Fossil

<div class='fossil-doc' data-title="How To Configure A Fossil Server">

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<h2 id="methods">Methods</h2>

<p>There are basically four ways to set up a Fossil server:</p>

<ol>
  <li><a id="cgi"        href="any/cgi.md">CGI</a>
  <li><a id="standalone" href="any/none.md">Stand-alone HTTP server</a>
  <li>Socket listener
  <li><a id="scgi"       href="any/scgi.md">SCGI</a>
  <li><a id="cgi"        href="any/cgi.md">CGI</a>
</ol>

<p>All of these methods can serve either a single repository or a
directory containing repositories named "<tt>*.fossil</tt>".</p>

<p>You are not restricted to using a single method. The same Fossil
repository can be served using two or more of the above techniques at
the same time. These methods use clean, well-defined, standard
interfaces (CGI, SCGI, and HTTP) which allow you to easily migrate from
one method to another to accommodate changes in hosting providers or
administrator preferences.</p>

<h3>CGI</h3>

<p>Most ordinary web servers can <a href="any/cgi.md">run Fossil as a
CGI script</a>. This method is known to work with Apache, <a
href="windows/cgi.md">IIS</a>, <tt>lighttpd</tt>, and <a
href="any/althttpd.md"><tt>althttpd</tt></a>.  The Fossil server
administrator places a <a href="/help?cmd=cgi">short CGI script</a> in
the web server's document hierarchy, and when a client requests the
appropriate URL, that script runs Fossil to generate the response.</p>

<p>CGI is a good choice for merging Fossil into an existing web site,
particularly on hosts that have CGI set up for you already and won't let
you modify the web server configuration further. The Fossil <a
href="../selfhost.wiki">self-hosting repositories</a> are implemented
with CGI underneath <tt>althttpd</tt>.</p>

<h3>Stand-alone HTTP Server</h3>

<p>This is the <a href="any/none.md">easiest method</a>.
A stand-alone server uses the <a
href="/help?cmd=server"><tt>fossil server</tt></a> command to run a
process that listens for incoming HTTP requests on a socket and then
dispatches a copy of itself to deal with each incoming request. You can
expose Fossil directly to the clients in this way or you can interpose a
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_proxy">reverse proxy</a>
layer between the clients and Fossil.</p>


<h3>Socket Listener</h3>

<p>Only slightly more complicated is the socket listener method.
Instead of letting Fossil run in the background continuously to handle
HTTP requests from clients, you configure a socket listener daemon to
run a <a href="/help?cmd=http"><tt>fossil http</tt></a> command on each
HTTP hit.  That Fossil instance handles only that one hit and then shuts
back down, letting the socket listener go back to waiting for the next
hit.  This scheme is known to work with <a id="inetd"
href="any/inetd.md"><tt>inetd</tt></a>, <a id="xinetd"
href="any/xinetd.md"><tt>xinetd</tt></a>, <a id="stunnel"
href="any/stunnel.md"><tt>stunnel</tt></a>, <a
href="macos/service.md"><tt>launchd</tt></a>, and <a
href="debian/service.md"><tt>systemd</tt></a>.</p>


<h3>SCGI</h3>

<p>The Fossil standalone server can also run <a href="any/scgi.md">in
SCGI mode</a> — <a href="/help/server"><tt>fossil server --scgi</tt></a>
— instead of <a href="any/none.md">HTTP mode</a>, which allows it to
respond to requests from web servers <a href="debian/nginx.md">such as
nginx</a> that don't support CGI. SCGI is a simpler protocol to proxy
than HTTP, since the HTTP doesn't have to be re-interpreted in terms of
the proxy's existing HTTP implementation, but it's more complex to set
up because you also have to set up an SCGI-to-HTTP proxy for it. It is
worth taking on this difficulty only when you need to integrate Fossil
into an existing web site already being served by an SCGI-capable web
server.</p>


<h3>CGI</h3>

<p>Most ordinary web servers can <a href="any/cgi.md">run Fossil as a
CGI script</a>. This method is known to work with Apache, <a
href="windows/cgi.md">IIS</a>, <tt>lighttpd</tt>, and <a
href="any/althttpd.md"><tt>althttpd</tt></a>.  The Fossil server
administrator places a <a href="/help?cmd=cgi">short CGI script</a> in
the web server's document hierarchy, and when a client requests the
appropriate URL, that script runs Fossil to generate the response.</p>

<p>Back when CGI was first created, this method was quite simple, but
because of all of the security barriers put up around CGI in most web
servers, it can actually be one of the most complicated methods to set
up, feature-for-feature. Reverse proxying (both HTTP and SCGI) is the
only more complicated method for serving Fossil, but you do get a lot of
additional power when doing that.</p>

<p>CGI is a good choice for merging Fossil into an existing web site,
particularly on hosts that have CGI set up for you already and won't let
you modify the web server configuration further. The Fossil <a
href="../selfhost.wiki">self-hosting repositories</a> are implemented
with CGI underneath <tt>althttpd</tt>.</p>



<h2 id="matrix">Setup Tutorials</h2>

<p>We've broken the configuration for each method out into a series of
sub-articles. Some of these are generic, while others depend on
particular operating systems or front-end software:</p>

<div id="tutpick" class="show"></div>

<!-- Define alternative to JS tutorial picker below.  When updating this
     table, update "matrix" in the JS code below to match! -->
<noscript id="tutmatrix">
<table style="margin-left: 6em;">
    <tr>
        <th class="host">⇩ OS / Method ⇨</th>
        <th class="fep">none</th>
        <th class="fep">direct</th>
        <th class="fep">inetd</th>
        <th class="fep">stunnel</th>
        <th class="fep">CGI</th>
        <th class="fep">SCGI</th>
        <th class="fep">althttpd</th>
        <th class="fep">proxy</th>
        <th class="fep">service</th>

  <li><a id="tls"      href="../ssl.wiki"      >Securing a Repository with TLS</a>
  <li><a id="ext"      href="../serverext.wiki">CGI Server Extensions</a>
  <li><a id="about"    href="../aboutcgi.wiki" >How CGI Works In Fossil</a>
  <li><a id="sync"     href="../sync.wiki"     >The Fossil Sync Protocol</a>
</ul>

</div>

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