ikiwiki/doc/rcs/git.mdwn

[[meta title="Git"]]

[Git][git] is a distributed revison control system originally developed for
the Linux kernel. Ikiwiki supports storing a wiki in git.

[git]: http://git.or.cz/

Ikiwiki can run as a `post-update` hook to update a wiki whenever commits
come in. When running as a [[cgi]] with Git, ikiwiki automatically
commits edited pages, and uses the Git history to generate the
[[RecentChanges]] page.

## git repository setup

When using Git, you probably want to set up two repositories, of which
one should be bare (meaning that it does not have a working tree
checked out), and the other one with a working tree will be used as
ikiwiki's srcdir for compiling the wiki. [[ikiwiki-makerepo]] can automate
setting this up. Using a pair of repositories isn't the most obvious set up,
but it works the best for typical ikiwiki use.
[[tips/Laptop_wiki_with_git]] describes a different way to set up ikiwiki
and git.

It is **paramount** that you **never** push to the non-bare repository
([this FAQ entry explains why](http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitFaq#head-b6a3d85f677763313159eb39f7dbf4579d4ee28b)).
Instead, if you want to work on the wiki from a remote machine, clone
the bare repository, using either the `git` transport (if available), or
`ssh`.

The ikiwiki `post-commit` hook should be put in the bare repository.

## git repository with multiple committers

It can be tricky to get the permissions right to allow multiple people to
commit to an ikiwiki git repository. As the [[security]] page mentions,
for a secure ikiwiki installation, only one person should be able to write
to ikiwiki's srcdir. When other committers make commits, their commits
should go to the bare repository, which has a `post-update` hook that uses
ikiwiki to pull the changes to the srcdir.

One setup that will work is to put all committers in a group (say,
ikiwiki), and use permissions to allow that group to commit to the bare git
repository. Make both the post-update hook and ikiwiki.cgi be setgid
to the group, as well as suid to the user who admins the wiki. The
`wrappergroup` [[setup_file_option|usage]] can be used to make the wrappers
be setgid to the right group. Then the srcdir, including its git
repository, should only be writable by the wiki's admin, and *not* by the
group. Take care that ikiwiki uses a umask that does not cause files in
the srcdir to become group writable. (umask 022 will work.)