Saturday 23 November 2024


Cgit with OpenBSD httpd and slowcgi on FreeBSD
==============================================

Sentimental journey
-------------------
Visiting old repo's is a great way to embark on a sentimental journey.
In the past, I used GitWeb to browse my Git repo's.

Recently I installed OpenBSD httpd with slowcgi in a FreeBSD jail [1].
It didn't require much effort to add Cgit to it.

In my setup Cgit is only accessible in my local home network. I use it
as a convenient way to browse through my own repo's.

httpd configuration
-------------------
Just one extra line in /usr/local/etc/obhttpd.conf was enough:

     ...

     location "/cgi-bin/*" {
             fastcgi socket "/run/slowcgi.sock"
             fastcgi param CGIT_CONFIG "/conf/cgit.conf"
             root "/"
     }

     ...

The line starting with "fastcgi param" sets the environment variable
CGIT_CONFIG, pointing to the Cgit configuration file.

Remember that this is within the chroot, so the real path is something
like /var/www/conf/cgit.conf

Cgit configuration
------------------
The example cgit configuration file is very informative.

Two settings that might be helpful:

    virtual-root=/cgi-bin/cgit.cgi/

In the listing of the repo's, cgit adds this path before the
repo-name. F.e., the link to the repo 'my-stuff.git' becomes
/cgi-bin/cgit.cgi/my-stuff.git

    scan-path=/projects

This path points to the directory with the repo's. Again, this is
within the chroot. In this example the real path is:
/var/www/projects

Read permissions for user www
-----------------------------
When you don't do any fancy stuff and Cgit is only used to read the
repo's, it is enough that the user www has read permissions in the
scan-path and all the repo's below it.

The repo's can be owned by any user. As long as the repo's are world
readable, Cgit can show their contents.

Static files
------------
The files cgit.css and cgit.png are to be placed in the web root,
like /var/www/htdocs/

Cgit requires a footer file, e.g., cgit.footer. The location of this
file is set in the Cgit configuration file.

It is great fun --and sometimes embarrassing-- to walk through the old
repositories.

Happy Cgit-ing!


[1]: gopher://box.matto.nl/0/openbsd-httpd-with-cgi-on-freebsd.txt


Last edited: $Date: 2024/11/23 11:10:08 $