<title>Fossil Quick Start Guide</title>
This is a guide to help you get started using the Fossil [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_version_control|Distributed Version Control System] quickly
and painlessly.
<h2 id="install">Installing</h2>
Fossil is a single self-contained C program. You need to
either download a
[https://fossil-scm.org/home/uv/download.html|precompiled
binary]
or <a href="build.wiki">compile it yourself</a> from sources.
Install Fossil by putting the fossil binary
someplace on your $PATH.
You can test that Fossil is present and working like this:
<pre><b>fossil version
This is fossil version 2.25 [8f798279d5] 2024-11-06 12:59:09 UTC
</b></pre>
<h2 id="workflow" name="fslclone">General Work Flow</h2>
Fossil works with repository files (a database in a single file with the project's
complete history) and with checked-out local trees (the working directory
you use to do your work).
(See [./glossary.md | the glossary] for more background.)
The workflow looks like this:
<ul>
<li>Create or clone a repository file. ([/help/init|fossil init] or
[/help/clone | fossil clone])
<li>Check out a local tree. ([/help/open | fossil open])
<li>Perform operations on the repository (including repository
configuration).
</ul>
Fossil can be entirely driven from the command line. Many features
can also be conveniently accessed from the built-in web user interface.
The following sections give a brief overview of these
operations.
<h2 id="new">Starting A New Project</h2>
To start a new project with fossil create a new empty repository
this way: ([/help/init | more info])
<pre><b>fossil init</b> <i>repository-filename</i>
</pre>
You can name the database anything you like, and you can place it anywhere in the filesystem.
The <tt>.fossil</tt> extension is traditional, but it is only required if you are going to use the
<tt>[/help/server | fossil server DIRECTORY]</tt> feature.
Next, do something along the lines of:
<pre>
<b>mkdir -p ~/src/project/trunk</b>
<b>cd ~/src/project/trunk</b>
<b>fossil open</b> <i>repository-filename</i>
<b>fossil add</b> foo.c bar.h qux.md
<b>fossil commit</b>
</pre>
If your project directory already exists, obviating the <b>mkdir</b>
step, you will instead need to add the <tt>--force</tt> flag to the
<b>open</b> command to authorize Fossil to open the repo into a
non-empty checkout directory. (This is to avoid accidental opens into,
for example, your home directory.)
The convention of naming your checkout directory after a long-lived
branch name like "trunk" is in support of Fossil's ability to have as
many open checkouts as you like. This author frequently has additional
checkout directories named <tt>../release</tt>, <tt>../scratch</tt>,
etc. The release directory is open to the branch of the same name, while
the scratch directory is used when disturbing one of the other
long-lived checkout directories is undesireable, as when performing a
[/help/bisect | bisect] operation.
<h2 id="clone">Cloning An Existing Repository</h2>
Most fossil operations interact with a repository that is on the
local disk drive, not on a remote system. Hence, before accessing
a remote repository it is necessary to make a local copy of that
repository. Making a local copy of a remote repository is called
"cloning".
Clone a remote repository as follows: ([/help/clone | more info])
<pre><b>fossil clone</b> <i>URL repository-filename</i>
</pre>
The <i>URL</i> specifies the fossil repository
you want to clone. The <i>repository-filename</i> is the new local
filename into which the cloned repository will be written. For
example, to clone the source code of Fossil itself:
<pre><b>fossil clone https://fossil-scm.org/ myclone.fossil</b></pre>
If your logged-in username is 'exampleuser', you should see output something like this:
<pre><b>Round-trips: 8 Artifacts sent: 0 received: 39421
Clone done, sent: 2424 received: 42965725 ip: 10.10.10.0
Rebuilding repository meta-data...
100% complete...
Extra delta compression...
