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gitprotocol-http(5)               Git Manual               gitprotocol-http(5)


NAME

       gitprotocol-http - Git HTTP-based protocols


SYNOPSIS

       <over-the-wire-protocol>



DESCRIPTION

       Git supports two HTTP based transfer protocols. A "dumb" protocol which
       requires only a standard HTTP server on the server end of the
       connection, and a "smart" protocol which requires a Git aware CGI (or
       server module). This document describes both protocols.

       As a design feature smart clients can automatically upgrade "dumb"
       protocol URLs to smart URLs. This permits all users to have the same
       published URL, and the peers automatically select the most efficient
       transport available to them.


URL FORMAT

       URLs for Git repositories accessed by HTTP use the standard HTTP URL
       syntax documented by RFC 1738, so they are of the form:

           http://<host>:<port>/<path>?<searchpart>

       Within this documentation the placeholder $GIT_URL will stand for the
       http:// repository URL entered by the end-user.

       Servers SHOULD handle all requests to locations matching $GIT_URL, as
       both the "smart" and "dumb" HTTP protocols used by Git operate by
       appending additional path components onto the end of the user supplied
       $GIT_URL string.

       An example of a dumb client requesting a loose object:

           $GIT_URL:     http://example.com:8080/git/repo.git
           URL request:  http://example.com:8080/git/repo.git/objects/d0/49f6c27a2244e12041955e262a404c7faba355

       An example of a smart request to a catch-all gateway:

           $GIT_URL:     http://example.com/daemon.cgi?svc=git&q=
           URL request:  http://example.com/daemon.cgi?svc=git&q=/info/refs&service=git-receive-pack

       An example of a request to a submodule:

           $GIT_URL:     http://example.com/git/repo.git/path/submodule.git
           URL request:  http://example.com/git/repo.git/path/submodule.git/info/refs

       Clients MUST strip a trailing /, if present, from the user supplied
       $GIT_URL string to prevent empty path tokens (//) from appearing in any
       URL sent to a server. Compatible clients MUST expand $GIT_URL/info/refs
       as foo/info/refs and not foo//info/refs.


AUTHENTICATION

       Standard HTTP authentication is used if authentication is required to
       access a repository, and MAY be configured and enforced by the HTTP
       server software.

       Because Git repositories are accessed by standard path components
       server administrators MAY use directory based permissions within their
       HTTP server to control repository access.

       Clients SHOULD support Basic authentication as described by RFC 2617.
       Servers SHOULD support Basic authentication by relying upon the HTTP
       server placed in front of the Git server software.

       Servers SHOULD NOT require HTTP cookies for the purposes of
       authentication or access control.

       Clients and servers MAY support other common forms of HTTP based
       authentication, such as Digest authentication.


SSL

       Clients and servers SHOULD support SSL, particularly to protect
       passwords when relying on Basic HTTP authentication.


SESSION STATE

       The Git over HTTP protocol (much like HTTP itself) is stateless from
       the perspective of the HTTP server side. All state MUST be retained and
       managed by the client process. This permits simple round-robin
       load-balancing on the server side, without needing to worry about state
       management.

       Clients MUST NOT require state management on the server side in order
       to function correctly.

       Servers MUST NOT require HTTP cookies in order to function correctly.
       Clients MAY store and forward HTTP cookies during request processing as
       described by RFC 2616 (HTTP/1.1). Servers SHOULD ignore any cookies
       sent by a client.


GENERAL REQUEST PROCESSING

       Except where noted, all standard HTTP behavior SHOULD be assumed by
       both client and server. This includes (but is not necessarily limited
       to):

       If there is no repository at $GIT_URL, or the resource pointed to by a
       location matching $GIT_URL does not exist, the server MUST NOT respond
       with 200 OK response. A server SHOULD respond with 404 Not Found, 410
       Gone, or any other suitable HTTP status code which does not imply the
       resource exists as requested.

       If there is a repository at $GIT_URL, but access is not currently
       permitted, the server MUST respond with the 403 Forbidden HTTP status
       code.

       Servers SHOULD support both HTTP 1.0 and HTTP 1.1. Servers SHOULD
       support chunked encoding for both request and response bodies.

       Clients SHOULD support both HTTP 1.0 and HTTP 1.1. Clients SHOULD
       support chunked encoding for both request and response bodies.

       Servers MAY return ETag and/or Last-Modified headers.

       Clients MAY revalidate cached entities by including If-Modified-Since
       and/or If-None-Match request headers.

