Setup a Home HTTP Server

Start your own intranet

Installation

If apache is installed then either stop it

$ sudo systemctl stop apache2

or remove it.

$ sudo apt purge apache2

Update the machine:

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

Install necessary packages:

$ sudo apt-get install nginx git gitweb nano fcgiwrap apache2-utils php8.2-fpm -y

Note: we’re including git & gitweb here because this machine will also be a Git server.

After installing NGINX you should be able to view its welcome page by entering either <hostname>.local or <ip-address> in the address bar of a web browser on another machine on the network.

We’re actually going to be setting up multiple intranet websites in addition to the Git server. So let’s change this homepage.

Make a copy of the original NGINX file. This is optional, but good practice.

$ cd /var/www/html
$ cp index.nginx-debian.html index.nginx-debian.html.original

Then open the file

$ sudo nano index.nginx-debian.html

and make its contents the following:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title> Git Server</title>
<style>
html { color-scheme: light dark; }
body { width: 35em; margin: 0 auto;
font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Welcome to Our Git Server Homepage!</h1>
<p><a href="http://<hostname>.local/gitweb">Gitweb</a></p>

<p><a href="http://<hostname>.local/newrepo">Make a new repo</a></p>

<p><em>Thank you for supporting me in this project!</em></p>
</body>
</html>

where <hostname> is the hostname of the server.

NGINX Config

I used:

<repo-root> = /mnt/raid5/git
<gitweb-root> = /usr/share/gitweb/  which I believe is the default for Gitweb. 
<hostname> = the hostname of your server

Make a backup copy of the original NGINX config file:

$ cd /etc/nginx/sites-available
$ cp default default.original

Configure NGINX by editing the following file

$ sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

and making its contents the following:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name <hostname>.local;

    location ~ ^/git(/.*) {
#        auth_basic "Restricted";
#        auth_basic_user_file "<repo-root>/htpasswd";
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/fcgiwrap.socket;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME /usr/lib/git-core/git-http-backend;
        fastcgi_param GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL "";
        fastcgi_param GIT_PROJECT_ROOT <repo-root>;
        fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $1;
    }

    location /newrepo {
        root <gitweb-root>;
        index index.php;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        root <gitweb-root>;
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php8.2-fpm.sock;
    }

     # deny access to Apache .htaccess on Nginx with PHP, 
     # if Apache and Nginx document roots concur
    location ~ /git/\.ht {
        deny all;
    }

    location /index.cgi {
        root <gitweb-root>;
        include fastcgi_params;
        gzip off;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME $uri;
        fastcgi_param GITWEB_CONFIG /etc/gitweb.conf;
        fastcgi_pass  unix:/var/run/fcgiwrap.socket;
    }
# need to add symbolic link to the static dir
# sudo ln -s <gitweb-root>/static /var/www/html/static


    location /gitweb {
        return 301 /index.cgi;
    }

    location / {
        root /var/www/html;
        index index.html index.htm index.php index.cgi index.nginx-debian.html;
    }

}

Run the NGINX test command …

$ sudo nginx -t

… and you should see something like this

nginx: the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok
nginx: configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful

If you do see errors, go back into the configuration file above and make sure each of the things being pointed to exist in the correct locations.

Here’s a list of all the directories and files used:

/var/run/fcgiwrap.socket
/etc/nginx/fastcgi_params
/usr/lib/git-core/git-http-backend
/etc/nginx/snippets/fastcgi-php.conf
/run/php/php8.2-fpm.sock
/etc/gitweb.conf

If you wish to require username and password for HTTP access, then uncomment the two auth_basic lines in the NGINX config, create a user

$ sudo adduser gitusera

and put a password in the proper location:


$ sudo htpasswd -c <repo-root>/.htpasswd gitusera

and I hit enter for no password.

Restart NGINX:

$ sudo systemctl restart nginx

You should now be able to go to <hostname>.local/gitweb in a web browser on any other machine on the network and view the gitweb homepage.

To suggest an edit or correction to this page, please click the "Edit this page" button below or at the top to access the source file on GitHub.

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