Vacuuming the database...
project-id: 94259BB9F186226D80E49D1FA2DB29F935CCA0333
server-id: 016595e9043054038a9ea9bc526d7f33f7ac0e42
admin-user: exampleuser (intial remote-access password is "yoWgDR42iv")>
</b></pre>
This <i>exampleuser</i> will be used by Fossil as the author of commits when
you checkin changes to the repository. It is also used by Fossil when you
make your repository available to others using the built-in server mode by
running <tt>[/help/server | fossil server]</tt> and will also be used when
running <tt>[/help/ui | fossil ui]</tt> to view the repository through
the Fossil UI. See the quick start topic for setting up a
<a href="#server">server</a> for more details.
If the remote repository requires a login, include a
userid in the URL like this:
<pre><b>fossil clone https://</b><i>remoteuserid</i><b>@www.example.org/ myclone.fossil</b></pre>
You will be prompted separately for the password.
Use [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent-encoding#Percent-encoding_reserved_characters|"%HH"] escapes for special characters in the userid.
For example "/" would be replaced by "%2F" meaning that a userid of "Projects/Budget" would become "Projects%2FBudget")
If you are behind a restrictive firewall, you might need
to <a href="#proxy">specify an HTTP proxy</a>.
A Fossil repository is a single disk file. Instead of cloning,
you can just make a copy of the repository file (for example, using
"scp"). Note, however, that the repository file contains auxiliary
information above and beyond the versioned files, including some
sensitive information such as password hashes and email addresses. If you
want to share Fossil repositories directly by copying, consider running the
[/help/scrub|fossil scrub] command to remove sensitive information
before transmitting the file.
<h2 id="import">Importing From Another Version Control System</h2>
Rather than start a new project, or clone an existing Fossil project,
you might prefer to
<a href="./inout.wiki">import an existing Git project</a>
into Fossil using the [/help/import | fossil import] command.
You can even decide to export your project back into git using the
[/help/git | fossil git] command, which is how the Fossil project maintains
[https://github.com/drhsqlite/fossil-mirror | its public GitHub mirror]. There
is no limit to the number of times a tree can be imported and exported between
Fossil and git.
The [https://git-scm.com/docs/git-fast-export|Git fast-export format] has become
a popular way to move files between version management systems, including from
[https://www.mercurial-scm.org/|Mercurial].
Fossil can also import [https://subversion.apache.org/|Subversion projects] directly.
<h2 id="checkout">Checking Out A Local Tree</h2>
To work on a project in fossil, you need to check out a local
copy of the source tree. Create the directory you want to be
the root of your tree and cd into that directory. Then
do this: ([/help/open | more info])
<pre><b>fossil open</b> <i>repository-filename</i></pre>
for example:
<pre><b>fossil open ../myclone.fossil
BUILD.txt
COPYRIGHT-BSD2.txt
README.md
︙
</tt></b></pre>
(or "fossil open ..\myclone.fossil" on Windows).
This leaves you with the newest version of the tree
checked out.
From anywhere underneath the root of your local tree, you
can type commands like the following to find out the status of
your local tree:
<pre>
<b>[/help/info | fossil info]</b>
<b>[/help/status | fossil status]</b>
<b>[/help/changes | fossil changes]</b>
<b>[/help/diff | fossil diff]</b>
<b>[/help/timeline | fossil timeline]</b>
<b>[/help/ls | fossil ls]</b>
<b>[/help/branch | fossil branch]</b>
</pre>
If you created a new repository using "fossil init" some commands will not
produce much output.
Note that Fossil allows you to make multiple check-outs in
separate directories from the same repository. This enables you,
for example, to do builds from multiple branches or versions at
the same time without having to generate extra clones.
To switch a checkout between different versions and branches,
use:<
<pre>
<b>[/help/update | fossil update]</b>
<b>[/help/checkout | fossil checkout]</b>
</pre>
[/help/update | update] honors the "autosync" option and
does a "soft" switch, merging any local changes into the target
version, whereas [/help/checkout | checkout] does not
automatically sync and does a "hard" switch, overwriting local
changes if told to do so.