       Servers MAY return 304 Not Modified if the relevant headers appear in
       the request and the entity has not changed. Clients MUST treat 304 Not
       Modified identical to 200 OK by reusing the cached entity.

       Clients MAY reuse a cached entity without revalidation if the
       Cache-Control and/or Expires header permits caching. Clients and
       servers MUST follow RFC 2616 for cache controls.


DISCOVERING REFERENCES

       All HTTP clients MUST begin either a fetch or a push exchange by
       discovering the references available on the remote repository.

   Dumb Clients
       HTTP clients that only support the "dumb" protocol MUST discover
       references by making a request for the special info/refs file of the
       repository.

       Dumb HTTP clients MUST make a GET request to $GIT_URL/info/refs,
       without any search/query parameters.

           C: GET $GIT_URL/info/refs HTTP/1.0

           S: 200 OK
           S:
           S: 95dcfa3633004da0049d3d0fa03f80589cbcaf31  refs/heads/maint
           S: d049f6c27a2244e12041955e262a404c7faba355  refs/heads/master
           S: 2cb58b79488a98d2721cea644875a8dd0026b115  refs/tags/v1.0
           S: a3c2e2402b99163d1d59756e5f207ae21cccba4c  refs/tags/v1.0^{}

       The Content-Type of the returned info/refs entity SHOULD be text/plain;
       charset=utf-8, but MAY be any content type. Clients MUST NOT attempt to
       validate the returned Content-Type. Dumb servers MUST NOT return a
       return type starting with application/x-git-.

       Cache-Control headers MAY be returned to disable caching of the
       returned entity.

       When examining the response clients SHOULD only examine the HTTP status
       code. Valid responses are 200 OK, or 304 Not Modified.

       The returned content is a UNIX formatted text file describing each ref
       and its known value. The file SHOULD be sorted by name according to the
       C locale ordering. The file SHOULD NOT include the default ref named
       HEAD.

           info_refs   =  *( ref_record )
           ref_record  =  any_ref / peeled_ref

           any_ref     =  obj-id HTAB refname LF
           peeled_ref  =  obj-id HTAB refname LF
                          obj-id HTAB refname "^{}" LF

   Smart Clients
       HTTP clients that support the "smart" protocol (or both the "smart" and
       "dumb" protocols) MUST discover references by making a parameterized
       request for the info/refs file of the repository.

       The request MUST contain exactly one query parameter,
       service=$servicename, where $servicename MUST be the service name the
       client wishes to contact to complete the operation. The request MUST
       NOT contain additional query parameters.

           C: GET $GIT_URL/info/refs?service=git-upload-pack HTTP/1.0

       dumb server reply:

           S: 200 OK
           S:
           S: 95dcfa3633004da0049d3d0fa03f80589cbcaf31  refs/heads/maint
           S: d049f6c27a2244e12041955e262a404c7faba355  refs/heads/master
           S: 2cb58b79488a98d2721cea644875a8dd0026b115  refs/tags/v1.0
           S: a3c2e2402b99163d1d59756e5f207ae21cccba4c  refs/tags/v1.0^{}

       smart server reply:

           S: 200 OK
           S: Content-Type: application/x-git-upload-pack-advertisement
           S: Cache-Control: no-cache
           S:
           S: 001e# service=git-upload-pack\n
           S: 0000
           S: 004895dcfa3633004da0049d3d0fa03f80589cbcaf31 refs/heads/maint\0multi_ack\n
           S: 003fd049f6c27a2244e12041955e262a404c7faba355 refs/heads/master\n
           S: 003c2cb58b79488a98d2721cea644875a8dd0026b115 refs/tags/v1.0\n
           S: 003fa3c2e2402b99163d1d59756e5f207ae21cccba4c refs/tags/v1.0^{}\n
           S: 0000

       The client may send Extra Parameters (see gitprotocol-pack(5)) as a
       colon-separated string in the Git-Protocol HTTP header.

       Uses the --http-backend-info-refs option to git-upload-pack(1).

       Dumb Server Response

           Dumb servers MUST respond with the dumb server reply format.

           See the prior section under dumb clients for a more detailed
           description of the dumb server response.

       Smart Server Response

           If the server does not recognize the requested service name, or the
           requested service name has been disabled by the server
           administrator, the server MUST respond with the 403 Forbidden HTTP
           status code.

           Otherwise, smart servers MUST respond with the smart server reply
           format for the requested service name.

           Cache-Control headers SHOULD be used to disable caching of the
           returned entity.

