Re: Help requiref for setting up my Savannah

[Bob Proulx]

निरंजन wrote:
> Hello hackers,

Hello! :-)

> I am निरंजन <niruvt>, a new user on Savannah. My first
> project got approved today. Now I want to do a few
> things. Can you guide me please?

I also saw your ticket.  Which I link together here.

    https://savannah.nongnu.org/support/index.php?110579 

I answered a little bit in the ticket and link it here so that if
someone else in the future is searching and find it they can read
through what was responded to there.

> 1. I want to import my existing git-repository with the
>    commit-history to be visible on Savannah. I have checked
>    the feature Git and Git web browsing in the admin area of
>    my project which shows the following URLs:
> 
>      * http://savannah.nongnu.org/git/?group=datestamp
>      * //git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/datestamp.git
> 
>    None of these addresses are functional at the moment.

The above shows two details which are subtle that create snags for
people to get caught upon.

1. http:// protocol cannot be authenticated.  It cannot be pushed to.
It can only be used for anonymous clones.  Similar for https:// and
git:// protocols.  Those anonymous clones are valid clones but that
remote protocol cannot be used to push back to the remote repository.
The https://savannah.nongnu.org/maintenance/UsingGit/ page documents a
way to convert a checked out sandbox from one remote branch to another
remote branch without needing to clone it again.

2. The "//" protocol.  I am not sure where you copied that link from
but that is an HTML link intended for the user to select in the web
browser and is not valid in other contexts.  The // protocol does not
specify the protocol to be either http:// nor https:// protocol but
defaults to the currently connected protocol.  It's an HTML technique
to allow HTML pages to be viewed in a web browser in either http or
https either way and the link to that page will continue using the
same protocol as before.  This avoids the problem of a user who cannot
use https browsing with http being forced to use https but being
unable to do so.  And it avoids the problem of an https user being
downgraded from https to an http link.  Instead it continues the
current connection protocol.  But it is not valid in other contexts.

The clone section of the cgit project page shows the recommended URLs
for cloning.

    https://git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/datestamp.git

For your project it is this list.

    git://git.savannah.gnu.org/datestamp.git
    https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/datestamp.git
    ssh://git.savannah.gnu.org/srv/git/datestamp.git

Two notes.  As described above git:// and https:// are anonymous
read-only sources only.  The only writable source is ssh:// protocol
which is authenticated.  At this time Savannah only supports commits
over ssh:// protocol.

Secondly although it is not advertized it is also available over http
protocol the same as https protocol.  This helps our free software
friends who access the Internet from behind restrictive firewalls.
Also noting that git itself uses secure hashing to verify content.
But generally https avoids problems with troublesome web proxies and
many other problems.  I recommend always using ssh:// protocol for
developer access as it is fully authenticated and most robust.

>    I have read the instructions on the following page:
>    https://savannah.nongnu.org/maintenance/UsingGit, but
>    unfortunately I couldn't understand how to properly
>    import a ready git project.

I know that you have subsequently been successful.  Very often the
best readers and editors of documentation are those who are reading it
for the first time.  If you have any suggestions for the documentation
it would be appreciated.

>    PS: I have setup the SSH as per the instructions.
> 
>    Can you please help?

This is the users mailing list.  It's a community of users just like
yourself who are all using Savannah.  This is a great resource for
people who can share their knowledge and help other free software
hackers.

> 2. I want to have a homepage for the project. I have ticked
>    that box too in the admin area, but the home-page-URL
>    also isn't functional.
> 
>    http://www.nongnu.org/datestamp/

At this time all of the web pages are managed using CVS.  Which to new
people today sounds very scary.  But let me assure you that if you
have succeeded with git that using cvs is much less problematic!  Your
project page starts with some documentation on setting up web pages.

    https://savannah.nongnu.org/cvs/?group=datestamp

The Savannah documentation for CVS is here.

    https://savannah.nongnu.org/maintenance/CvsGettingStarted/

I want to send this mail off so will avoid making it too much longer.
Please ask questions.  People will help.  But for the web there is a
team of GNU webmasters who both work on the site and can help.  Let me
link to the webmastering documentation.  There is a lot of good
information there.

    https://www.gnu.org/server/standards/README.webmastering.html

Hope this helps!
Bob