`. When using this option, you
156 may also want to set and export `HOME` to point at the home
157 directory of `<user>` before starting the daemon, and make sure any
158 Git configuration files in that directory are readable by `<user>`.
161 --disable=<service>::
162 Enable/disable the service site-wide per default. Note
163 that a service disabled site-wide can still be enabled
164 per repository if it is marked overridable and the
165 repository enables the service with a configuration
168 --allow-override=<service>::
169 --forbid-override=<service>::
170 Allow/forbid overriding the site-wide default with per
171 repository configuration. By default, all the services
174 --[no-]informative-errors::
175 When informative errors are turned on, git-daemon will report
176 more verbose errors to the client, differentiating conditions
177 like "no such repository" from "repository not exported". This
178 is more convenient for clients, but may leak information about
179 the existence of unexported repositories. When informative
180 errors are not enabled, all errors report "access denied" to the
181 client. The default is --no-informative-errors.
183 --access-hook=<path>::
184 Every time a client connects, first run an external command
185 specified by the <path> with service name (e.g. "upload-pack"),
186 path to the repository, hostname (%H), canonical hostname
187 (%CH), IP address (%IP), and TCP port (%P) as its command-line
188 arguments. The external command can decide to decline the
189 service by exiting with a non-zero status (or to allow it by
190 exiting with a zero status). It can also look at the $REMOTE_ADDR
191 and `$REMOTE_PORT` environment variables to learn about the
192 requestor when making this decision.
194 The external command can optionally write a single line to its
195 standard output to be sent to the requestor as an error message when
196 it declines the service.
199 A directory to add to the whitelist of allowed directories. Unless
200 --strict-paths is specified this will also include subdirectories
201 of each named directory.
206 These services can be globally enabled/disabled using the
207 command-line options of this command. If finer-grained
208 control is desired (e.g. to allow 'git archive' to be run
209 against only in a few selected repositories the daemon serves),
210 the per-repository configuration file can be used to enable or
214 This serves 'git fetch-pack' and 'git ls-remote'
215 clients. It is enabled by default, but a repository can
216 disable it by setting `daemon.uploadpack` configuration
220 This serves 'git archive --remote'. It is disabled by
221 default, but a repository can enable it by setting
222 `daemon.uploadarch` configuration item to `true`.
225 This serves 'git send-pack' clients, allowing anonymous
226 push. It is disabled by default, as there is _no_
227 authentication in the protocol (in other words, anybody
228 can push anything into the repository, including removal
229 of refs). This is solely meant for a closed LAN setting
230 where everybody is friendly. This service can be
231 enabled by setting `daemon.receivepack` configuration item to
236 We assume the following in /etc/services::
239 $ grep 9418 /etc/services
240 git 9418/tcp # Git Version Control System
243 'git daemon' as inetd server::
244 To set up 'git daemon' as an inetd service that handles any
245 repository under the whitelisted set of directories, /pub/foo
246 and /pub/bar, place an entry like the following into
247 /etc/inetd all on one line:
249 ------------------------------------------------
250 git stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/bin/git
251 git daemon --inetd --verbose --export-all
253 ------------------------------------------------
256 'git daemon' as inetd server for virtual hosts::
257 To set up 'git daemon' as an inetd service that handles
258 repositories for different virtual hosts, `www.example.com`
259 and `www.example.org`, place an entry like the following into
260 `/etc/inetd` all on one line:
262 ------------------------------------------------
263 git stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/bin/git
264 git daemon --inetd --verbose --export-all
265 --interpolated-path=/pub/%H%D
266 /pub/www.example.org/software
267 /pub/www.example.com/software
269 ------------------------------------------------
271 In this example, the root-level directory `/pub` will contain
272 a subdirectory for each virtual host name supported.
273 Further, both hosts advertise repositories simply as
274 `git://www.example.com/software/repo.git`. For pre-1.4.0
275 clients, a symlink from `/software` into the appropriate
276 default repository could be made as well.
279 'git daemon' as regular daemon for virtual hosts::
280 To set up 'git daemon' as a regular, non-inetd service that
281 handles repositories for multiple virtual hosts based on
282 their IP addresses, start the daemon like this:
284 ------------------------------------------------
285 git daemon --verbose --export-all
286 --interpolated-path=/pub/%IP/%D
287 /pub/192.168.1.200/software
288 /pub/10.10.220.23/software
289 ------------------------------------------------
291 In this example, the root-level directory `/pub` will contain
292 a subdirectory for each virtual host IP address supported.
293 Repositories can still be accessed by hostname though, assuming
294 they correspond to these IP addresses.
296 selectively enable/disable services per repository::
297 To enable 'git archive --remote' and disable 'git fetch' against
298 a repository, have the following in the configuration file in the
299 repository (that is the file 'config' next to `HEAD`, 'refs' and
302 ----------------------------------------------------------------
306 ----------------------------------------------------------------
311 'git daemon' will set REMOTE_ADDR to the IP address of the client
312 that connected to it, if the IP address is available. REMOTE_ADDR will
313 be available in the environment of hooks called when
314 services are performed.
318 Part of the linkgit:git[1] suite