Subject: Re: Why /var/cache/git?

From: "J.H." <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2010 08:24:47 -0700

On 10/25/2010 03:30 AM, Bron Gondwana wrote:
> (resent - correct address for git list!)
> 
> (Gerrit: you're CC'd as the attribution in README.Debian
>  which in the one place I can see /var/cache/git mentioned
>  in the docs - without a justification for why it was
>  chosen...)

Couple of quick points:

$ grep -Ri "/var/git\|\/var\/git" *
Documentation/git-cvsserver.txt:     export
CVSROOT=:ext:user@server:/var/git/project.git

gitweb/README:    RewriteRule ^/var(/|/gitweb.cgi)?$	
/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi [QSA,E=GITWEB_PROJECTROOT:/var/git/,L,PT]

gitweb/README:Second, repositories found in /pub/scm/ and /var/git/ will
be accesible

Are the only 3 instances where this is mentioned.  Looking at those
quick it was probably chosen based on the fact that it's a location that
likely exists on most machines.  Or just for explanatory reasons like
/example/dir/project.git could be used.

> I'm setting up shared repositories on a machine, and I notice
> all the examples I can find on the web, and also the 
> auto-created directory from the packages are /var/cache/git/

I can't speak for the web, it's a place filled with many many evil dirty
lies, but the primary documentation should likely get updated to not
actually shove perminant data into a transient location.  Bonus that
gitweb (caching) might use the directory for it's cache storage which
could cause some amusement.

> 
> So I looked at the FHS, because that seemed odd to me:
[...]
> I guess in theory, someone else has all those commits in their
> local git repository somewhere.  Still, it feels to me that
> /var/lib/git is the correct location.  Is there any reason why
> /var/spool/git was chosen?

Ummmm are you talking about for where a set of repositories exist on a
shared setup?  Personally, and depending on your beliefs as a sysadmin,
it should likely end up under something like /home/git or some other
shared location like /group/git, /pub/git, /shared/git or really
anywhere where you are likely to do backups and not just run rm -rf
because it should be a transient location.

> (I'm running Debian Lenny with the 1.7.1 backport packages, but
> I see examples from Fedora with the same paths as well)

Speaking from the Fedora angle (since I don't have a Debian box handy
anywhere or in a VM) the only places I'm seeing /var/git mentioned is:

/usr/share/doc/git-1.7.2.3/git-cvsserver.txt
/usr/share/doc/git-1.7.2.3/git-cvsserver.html
/usr/share/doc/git-cvs-1.7.2.3/git-cvsserver.txt
/usr/share/doc/git-cvs-1.7.2.3/git-cvsserver.html
/usr/share/doc/git-cvs-1.7.2.3/git-cvsserver.html
/usr/share/doc/gitweb-1.7.2.3/README
/usr/share/doc/gitweb-caching-1.6.5.2/README

which are the latest versions of all of those packages and it's obvious
it's the git-cvs and gitweb stuff that are to blame for the confusion there.

Probably easiest thing to do is adjust the documentation to be
/example/dir/project.git vs. /var/git since I agree, that's actually
dangerous.

- John 'Warthog9' Hawley