1GIT-DAEMON(1) Git Manual GIT-DAEMON(1)
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6 git-daemon - A really simple server for Git repositories
7
9 git daemon [--verbose] [--syslog] [--export-all]
10 [--timeout=<n>] [--init-timeout=<n>] [--max-connections=<n>]
11 [--strict-paths] [--base-path=<path>] [--base-path-relaxed]
12 [--user-path | --user-path=<path>]
13 [--interpolated-path=<pathtemplate>]
14 [--reuseaddr] [--detach] [--pid-file=<file>]
15 [--enable=<service>] [--disable=<service>]
16 [--allow-override=<service>] [--forbid-override=<service>]
17 [--access-hook=<path>] [--[no-]informative-errors]
18 [--inetd |
19 [--listen=<host_or_ipaddr>] [--port=<n>]
20 [--user=<user> [--group=<group>]]]
21 [--log-destination=(stderr|syslog|none)]
22 [<directory>...]
23
25 A really simple TCP Git daemon that normally listens on port
26 "DEFAULT_GIT_PORT" aka 9418. It waits for a connection asking for a
27 service, and will serve that service if it is enabled.
28 It verifies that the directory has the magic file
30 "git-daemon-export-ok", and it will refuse to export any Git directory
31 that hasn’t explicitly been marked for export this way (unless the
32 --export-all parameter is specified). If you pass some directory paths
33 as git daemon arguments, the offers are limited to repositories within
34 those directories.
35 By default, only upload-pack service is enabled, which serves git
37 fetch-pack and git ls-remote clients, which are invoked from git fetch,
38 git pull, and git clone.
39 This is ideally suited for read-only updates, i.e., pulling from Git
41 repositories.
42 An upload-archive also exists to serve git archive.
44
46 --strict-paths
47 Match paths exactly (i.e. don’t allow "/foo/repo" when the real
48 path is "/foo/repo.git" or "/foo/repo/.git") and don’t do
49 user-relative paths. git daemon will refuse to start when this
50 option is enabled and no directory arguments are provided.
51 --base-path=<path>
53 Remap all the path requests as relative to the given path. This is
54 sort of "Git root" - if you run git daemon with
55 --base-path=/srv/git on example.com, then if you later try to pull
56 git://example.com/hello.git, git daemon will interpret the path as
57 /srv/git/hello.git.
58 --base-path-relaxed
60 If --base-path is enabled and repo lookup fails, with this option
61 git daemon will attempt to lookup without prefixing the base path.
62 This is useful for switching to --base-path usage, while still
63 allowing the old paths.
64 --interpolated-path=<pathtemplate>
66 To support virtual hosting, an interpolated path template can be
67 used to dynamically construct alternate paths. The template
68 supports %H for the target hostname as supplied by the client but
69 converted to all lowercase, %CH for the canonical hostname, %IP for
70 the server’s IP address, %P for the port number, and %D for the
71 absolute path of the named repository. After interpolation, the
72 path is validated against the directory list.
73 --export-all
75 Allow pulling from all directories that look like Git repositories
76 (have the objects and refs subdirectories), even if they do not
77 have the git-daemon-export-ok file.
78 --inetd
80 Have the server run as an inetd service. Implies --syslog (may be
81 overridden with --log-destination=). Incompatible with --detach,
82 --port, --listen, --user and --group options.
83 --listen=<host_or_ipaddr>
85 Listen on a specific IP address or hostname. IP addresses can be
86 either an IPv4 address or an IPv6 address if supported. If IPv6 is
87 not supported, then --listen=hostname is also not supported and
88 --listen must be given an IPv4 address. Can be given more than
89 once. Incompatible with --inetd option.
90 --port=<n>
92 Listen on an alternative port. Incompatible with --inetd option.
93 --init-timeout=<n>
95 Timeout (in seconds) between the moment the connection is
96 established and the client request is received (typically a rather
97 low value, since that should be basically immediate).
98 --timeout=<n>
100 Timeout (in seconds) for specific client sub-requests. This
101 includes the time it takes for the server to process the
102 sub-request and the time spent waiting for the next client’s
103 request.
104 --max-connections=<n>
106 Maximum number of concurrent clients, defaults to 32. Set it to
107 zero for no limit.
108 --syslog
110 Short for --log-destination=syslog.
111 --log-destination=<destination>
113 Send log messages to the specified destination. Note that this
114 option does not imply --verbose, thus by default only error
115 conditions will be logged. The <destination> must be one of:
116 stderr
118 Write to standard error. Note that if --detach is specified,
119 the process disconnects from the real standard error, making
120 this destination effectively equivalent to none.
121 syslog
123 Write to syslog, using the git-daemon identifier.
124 none
126 Disable all logging.
127 The default destination is syslog if --inetd or --detach is
129 specified, otherwise stderr.
130 --user-path, --user-path=<path>
132 Allow ~user notation to be used in requests. When specified with no
133 parameter, a request to git://host/~alice/foo is taken as a request
134 to access foo repository in the home directory of user alice. If
135 --user-path=path is specified, the same request is taken as a
136 request to access path/foo repository in the home directory of user
137 alice.
138 --verbose
140 Log details about the incoming connections and requested files.
141 --reuseaddr
143 Use SO_REUSEADDR when binding the listening socket. This allows the
144 server to restart without waiting for old connections to time out.
145 --detach
147 Detach from the shell. Implies --syslog.
148 --pid-file=<file>
150 Save the process id in file. Ignored when the daemon is run under
151 --inetd.