<h2 id="changes">Making and Committing Changes</h2>
To add new files to your project or remove existing ones, use these
commands:
<pre>
<b>[/help/add | fossil add]</b> <i>file...</i>
<b>[/help/rm | fossil rm]</b> <i>file...</i>
<b>[/help/addremove | fossil addremove]</b> <i>file...</i>
</pre>
The command:
<pre><b>[/help/changes | fossil changes]</b></pre>
lists files that have changed since the last commit to the repository. For
example, if you edit the file "README.md":
<pre><b>fossil changes
EDITED README.md
</b></pre>
To see exactly what change was made you can use the command
<b>[/help/diff | fossil diff]</b>:
<pre><b>fossil diff
Index: README.md
============================================================
--- README.md
+++ README.md
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
+Made some changes to the project
# Original text
</b></pre>
"fossil diff" shows the difference between your tree on disk now and as
the tree was when you last committed changes. If you haven't committed
yet, then it shows the difference relative to the tip-of-trunk commit in
the repository, being what you get when you "fossil open" a repository
without specifying a version, populating the working directory.
To see the most recent changes made to the repository by other users, use "fossil timeline" to
find out the most recent commit, and then "fossil diff" between that commit and the
current tree:
<pre><b>fossil timeline
=== 2021-03-28 ===
03:18:54 [ad75dfa4a0] *CURRENT* Added details to frobnicate command (user: user-one tags: trunk)
=== 2021-03-27 ===
23:58:05 [ab975c6632] Update README.md. (user: user-two tags: trunk)
⋮
fossil diff --from current --to ab975c6632
Index: frobnicate.c
============================================================
--- frobnicate.c
+++ frobnicate.c
@@ -1,10 +1,11 @@
+/* made a change to the source file */
# Original text
</b></pre>
"current" is an alias for the checkout version, so the command
"fossil diff --from ad75dfa4a0 --to ab975c6632" gives identical results.
To commit your changes to a local-only repository:
<pre><b>fossil commit</b> <i>(... Fossil will start your editor, if defined)</i><b>
# Enter a commit message for this check-in. Lines beginning with # are ignored.
#
# user: exampleuser
# tags: trunk
#
# EDITED README.md
Edited file to add description of code changes
New_Version: 7b9a416ced4a69a60589dde1aedd1a30fde8eec3528d265dbeed5135530440ab
</b></pre>
You will be prompted for check-in comments using whatever editor
is specified by your VISUAL or EDITOR environment variable. If none is
specified Fossil uses line-editing in the terminal.
To commit your changes to a repository that was cloned from a remote
repository, you give the same command, but the results are different.
Fossil defaults to [./concepts.wiki#workflow|autosync] mode, a
single-stage commit that sends all changes committed to the local
repository immediately on to the remote parent repository. This only
works if you have write permission to the remote respository.
<h2 id="naming">Naming of Files, Checkins, and Branches</h2>
Fossil deals with information artifacts. This Quickstart document only deals
with files and collections of files, but be aware there are also tickets, wiki pages and more.
Every artifact in Fossil has a universally-unique hash id, and may also have a
human-readable name.
The following are all equivalent ways of identifying a Fossil file,
checkin or branch artifact:
<ul>
<li> the full unique SHA-256 hash, such as be836de35a821523beac2e53168e135d5ebd725d7af421e5f736a28e8034673a
<li> an abbreviated hash prefix, such as the first ten characters: be836de35a . This won't be universally unique, but it is usually unique within any one repository. As an example, the [https://fossil-scm.org/home/hash-collisions|Fossil project hash collisions] showed at the time of writing that there are no artifacts with identical first 8 characters
<li> a branch name, such as "special-features" or "juliet-testing". Each branch also has a unique SHA-256 hash
</ul>
A special convenience branch is "trunk", which is Fossil's default branch name for
the first checkin, and the default for any time a branch name is needed but not
specified.
This will get you started on identifying checkins. The
<a href="./checkin_names.wiki">Checkin Names document</a> is a complete reference, including
how timestamps can also be used.
<h2 id="config">Configuring Your Local Repository</h2>
When you create a new repository, either by cloning an existing
project or create a new project of your own, you usually want to do some
local configuration. This is easily accomplished using the web-server
that is built into fossil. Start the fossil web server like this:
([/help/ui | more info])
<pre>
<b>fossil ui</b> <i>repository-filename</i>
</pre>
You can omit the <i>repository-filename</i> from the command above
if you are inside a checked-out local tree.