           The Content-Type MUST be application/x-$servicename-advertisement.
           Clients SHOULD fall back to the dumb protocol if another content
           type is returned. When falling back to the dumb protocol clients
           SHOULD NOT make an additional request to $GIT_URL/info/refs, but
           instead SHOULD use the response already in hand. Clients MUST NOT
           continue if they do not support the dumb protocol.

           Clients MUST validate the status code is either 200 OK or 304 Not
           Modified.

           Clients MUST validate the first five bytes of the response entity
           matches the regex ^[0-9a-f]{4}#. If this test fails, clients MUST
           NOT continue.

           Clients MUST parse the entire response as a sequence of pkt-line
           records.

           Clients MUST verify the first pkt-line is # service=$servicename.
           Servers MUST set $servicename to be the request parameter value.
           Servers SHOULD include an LF at the end of this line. Clients MUST
           ignore an LF at the end of the line.

           Servers MUST terminate the response with the magic 0000 end
           pkt-line marker.

           The returned response is a pkt-line stream describing each ref and
           its known value. The stream SHOULD be sorted by name according to
           the C locale ordering. The stream SHOULD include the default ref
           named HEAD as the first ref. The stream MUST include capability
           declarations behind a NUL on the first ref.

           The returned response contains "version 1" if "version=1" was sent
           as an Extra Parameter.

               smart_reply     =  PKT-LINE("# service=$servicename" LF)
                                  "0000"
                                  *1("version 1")
                                  ref_list
                                  "0000"
               ref_list        =  empty_list / non_empty_list

               empty_list      =  PKT-LINE(zero-id SP "capabilities^{}" NUL cap-list LF)

               non_empty_list  =  PKT-LINE(obj-id SP name NUL cap_list LF)
                                  *ref_record

               cap-list        =  capability *(SP capability)
               capability      =  1*(LC_ALPHA / DIGIT / "-" / "_")
               LC_ALPHA        =  %x61-7A

               ref_record      =  any_ref / peeled_ref
               any_ref         =  PKT-LINE(obj-id SP name LF)
               peeled_ref      =  PKT-LINE(obj-id SP name LF)
                                  PKT-LINE(obj-id SP name "^{}" LF


SMART SERVICE GIT-UPLOAD-PACK

       This service reads from the repository pointed to by $GIT_URL.

       Clients MUST first perform ref discovery with
       $GIT_URL/info/refs?service=git-upload-pack.

           C: POST $GIT_URL/git-upload-pack HTTP/1.0
           C: Content-Type: application/x-git-upload-pack-request
           C:
           C: 0032want 0a53e9ddeaddad63ad106860237bbf53411d11a7\n
           C: 0032have 441b40d833fdfa93eb2908e52742248faf0ee993\n
           C: 0000

           S: 200 OK
           S: Content-Type: application/x-git-upload-pack-result
           S: Cache-Control: no-cache
           S:
           S: ....ACK %s, continue
           S: ....NAK

       Clients MUST NOT reuse or revalidate a cached response. Servers MUST
       include sufficient Cache-Control headers to prevent caching of the
       response.

       Servers SHOULD support all capabilities defined here.

       Clients MUST send at least one "want" command in the request body.
       Clients MUST NOT reference an id in a "want" command which did not
       appear in the response obtained through ref discovery unless the server
       advertises capability allow-tip-sha1-in-want or
       allow-reachable-sha1-in-want.

           compute_request   =  want_list
                                have_list
                                request_end
           request_end       =  "0000" / "done"

           want_list         =  PKT-LINE(want SP cap_list LF)
                                *(want_pkt)
           want_pkt          =  PKT-LINE(want LF)
           want              =  "want" SP id
           cap_list          =  capability *(SP capability)

           have_list         =  *PKT-LINE("have" SP id LF)

       TODO: Document this further.

   The Negotiation Algorithm
       The computation to select the minimal pack proceeds as follows (C =
       client, S = server):

       init step:

       C: Use ref discovery to obtain the advertised refs.

       C: Place any object seen into set advertised.

       C: Build an empty set, common, to hold the objects that are later
       determined to be on both ends.

       C: Build a set, want, of the objects from advertised that the client
       wants to fetch, based on what it saw during ref discovery.

