Copyright ⓒ 2013 Alexander Bauer (GPLv3)
Grove is a git hosting application that allows developers to share their local repositories directly with other developers, without needing to push them to a central server. This is all accomplished through a basic web interface, and invocations of the git-http-backend, which comes prepackaged in git distributions.
This use of the very efficient git http capabilities allows developers to utilize the true peer to peer abilities of git, and share cutting-edge changes long even before they've reached the main server.
This sort of workflow, in which project members collaborate directly with other members, is encouraged with git. It ties development groups much closer together, and gives all members access to the most absolutely recent versions of branches.
As Grove is reaching beta, it has become more suitable for general use. It is now packaged with an install script, but bear in mind that Go, the language that Grove is written in, must be installed and configured already. To install Golang, please follow these instructions.
If Go is already installed (or you've just installed and configured it,) the installation of Grove is as follows.
- Clone the repository. You may need to run this as root. (Prepend
sudoto the commands.)
- via the Go tool
go get github.com/SashaCrofter/grove - or via Git
git clone https://github.com/SashaCrofter/grove.git
- Change directories to the repository.
- if installed via the Go tool
cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/SashaCrofter/grove(If$GOPATHis not set, replace it with/usr/local/go) - or if installed via Git
cd grove
- Retrieve dependencies. You may need to run this as root.
go get - Build.
go build - Install. (This should run as root.)
sudo ./install.sh skipbuild
The install script will move the Grove executable to /usr/bin, its resources to /usr/local/share, and its startup script to /etc/init.d/grove. To use the startup script:
# To start Grove
service grove start
# To stop it
service grove stop
# or, if the script fails,
killall grove
# To restart
service grove restart
# To check whether it's running
service grove status
# To start if it's down, and do nothing if it's running
service grove checkGrove will only allow web access to a directory if it is marked as globally readable and listable. This is file permission o+rX, which can be set with chmod o+rX <directory> or chmod -R o+rX <directory> to set it recursively. Please be careful in setting these permissions if you have any sensitive projects which you would prefer not to share.
Additionally, Grove will never serve files from your working directory. In the repository viewer, it will only ever retrieve files and directories through git, which means your uncommitted changes are safe from critical eyes.
It is important to note that by default, Grove will attempt to serve your ~/dev directory. If this is not where your development directory is, you should edit the /etc/init.d/grove file to set DEV to your desired directory. For example:
# ...
if [ -z $DEV ]; then
DEV=~/mycode
fi
# ...Grove will, by default, write logs to /tmp/grove.log. This can be set in a similar manner to DEV.
Please bear in mind that Grove is beta software, and though functional in theory, may contain bugs, unexpected behavior, and nasal demons.
Join the official development channel for more up-to-date development news and help. We're around most of the time, and capable of answering any question related to Grove. (Yes, that is a challenge.) #grove on Hyperboria's IRC network.