Host Git Based Development Networks with Girocco on Debian 5 (Lenny)

Install Prerequisites 

Before beginning the installation of Girocco, issue the following commands to ensure that your system is up to date and that you've installed the latest version of all software packages:

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

Now issue the following command to install the required prerequisite software:

apt-get install git-core build-essential netcat-openbsd apache2 wget libwww-perl libjson-perl librpc-xml-perl

The above command installs the Apache HTTP Server, and this guide depends upon running Apache. For more information regarding the setup and configuration of Apache, consider our series of Apache guides. Furthermore, this guide does not include explicit instructions for downloading and installing a local send-only mail server, which you will need to do for some operations such as sending password recovery tokens. If you do not have a local MTA installed or configured already, begin by issuing the following command:

apt-get install mailx

This will install the MTA "Exim." You can configure this MTA by issuing the following command and following the steps outlined in the Exim send-only MTA guide guide:

dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config

The following dependencies are optional but make it possible to mirror projects managed with alternate version control systems. Issue the following command to install them:

apt-get install darcs python-chardet

We are now ready to proceed with the installation and configuration of Girocco.

Install Girocco 

Begin by issuing the following commands to download the source code for Girocco:

cd /opt/
git clone git://repo.or.cz/girocco.git
cd /opt/girocco/
git submodule update --init

cp /opt/girocco/Girocco/Config.pm /opt/girocco/Girocco/BaseConfig-bakup.pm

## Paths

# Path where the main chunk of Girocco files will be installed
# This will get COMPLETELY OVERWRITTEN by each make install!!!
our $basedir = '/srv/repo/bin';

# The repository collection
our $reporoot = "/srv/repo/git";

# The chroot for ssh pushing; location for project database and other run-time
# data even in non-chroot setups
our $chroot = "/srv/repo/data";

# The gitweb files web directory (corresponds to $gitwebfiles)
our $webroot = "/srv/repo/public_html";

# The CGI-enabled web directory (corresponds to $gitweburl and $webadmurl)
our $cgiroot = "/srv/repo/public_html";

# A web-accessible symlink to $reporoot (corresponds to $httppullurl, can be undef)
our $webreporoot = "/srv/repo/public_html/r";

## URL addresses

# URL of the gitweb.cgi script (must be in pathinfo mode)
our $gitweburl = "http://repo.ducklington.org/w";

# URL of the extra gitweb files (CSS, .js files, images, ...)
our $gitwebfiles = "http://repo.ducklington.org";

# URL of the Girocco CGI web admin interface (Girocco cgi/ subdirectory)
our $webadmurl = "http://repo.ducklington.org";

# URL of the Girocco CGI html templater (Girocco cgi/html.cgi)
our $htmlurl = "http://repo.ducklington.org/h";

# HTTP URL of the repository collection (undef if N/A)
our $httppullurl = "http://repo.ducklington.org/r";

# Git URL of the repository collection (undef if N/A)
# (You need to set up git-daemon on your system, and Girocco will not
# do this particular thing for you.)
our $gitpullurl = "git://repo.ducklington.org";

# Pushy URL of the repository collection (undef if N/A)
our $pushurl = "ssh://repo.ducklington.org/srv/repo/git";

# URL of gitweb of this Girocco instance (set to undef if you're not nice
# to the community)
our $giroccourl = "$Girocco::Config::gitweburl/girocco.git";

cp /opt/girocco/Girocco/Config.pm /opt/ducklington-girocco-config.pm

mkdir -p /srv/repo/data  /srv/repo/public_html/ /srv/repo/git/ /srv/repo/bin/ /root/repo /srv/repo/git/mob.git/
mkdir -p /srv/www/repo.ducklington.org/logs/
ln -s /srv/repo/git /srv/repo/public_html/r
ln -s /srv/repo/git /srv/git
ln -s /srv/repo/public_html /srv/www/repo.ducklington.org/public_html

adduser --system --no-create-home --disabled-login --disabled-password --group repo

cp /opt/girocco/jobs/fixup.sh /root/repo
cp /opt/girocco/jobs/fixupcheck.sh /root/repo

