1
1
Web-based code browsing
2
2
=======================
4
Browsing the history of a project online is an important part of version
5
control, since it allows people to easily see what happens in a branch
6
without having to have a local, up-to-date copy of that branch. There are a
7
number of possible choices for browsing Bazaar branches on the web, but we
8
will cover one of them in particular detail and briefly mention the other
9
choices where they differ.
14
Loggerhead_ is a code browsing interface for Bazaar branches (now used in
15
Launchpad). To see an example of Loggerhead in action, browse to
16
http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~bzr-pqm/bzr/bzr.dev/files which is the loggerhead
17
view of Bazaar's trunk branch. Loggerhead runs as a web application on the
18
server which is accessed over HTTP via a RESTful interface. It is possible to
19
run this application on its own dedicated port as
20
``http://www.example.com:8080`` or to proxy this location behind a separate web
21
server, for example at ``http://www.example.com/loggerhead/``. We will discuss
22
both of these configurations below.
24
.. _Loggerhead: http://launchpad.net/loggerhead
29
Loggerhead depends on a number of other Python packages for the various Web
30
technologies that it builds on. Some of these must be installed to use
31
loggerhead, although some of them are optional. From the loggerhead `README`
34
1) SimpleTAL for templating.
35
On Ubuntu, `sudo apt-get install python-simpletal`
36
or download from http://www.owlfish.com/software/simpleTAL/download.html
37
2) simplejson for producing JSON data.
38
On Ubuntu, `sudo apt-get install python-simplejson`
39
or use `easy_install simplejson`.
40
3) Paste for the server. (You need version 1.2 or newer of Paste.)
41
On Ubuntu, `sudo apt-get install python-paste`
42
or use `easy_install Paste`
43
4) Paste Deploy (optional, needed when proxying through Apache)
44
On Ubuntu, `sudo apt-get install python-pastedeploy`
45
or use `easy_install PasteDeploy`
46
5) flup (optional, needed to use FastCGI, SCGI or AJP)
47
On Ubuntu, `sudo apt-get install python-flup`
48
or use `easy_install flup`
50
Although directions for installing these on Ubuntu Linux are given, most other
51
Linux distributions should package these dependencies, making installation
52
easy. For Windows and Mac OS X, they should all be ``easy_install``-able or at
53
worst installable from the Python sources.
58
Loggerhead has a built-in web server and when started with the
59
``serve-branches`` command, that web server is started on a default port
60
listening on the localhost. If port 8080 (the default) is accessible on
61
``www.example.com``, then running
65
$ serve-branches --host=www.example.com --port=8080 /srv/bzr
67
will list all of the available branches under that directory on
68
``http://www.example.com:8080/``, so that the ProjectX trunk could be browsed
69
at ``http://www.example.com:8080/projectx/trunk``. Note that loggerhead
70
provides HTTP access to the underlying Bazaar branches (similar to that
71
described in `Smart server over HTTP(S)
72
<other-setups.html#smart-server-over-http-s>`_), so this command should be run
73
as a user without write privileges in ``/srv/bzr``. By default, loggerhead
74
only listens on the localhost, not any external ports, unless specified as
80
A more common and more safe way to run loggerhead is behind another web server
81
which will proxy certain requests to the loggerhead server on the localhost.
82
To do this, you need to have PasteDeploy installed (see `Requirements`_).
83
Assuming that your server has Apache running, you need to add configuration
84
such as this to set up the proxy
88
<Location "/loggerhead/">
89
ProxyPass http://127.0.0.1:8080/
90
ProxyPassReverse http://127.0.0.1:8080/
93
If your proxy runs at some path within the server, then the ``serve-branches``
94
command must be started with the ``--prefix`` option. For this example, we
95
could start loggerhead with the command
99
$ serve-branches --prefix=/loggerhead /srv/bzr
101
This would allow the trunk branch of ProjectX to be browsed at
102
``http://www.example.com/loggerhead/projectx/trunk``.
104
Loggerhead comes with a script allowing it to run as a service on init.d based
105
Linux systems. Contributions to do a similar thing on Windows servers would
106
be welcomed at http://launchpad.net/loggerhead.
6
109
Other web interfaces
7
110
--------------------
112
There are a number of other web interfaces available for Bazaar branches (see
113
the list at http://bazaar-vcs.org/WebInterfaces) and we will just mention a
114
couple of them here for their advantages in particular situations.
116
trac+bzr (http://launchpad.net/trac-bzr)
117
Trac is a popular web app that integrates a browser for branches, an issue
118
tracker and a wiki. trac+bzr is a trac extension that allows for the
119
trac to be used with Bazaar.
121
webbzr (http://thoughts.enseed.com/webbzr)
122
This is a notable solution because it is written in pure PHP for web hosts
123
that don't provide a way to run arbitrary Python applications such as Trac
126
Redmine (http://redmine.org/)
127
Like trac, Redmine is a full project management application using the Ruby
128
on Rails framework. It includes support for Bazaar branches.