This starts a web server then automatically launches your
web browser and makes it point to this web server. If your system
has an unusual configuration, fossil might not be able to figure out
how to start your web browser. In that case, first tell fossil
where to find your web browser using a command like this:
<pre>
<b>fossil setting web-browser</b> <i>path-to-web-browser</i>
</pre>
By default, fossil does not require a login for HTTP connections
coming in from the IP loopback address 127.0.0.1. You can, and perhaps
should, change this after you create a few users.
When you are finished configuring, just press Control-C or use
the <b>kill</b> command to shut down the mini-server.
<h2 id="sharing">Sharing Changes</h2>
When [./concepts.wiki#workflow|autosync] is turned off,
the changes you [/help/commit | commit] are only
on your local repository.
To share those changes with other repositories, do:
<pre>
<b>[/help/push | fossil push]</b> <i>URL</i>
</pre>
Where <i>URL</i> is the http: URL of the server repository you
want to share your changes with. If you omit the <i>URL</i> argument,
fossil will use whatever server you most recently synced with.
The [/help/push | push] command only sends your changes to others. To
Receive changes from others, use [/help/pull | pull]. Or go both ways at
once using [/help/sync | sync]:
<pre>
<b>[/help/pull | fossil pull]</b> <i>URL</i>
<b>[/help/sync | fossil sync]</b> <i>URL</i>
</pre>
When you pull in changes from others, they go into your repository,
not into your checked-out local tree. To get the changes into your
local tree, use [/help/update | update]:
<pre>
<b>[/help/update | fossil update]</b> <i>VERSION</i>
</pre>
The <i>VERSION</i> can be the name of a branch or tag or any
abbreviation to the 40-character
artifact identifier for a particular check-in, or it can be a
date/time stamp. ([./checkin_names.wiki | more info])
If you omit
the <i>VERSION</i>, then fossil moves you to the
latest version of the branch you are currently on.
The default behavior is for [./concepts.wiki#workflow|autosync] to
be turned on. That means that a [/help/pull|pull] automatically occurs
when you run [/help/update|update] and a [/help/push|push] happens
automatically after you [/help/commit|commit]. So in normal practice,
the push, pull, and sync commands are rarely used. But it is important
to know about them, all the same.
<pre>
<b>[/help/checkout | fossil checkout]</b> <i>VERSION</i>
</pre>
Is similar to update except that it does not honor the autosync
setting, nor does it merge in local changes - it prefers to overwrite
them and fails if local changes exist unless the <tt>--force</tt>
flag is used.
<h2 id="branch" name="merge">Branching And Merging</h2>
Use the --branch option to the [/help/commit | commit] command to start
a new branch at the point of need. ([./gitusers.md#bneed | Contrast git].)
To merge two branches back together, first
[/help/update | update] to the branch you want to merge into.
Then do a [/help/merge|merge] of the other branch that you want to incorporate
the changes from. For example, to merge "featureX" changes into "trunk"
do this:
<pre>
<b>fossil [/help/update|update] trunk</b>
<b>fossil [/help/merge|merge] featureX</b>
<i># make sure the merge didn't break anything...</i>
<b>fossil [/help/commit|commit]
</pre>
The argument to the [/help/merge|merge] command can be any of the
version identifier forms that work for [/help/update|update].
([./checkin_names.wiki|more info].)
The merge command has options to cherry-pick individual
changes, or to back out individual changes, if you don't want to
do a full merge.
The merge command puts all changes in your working check-out.
No changes are made to the repository.
You must run [/help/commit|commit] separately
to add the merge changes into your repository to make them persistent
and so that your coworkers can see them.
But before you do that, you will normally want to run a few tests
to verify that the merge didn't cause logic breaks in your code.
The same branch can be merged multiple times without trouble. Fossil
automatically keeps up with things and avoids conflicts when doing
multiple merges. So even if you have merged the featureX branch
into trunk previously, you can do so again and Fossil will automatically
know to pull in only those changes that have occurred since the previous
merge.
