In this article I want to show you how to install and setup  gitweb on Ubuntu 9.10 server. This should also work the same way on Ubuntu Desktop edition.

First of all install the deb package like:

sudo apt-get install  gitweb

Second create a new folder in /var/www and change into that directory like:

sudo mkdir /var/www/gitweb
cd /var/www/gitweb

Third,  create a softlink to the /var/www/gitweb folder from where the css and the pics of gitweb originally do reside:

sudo ln -s /usr/share/gitweb/* .

Now you have all things linked to the right place. if gitweb comes in a new version, all content remains linked and all new content is automagically linked, too.

Good, now we need to modify the apache.conf. This must happen only if you do not have already this line enabled in apache.conf:

ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/

So if this line isn’t in your apache.conf, then add this line and another one like:

sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache.conf
##add the following two lines:
ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ /usr/lib/cgi-bin/
Include /etc/gitweb/apache.conf

Next we need to create a folder in /etc namely “gitweb” and add the apache.conf for gitweb there. I always do it this way since currently I do not use vhost and subdomains and this way  it just seems cleaner to me.

You can of course create the apache.config in every other place you want (in a vhost ie.). Just make sure when you include the file in /etc/apache2/apache.conf like we did above, that the paths must be correct.

Ok now lets create the folder first:

sudo mkdir /etc/gitweb

Then we  add a file namely apache.conf in it like:

sudo nano /etc/gitweb/apache.conf

And we add the following code in it:

<directory /var/www/gitweb>
Options Indexes FollowSymlinks ExecCGI
DirectoryIndex /cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi
AllowOverride All
</directory>

Save the file. Then we need to configure the last file, namely gitweb.conf:

sudo nano /etc/gitweb.conf

There you enter the following code:

$projectroot = "/PATH/TO/GIT/REPOSITORIES/";

# directory to use for temp files
$git_temp = "/tmp";

# target of the home link on top of all pages
#$home_link = $my_uri || "/";

# html text to include at home page
$home_text = "indextext.html";

# file with project list; by default, simply scan the projectroot dir.
$projects_list = $projectroot;

# stylesheet to use
# I took off the prefix / of the following path to put these files inside gitweb directory directly
$stylesheet = "gitweb.css";

# logo to use
$logo = "git-logo.png";

# the ‘favicon’
$favicon = "git-favicon.png";

Where /PATH/TO/GIT/REPOSITORIES/ of course should be replaced by the path to your git repositories, which must be readable for the user that apache process is running!!

Last thing: restart the server like:

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

…and you should be done and gitweb now should be working and available on http://localhost/gitweb.

Comments and Suggestions are welcome!!

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