       C: Start a queue, c_pending, ordered by commit time (popping newest
       first). Add all client refs. When a commit is popped from the queue its
       parents SHOULD be automatically inserted back. Commits MUST only enter
       the queue once.

       one compute step:

       C: Send one $GIT_URL/git-upload-pack request:

           C: 0032want <want-#1>...............................
           C: 0032want <want-#2>...............................
           ....
           C: 0032have <common-#1>.............................
           C: 0032have <common-#2>.............................
           ....
           C: 0032have <have-#1>...............................
           C: 0032have <have-#2>...............................
           ....
           C: 0000

       The stream is organized into "commands", with each command appearing by
       itself in a pkt-line. Within a command line, the text leading up to the
       first space is the command name, and the remainder of the line to the
       first LF is the value. Command lines are terminated with an LF as the
       last byte of the pkt-line value.

       Commands MUST appear in the following order, if they appear at all in
       the request stream:

       o   "want"

       o   "have"

       The stream is terminated by a pkt-line flush (0000).

       A single "want" or "have" command MUST have one hex formatted object
       name as its value. Multiple object names MUST be sent by sending
       multiple commands. Object names MUST be given using the object format
       negotiated through the object-format capability (default SHA-1).

       The have list is created by popping the first 32 commits from
       c_pending. Fewer can be supplied if c_pending empties.

       If the client has sent 256 "have" commits and has not yet received one
       of those back from s_common, or the client has emptied c_pending it
       SHOULD include a "done" command to let the server know it won't
       proceed:

           C: 0009done

       S: Parse the git-upload-pack request:

       Verify all objects in want are directly reachable from refs.

       The server MAY walk backwards through history or through the reflog to
       permit slightly stale requests.

       If no "want" objects are received, send an error: TODO: Define error if
       no "want" lines are requested.

       If any "want" object is not reachable, send an error: TODO: Define
       error if an invalid "want" is requested.

       Create an empty list, s_common.

       If "have" was sent:

       Loop through the objects in the order supplied by the client.

       For each object, if the server has the object reachable from a ref, add
       it to s_common. If a commit is added to s_common, do not add any
       ancestors, even if they also appear in have.

       S: Send the git-upload-pack response:

       If the server has found a closed set of objects to pack or the request
       ends with "done", it replies with the pack. TODO: Document the pack
       based response

           S: PACK...

       The returned stream is the side-band-64k protocol supported by the
       git-upload-pack service, and the pack is embedded into stream 1.
       Progress messages from the server side MAY appear in stream 2.

       Here a "closed set of objects" is defined to have at least one path
       from every "want" to at least one "common" object.

       If the server needs more information, it replies with a status continue
       response: TODO: Document the non-pack response

       C: Parse the upload-pack response: TODO: Document parsing response

       Do another compute step.


SMART SERVICE GIT-RECEIVE-PACK

       This service reads from the repository pointed to by $GIT_URL.

       Clients MUST first perform ref discovery with
       $GIT_URL/info/refs?service=git-receive-pack.

           C: POST $GIT_URL/git-receive-pack HTTP/1.0
           C: Content-Type: application/x-git-receive-pack-request
           C:
           C: ....0a53e9ddeaddad63ad106860237bbf53411d11a7 441b40d833fdfa93eb2908e52742248faf0ee993 refs/heads/maint\0 report-status
           C: 0000
           C: PACK....

           S: 200 OK
           S: Content-Type: application/x-git-receive-pack-result
           S: Cache-Control: no-cache
           S:
           S: ....

       Clients MUST NOT reuse or revalidate a cached response. Servers MUST
       include sufficient Cache-Control headers to prevent caching of the
       response.

       Servers SHOULD support all capabilities defined here.

       Clients MUST send at least one command in the request body. Within the
       command portion of the request body clients SHOULD send the id obtained
       through ref discovery as old_id.

           update_request  =  command_list
                              "PACK" <binary-data>

           command_list    =  PKT-LINE(command NUL cap_list LF)
                              *(command_pkt)
           command_pkt     =  PKT-LINE(command LF)
           cap_list        =  *(SP capability) SP

           command         =  create / delete / update
           create          =  zero-id SP new_id SP name
           delete          =  old_id SP zero-id SP name
           update          =  old_id SP new_id SP name

       TODO: Document this further.


REFERENCES

       RFC 1738: Uniform Resource Locators (URL)[1] RFC 2616: Hypertext
       Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1[2]


SEE ALSO

       gitprotocol-pack(5) gitprotocol-capabilities(5)


GIT

       Part of the git(1) suite


NOTES

        1. RFC 1738: Uniform Resource Locators (URL)
           https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1738.txt

        2. RFC 2616: Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1
           https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt

Git 2.44.0                        2024-02-22               gitprotocol-http(5)

git 2.44.0 - Generated Sat Feb 24 18:04:47 CST 2024
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