## and does not reuse Girocco::Config settings.

## Girocco::Config::reporoot
reporoot="/srv/repo/git"
## Girocco::Config::chroot
chroot="/srv/repo/data"
## Girocco::Config::mirror_user
mirror_user="repo"
## Directory with this script and fixup.sh; WARNING: COPY THEM OVER to ~root!
## Otherwise, the owner of these scripts can execute anything as root.
fixup_dir="/root/repo"

# No need to lock.

cd /opt/girocco/
make install

cd /opt/girocco/
git pull
git submodule update
make install

diff /opt/girocco/Girocco/Config.pm /opt/ducklington-girocco-config.pm

Run Regular Tasks 

To ensure complete functionality of the Girocco system, we need to run the taskd.pl and jobd.sh scripts as daemons to perform necessary system maintenance. Use or modify the following init script to control the daemon operations:

cd /opt/
wget http://library.linode.com/development/version-control-systems/git/reference/repo-taskd-init-deb.sh
cp /opt/repo-taskd-init-deb.sh /etc/init.d/repod
chmod +x /etc/init.d/repod
/usr/sbin/update-rc.d -f repod defaults

Issue the following commands to start and stop the daemons in turn:

/etc/init.d/repod start
/etc/init.d/repod stop

From this point forward, these daemons will start following reboot cycles and can be controlled with the init script.

You will also want to create a root user cron job to regularly run the /root/repo/fixupcheck.sh script as root. Issue the following command as root:

crontab -e

Then insert the following line:

File excerpt: rootcrontab

*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/nice -n 18 /root/repo/fixupcheck.sh

This configures the script to run once every 5 minutes. Monitor the length of time it takes to run the script, and the frequency of pushes, and adjust the frequency based on this data.

Additionally issue the following command to create a repo user cronjob:

crontab -u repo -e

Then insert the following line:

File excerpt: repo crontab

*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/nice -n 18 /srv/repo/bin/jobd/jobd.sh -q --all-once

This configures the script to run once every 5 minutes. Monitor the length of time it takes to run the script, note any error messages this produces, and modify the frequency in response to this. You may also run the command "/srv/repo/bin/jobd/jobd.sh" in an interactive terminal as needed. Some tasks related to mirroring will not appear to succeed unless jobd is running constantly or runs at the appropriate time. You may want to run jobd in a GNU Screen session, by issuing the following command as the repo user:

while ( true ); do /srv/repo/bin/jobd/jobd.sh; sleep 5; done

Additionally, add the following two lines as instructed by the installation script to your /etc/rc.local script to ensure that a chroot set up to isolate functions following reboot cycles:

File excerpt: /etc/rc.local

mount --bind /srv/repo/git /srv/repo/data/srv/git
mount --bind /proc /srv/repo/data/proc

Configure Web Server 

For the purpose of this document we will set up the repository hosting service under the virtual host for the domain repo.ducklington.org. You will need to ensure that DNS is configured for this domain. Additionally, ensure that the rewrite module is enabled by issuing the following commands:

a2enmod rewrite
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Furthermore, ensure that the paths specified in this file match the paths that you specified in the "Paths" section of the /opt/girocco/Girocco/Config.pm file. Consider the following:

File excerpt: Apache Virtual Host Configuration

<VirtualHost repo.ducklington.org:80>
        ServerName repo.ducklington.org
        ServerAdmin squire@ducklington.org

        ErrorLog /srv/www/repo.ducklington.org/logs/error.log
        CustomLog /srv/www/repo.ducklington.org/logs/access.log combined

        DocumentRoot /srv/repo/public_html
        <Directory /srv/repo/public_html>
                Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews ExecCGI
                AllowOverride All
                Order allow,deny
                allow from all
                DirectoryIndex gitweb.cgi
                AddHandler cgi-script .cgi
        </Directory>

        ScriptAlias /w /srv/repo/public_html/gitweb.cgi
        ScriptAlias /h /srv/repo/public_html/html.cgi
</VirtualHost>

Congratulations! You may now visit http://repo.ducklington.org to begin using your Girocco repository hosting system.

More Information 

You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted materials.

• Girocco
• Repo.or.cz
• Using Cron to Schedule Tasks
• Managing Permissions with Unix Users and Groups
• Using GNU Screen

License 

This guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please feel free to redistribute unmodified copies of it as long as attribution is provided, preferably via a link to this page.