If a merge or update doesn't work out (perhaps something breaks or
there are many merge conflicts) then you back up using:
<pre>
<b>[/help/undo | fossil undo]</b>
</pre>
This will back out the changes that the merge or update made to the
working checkout. There is also a [/help/redo|redo] command if you undo by
mistake. Undo and redo only work for changes that have
not yet been checked in using commit and there is only a single
level of undo/redo.
<h2 id="server">Setting Up A Server</h2>
Fossil can act as a stand-alone web server using one of these
commands:
<pre>
<b>[/help/server | fossil server]</b> <i>repository-filename</i>
<b>[/help/ui | fossil ui]</b> <i>repository-filename</i>
</pre>
The <i>repository-filename</i> can be omitted when these commands
are run from within an open check-out, which is a particularly useful
shortcut with the <b>fossil ui</b> command.
The <b>ui</b> command is intended for accessing the web user interface
from a local desktop. (We sometimes call this mode "Fossil UI.")
The <b>ui</b> command differs from the
<b>server</b> command by binding to the loopback IP
address only (thus making the web UI visible only on the
local machine) and by automatically starting your default web browser,
pointing it at the running UI
server. The localhost restriction exists because it also gives anyone
who can access the resulting web UI full control over the
repository. (This is the [./caps/admin-v-setup.md#apsu | all-powerful
Setup capabliity].)
For cross-machine collaboration, use the <b>server</b> command instead,
which binds on all IP addresses, does not try to start a web browser,
and enforces [./caps/ | Fossil's role-based access control system].
Servers are also easily configured as:
<ul>
<li>[./server/any/inetd.md|inetd]
<li>[./server/debian/service.md|systemd]
<li>[./server/any/cgi.md|CGI]
<li>[./server/any/scgi.md|SCGI]
</ul>
…along with [./server/#matrix | several other options].
The [./selfhost.wiki | self-hosting fossil repositories] use
CGI.
You might <i>need</i> to set up a server, whether you know it yet or
not. See the [./server/whyuseaserver.wiki | Benefits of a Fossil Server]
article for details.
<h2 id="proxy">HTTP Proxies</h2>
If you are behind a restrictive firewall that requires you to use
an HTTP proxy to reach the internet, then you can configure the proxy
in three different ways. You can tell fossil about your proxy using
a command-line option on commands that use the network,
<b>sync</b>, <b>clone</b>, <b>push</b>, and <b>pull</b>.
<pre>
<b>fossil clone </b><i>URL</i> <b>--proxy</b> <i>Proxy-URL</i>
</pre>
It is annoying to have to type in the proxy URL every time you
sync your project, though, so you can make the proxy configuration
persistent using the [/help/setting | setting] command:
<pre>
<b>fossil setting proxy </b><i>Proxy-URL</i>
</pre>
Or, you can set the "<b>http_proxy</b>" environment variable:
<pre>
<b>export http_proxy=</b><i>Proxy-URL</i>
</pre>
To stop using the proxy, do:
<pre>
<b>fossil setting proxy off</b>
</pre>
Or unset the environment variable. The fossil setting for the
HTTP proxy takes precedence over the environment variable and the
command-line option overrides both. If you have a persistent
proxy setting that you want to override for a one-time sync, that
is easily done on the command-line. For example, to sync with
a co-worker's repository on your LAN, you might type:
<pre>
<b>fossil sync http://192.168.1.36:8080/ --proxy off</b>
</pre>
<h2 id="links">Other Resources</h2>
<ul>
<li> <a href="./gitusers.md">Hints For Users With Prior Git Experience</a>
<li> <a href="./whyusefossil.wiki">Why You Should Use Fossil</a>
<li> <a href="./history.md">The History and Purpose of Fossil</a>
<li> <a href="./branching.wiki">Branching, Forking, and Tagging</a>
<li> <a href="./hints.wiki">Fossil Tips and Usage Hints</a>
<li> <a href="./permutedindex.html">Comprehensive Fossil Doc Index</a>
</ul>