How to setup git as a daemon
This is a quick post on using git on a server. I use my Synology NAS as a fileserver, but also as a git repository server. The default git package for Synology enables git usage on the command line, which means via ssh, or via web-DAV. Both require a logon to do anything with the repository. That is not very handy if you want to clone and pull from the repository in an automated way. Of course there are ways around that (basically setting up password-less authentication, probably via certificates), but I wanted simple, read-only access without authentication. If you installed git on a linux or unix server you get the binaries, but no daemon, which means you can only use ssh if you want to use that server for central git repositories.
Running git via inetd
What I did is using inetd daemon to launch the git daemon. On any linux or unix server with the inetd daemon, and on Synology too, because it uses linux under the covers, it’s easy to setup git as a server.
First, check /etc/services for the following lines:
git 9418/tcp # git pack transfer service git 9418/udp # git pack transfer service
Next, add the following line in the inetd.conf (which is /etc/inetd.conf on my synology):
git stream tcp nowait gituser /usr/bin/git git daemon --inetd --verbose --export-all --base-path=/volume1/homes/gituser
What you should look for in your setup is:
– gituser: this is the user which is used to run the daemon. I created a user ‘gituser’ for this.
– /usr/bin/git: of course your git binary should be at that fully specified path, otherwise inetd can’t find it.
– git daemon:
— –inetd: notify the git executable that it is running under inetd
— –export-all: all git repositories underneath the base directory will be available
— –base-path: this makes the git root directory be set to this directory. In my case, I wanted to have all the repositories in the home directory of the gituser, which is /volume1/homes/gituser in my case.
And make the inetd deamon reload it’s configuration with kill -HUP:
# killall -HUP inetd
Please mind this is a simple and limited setup, if you want to set it up in a way with more granular security, you should look into gitolite for example.
Frits Hoogland Weblog 