Apache and git-http-backend

Question

I am currently setting up some git repositories on a Ubuntu LTS 14.04 machine with Apache 2.4.7.

This is the apache config:

SetEnv GIT_PROJECT_ROOT /var/www/html/git
SetEnv GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL 1
SetEnv REMOTE_USER $REDIRECT_REMOTE_USER
ScriptAliasMatch \
    "(?x)^/git/(.*/(HEAD | \                                                                                                                             
                    info/refs | \                                                                                                                        
                    objects/(info/[^/]+ | \                                                                                                              
                             [0-9a-f]{2}/[0-9a-f]{38} | \                                                                                                
                             pack/pack-[0-9a-f]{40}\.(pack|idx)) | \                                                                                     
                    git-(upload|receive)-pack))$" \                                                                                                      
    /usr/lib/git-core/git-http-backend                                                                                                                   

<Location /git/oswald.git>
 Options +ExecCGI
 AuthType Basic
 DAV on
 AuthName "Git"
 AuthUserFile /etc/apache2/git_paragon_passwd
 Require valid-user

    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Location>

The test repository is under /var/www/html/git/oswald.git. In the repository I have set the config property

http.receivepack=true

The file git-daemon-export-ok is present.

If I now try to clone with:

git clone https://server/git/oswald.git

after authentication I get:

fatal: https://server/git/oswald.git/info/refs not valid: is this a git repository?

(git 2.1.0 client, on the server git 1.9.1).

I tried several things, so if I don't use git-http-backend and go via WebDAV I can clone but not push, with git-http-backend I cannot even clone.

If I change the last line of ScriptAliasMatch from

/usr/lib/git-core/git-http-backend

to

/usr/lib/git-core/git-http-backend/$1

as stated in the man page of git-http-backend, I get

fatal: repository 'https://server/git/oswald.git/' not found

with the error.log from Apache:

AH00130: File does not exist: /usr/lib/git-core/git-http-backend/oswald.git/info/refs

Does anybody have an idea what is wrong? I have already spent a lot of time going through forums, but no suggestions there did help so far.

Answer 1

Is Apache's CGI module enabled? Try running sudo a2enmod cgi and then restarting Apache.

I had the exact same issue, which ended up being caused by the fact that the CGI module was disabled. In my case, the above command picked and enabled the "cgid" module.

I believe you need the trailing $1 if you're using ScriptAliasMatch, but should omit the $1 (but keep the trailing slash) if you're using ScriptAlias.

You may also need to add a Directory block that looks something like this:

<Directory "/usr/lib/git-core">
    Options +ExecCgi -MultiViews +SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
    AllowOverride none
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
    Require all granted
</Directory>

Answer 2

For other people running into similar problems with this specific error:

fatal: https://server/git/oswald.git/info/refs not valid: is this a git repository?

I eventually found what was causing this issue for me on CentOS 6.5: SELinux. Try running the following command:

setenforce 0

If that fixes your issue, then you have a permissions issue with ACLs. Granted, by running the above command, you've turned off a whole host of permissions checks, but it can at least tell you whether this is what's causing your problem. For more information, check out the documentation here.

Turn the checks back on by running

setenforce 1