152 --user=<user>, --group=<group>
154 Change daemon’s uid and gid before entering the service loop. When
155 only --user is given without --group, the primary group ID for the
156 user is used. The values of the option are given to getpwnam(3) and
157 getgrnam(3) and numeric IDs are not supported.
158 Giving these options is an error when used with --inetd; use the
160 facility of inet daemon to achieve the same before spawning git
161 daemon if needed.
162 Like many programs that switch user id, the daemon does not reset
164 environment variables such as $HOME when it runs git programs, e.g.
165 upload-pack and receive-pack. When using this option, you may also
166 want to set and export HOME to point at the home directory of
167 <user> before starting the daemon, and make sure any Git
168 configuration files in that directory are readable by <user>.
169 --enable=<service>, --disable=<service>
171 Enable/disable the service site-wide per default. Note that a
172 service disabled site-wide can still be enabled per repository if
173 it is marked overridable and the repository enables the service
174 with a configuration item.
175 --allow-override=<service>, --forbid-override=<service>
177 Allow/forbid overriding the site-wide default with per repository
178 configuration. By default, all the services may be overridden.
179 --[no-]informative-errors
181 When informative errors are turned on, git-daemon will report more
182 verbose errors to the client, differentiating conditions like "no
183 such repository" from "repository not exported". This is more
184 convenient for clients, but may leak information about the
185 existence of unexported repositories. When informative errors are
186 not enabled, all errors report "access denied" to the client. The
187 default is --no-informative-errors.
188 --access-hook=<path>
190 Every time a client connects, first run an external command
191 specified by the <path> with service name (e.g. "upload-pack"),
192 path to the repository, hostname (%H), canonical hostname (%CH), IP
193 address (%IP), and TCP port (%P) as its command-line arguments. The
194 external command can decide to decline the service by exiting with
195 a non-zero status (or to allow it by exiting with a zero status).
196 It can also look at the $REMOTE_ADDR and $REMOTE_PORT environment
197 variables to learn about the requestor when making this decision.
198 The external command can optionally write a single line to its
200 standard output to be sent to the requestor as an error message
201 when it declines the service.
202 <directory>
204 The remaining arguments provide a list of directories. If any
205 directories are specified, then the git-daemon process will serve a
206 requested directory only if it is contained in one of these
207 directories. If --strict-paths is specified, then the requested
208 directory must match one of these directories exactly.
209
211 These services can be globally enabled/disabled using the command-line
212 options of this command. If finer-grained control is desired (e.g. to
213 allow git archive to be run against only in a few selected repositories
214 the daemon serves), the per-repository configuration file can be used
215 to enable or disable them.
216 upload-pack
218 This serves git fetch-pack and git ls-remote clients. It is enabled
219 by default, but a repository can disable it by setting
220 daemon.uploadpack configuration item to false.
221 upload-archive
223 This serves git archive --remote. It is disabled by default, but a
224 repository can enable it by setting daemon.uploadarch configuration
225 item to true.
226 receive-pack
228 This serves git send-pack clients, allowing anonymous push. It is
229 disabled by default, as there is no authentication in the protocol
230 (in other words, anybody can push anything into the repository,
231 including removal of refs). This is solely meant for a closed LAN
232 setting where everybody is friendly. This service can be enabled by
233 setting daemon.receivepack configuration item to true.
234
236 We assume the following in /etc/services
237 $ grep 9418 /etc/services
239 git 9418/tcp # Git Version Control System
240 git daemon as inetd server
242 To set up git daemon as an inetd service that handles any
243 repository within /pub/foo or /pub/bar, place an entry like the
244 following into /etc/inetd all on one line:
245 git stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/bin/git
247 git daemon --inetd --verbose --export-all
248 /pub/foo /pub/bar
249 git daemon as inetd server for virtual hosts
251 To set up git daemon as an inetd service that handles repositories
252 for different virtual hosts, www.example.com and www.example.org,
253 place an entry like the following into /etc/inetd all on one line:
254 git stream tcp nowait nobody /usr/bin/git
256 git daemon --inetd --verbose --export-all
257 --interpolated-path=/pub/%H%D
258 /pub/www.example.org/software
259 /pub/www.example.com/software
260 /software
261 In this example, the root-level directory /pub will contain a
263 subdirectory for each virtual host name supported. Further, both
264 hosts advertise repositories simply as
265 git://www.example.com/software/repo.git. For pre-1.4.0 clients, a
266 symlink from /software into the appropriate default repository
267 could be made as well.
268 git daemon as regular daemon for virtual hosts
270 To set up git daemon as a regular, non-inetd service that handles
271 repositories for multiple virtual hosts based on their IP
272 addresses, start the daemon like this:
273 git daemon --verbose --export-all
275 --interpolated-path=/pub/%IP/%D
276 /pub/192.168.1.200/software
277 /pub/10.10.220.23/software
278 In this example, the root-level directory /pub will contain a
280 subdirectory for each virtual host IP address supported.
281 Repositories can still be accessed by hostname though, assuming
282 they correspond to these IP addresses.
283 selectively enable/disable services per repository
285 To enable git archive --remote and disable git fetch against a
286 repository, have the following in the configuration file in the
287 repository (that is the file config next to HEAD, refs and
288 objects).
289 [daemon]
291 uploadpack = false
292 uploadarch = true
293
295 git daemon will set REMOTE_ADDR to the IP address of the client that
296 connected to it, if the IP address is available. REMOTE_ADDR will be
297 available in the environment of hooks called when services are
298 performed.
299
301 Part of the git(1) suite
302Git 2.43.0 11/20/2023 GIT-DAEMON(1)