Creating and using a git mirror¶
This is an example of how to create a git mirror using git’s git-http-backend and lighttpd.
Prerequisites¶
You will need git installed, and git-http-backend must be present. It is assumed that the git-http-backend binary exists at /usr/lib/git-core/git-http-backend.
You will need lighttpd installed, and at the bare minimum has the modules mod_alias, mod_cgi, and mod_setenv.
I will be using gnome-modulesets as an example, which can be cloned from http://gnome7.codethink.co.uk/gnome-modulesets.git.
Starting a git http server¶
1. Set up a directory containing mirrors¶
Choose a suitable directory to hold your mirrors, e.g. /var/www/git.
Place the git repositories you want to use as mirrors in the mirror dir, e.g.
git clone --mirror http://git.gnome.org/browse/yelp-xsl /var/www/git/yelp-xsl.git
.
2. Configure lighttpd¶
Write out a lighttpd.conf as follows:
server.document-root = "/var/www/git/"
server.port = 3000
server.modules = (
"mod_alias",
"mod_cgi",
"mod_setenv",
)
alias.url += ( "/git" => "/usr/lib/git-core/git-http-backend" )
$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/git" {
cgi.assign = ("" => "")
setenv.add-environment = (
"GIT_PROJECT_ROOT" => "/var/www/git",
"GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL" => ""
)
}
Note
If you have your mirrors in another directory, replace /var/www/git/ with that directory.
3. Start lighttpd¶
lighttpd can be invoked with the command-line lighttpd -D -f lighttpd.conf
.
4. Test that you can fetch from it¶
We can then clone the mirrored repo using git via http with
git clone http://127.0.0.1:3000/git/yelp-xsl
.
Note
If you have set server.port to something other than the default, you will need to replace the ‘3000’ in the command-line.
5. Configure the project to use the mirror¶
To add this local http server as a mirror, add the following to the project.conf:
mirrors:
- name: local-mirror
aliases:
git_gnome_org:
- http://127.0.0.1:3000/git/
6. Test that the mirror works¶
We can make buildstream use the mirror by setting the alias to an invalid URL, e.g.
aliases:
git_gnome_org: https://www.example.com/invalid/url/
Now, if you build an element that uses the source you placed in the mirror
(e.g. bst build core-deps/yelp-xsl.bst
), you will see that it uses your mirror.
Bonus: lighttpd conf for git and tar¶
For those who have also used the tar-mirror tutorial, a combined lighttpd.conf is below:
server.document-root = "/var/www/"
server.port = 3000
server.modules = (
"mod_alias",
"mod_cgi",
"mod_setenv",
)
alias.url += ( "/git" => "/usr/lib/git-core/git-http-backend" )
$HTTP["url"] =~ "^/git" {
cgi.assign = ("" => "")
setenv.add-environment = (
"GIT_PROJECT_ROOT" => "/var/www/git",
"GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL" => ""
)
} else $HTTP["url"] =~ "^/tar" {
dir-listing.activate = "enable"
}
Further reading¶
If this mirror isn’t being used exclusively in a secure network, it is strongly recommended you use SSL.
This is the bare minimum required to set up a git mirror. A large, public project would prefer to set it up using the git protocol, and a security-conscious project would be configured to use git over SSH.
Lighttpd is documented on its wiki.