~bzr-pqm/bzr/bzr.dev

Simple Setups

=============

Consider the following simple scenario where we will be serving Bazaar branches

that live on a single server.  Those branches are in the subdirectories of

``/srv/bzr`` (or ``C:\\bzr``) and they will all be related to a single project

called "ProjectX".  ProjectX will have a trunk branch and at least one feature

branch.  As we get further, we will consider other scenarios, but this will be

a sufficiently motivating example.

Smart server

------------

The simplest possible setup for providing outside access to the branches on

the server uses Bazaar's built-in smart server tunneled over SSH_ so

that people who can access your server using SSH can have read and write

access to branches on the server.  This setup uses the authentication

mechanisms of SSH including private keys, and the access control mechanisms of

the server's operating system.  In particular, using groups on the server, it

is possible to provide different access privileges to different groups of

developers.

.. _SSH: http://www.openssh.org/

Setup

~~~~~

There is no setup required for this on the server, apart from having Bazaar

installed and SSH access available to your developers.  Using SSH

configuration options it is possible to restrict developers from using

anything *but* Bazaar on the server via SSH, and to limit what part of the

file system they can access.

Client

~~~~~~

Clients can access the branches using URLs with the ``bzr+ssh://`` prefix.  For

example, to get a local copy of the ProjectX trunk, a developer could do::

  $ bzr branch bzr+ssh://server.example.com/srv/bzr/projectx/trunk projectx

If the developers have write access to the ``/srv/bzr/projectx`` directory, then

they can create new branches themselves using::

  $ bzr branch bzr+ssh://server.example.com/srv/bzr/projectx/trunk \

  bzr+ssh://server.example.com/srv/bzr/projectx/feature-gui

Of course, if this isn't desired, then developers should not have write access

to the ``/srv/bzr/projectx`` directory.

Further Configuration

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For a project with multiple branches that are all related, it is best to use a

shared repository to hold all of the branches.  To set this up, do::

  $ cd /srv/bzr

  $ bzr init-repo --no-trees projectx

The ``--no-trees`` option saves space by not creating a copy of the working

files on the server's filesystem.  Then, any branch created under

``/srv/bzr/projectx`` (see `Migration <migration.html>`_ for some ways to do

this) will share storage space, which is particularly helpful for branches that

have many revisions in common, such as a project trunk and its feature

branches.

If Bazaar is not installed on the user's path or not specified in the SSH

configuration, then a path can be specified from the client with the

``BZR_REMOTE_PATH`` environment variable.  For example, if the Bazaar executable

is installed in ``/usr/local/bzr-2.0/bin/bzr``, then a developer could use::

  $ BZR_REMOTE_PATH=/usr/local/bzr-2.0/bin/bzr bzr info \

  bzr+ssh://server.example.com/srv/bzr/proectx/trunk

to get information about the trunk branch.  The remote path can also be

specified in Bazaar's configuration files for a particular location.  See

``bzr help configuration`` for more details.

If developers have home directories on the server, they can use ``/~/`` in

URLs to refer to their home directory.  They can also use ``/~username/`` to

refer to the home directory of user ``username``.  For example, if there are two

developers ``alice`` and ``bob``, then Bob could use::

  $ bzr log bzr+ssh://server.example.com/~/fix-1023

to refer to one of his bug fix branches and::

  $ bzr log bzr+ssh://server.example.com/~alice/fix-2047

to refer to one of Alice's branches. [#]_

.. [#] The version of Bazaar installed on the server must be at least 2.1.0b1 

       or newer to support ``/~/`` in bzr+ssh URLs.