GitHub is a very comfortable portal to collaborate source coces. The service manages versions using Git - for documentation purposes bugs and wiki contents can be provided. Especially the open-source scene uses the service a lot but for internal, non-public developments it is only partially suitable.

Premium users are able to create private repositories. For those access rules can be created - the files are still stored on the provider's servers. Another option is GitHub Enterprise - the appliance with costs offers all services known from GitHub in the local intranet.

For private purposes you might prefer a free solution - e.g. GitBucket. The Java software looks like GitHub and also offers the same core functionalities. Some of them are:

• public and private Repositorys
• repository browser and file editor
• wiki and bug tracker
• fork / pull requests

Compared to GitHub some features are currently (release 2.4.1, 10/06/2014) missing:

• network graph
• statistics
• watch/star function (bookmark and follow)
• comments for changesets

GitBucket requires Tomcat 7.x and can be downloaded as WAR archive. To deploy the application it is sufficient to copy the file into the appropriate directory:

1# wget https://github.com/takezoe/gitbucket/releases/download/2.4.1/gitbucket.war -O /var/lib/tomcat/webapps/gitbucket.war

You might want to check the link for newer releases. Have a look at the following website: [click me!]

It is a good idea to reset the SELinux context on systems with enabled SELinux security extension:

1# restorecon -v /var/lib/tomcat/webapps/gitbucket.war
2restorecon reset /var/lib/tomcat/webapps/gitbucket.war context unconfined_u:object_r:user_home_t:s0->unconfined_u:object_r:tomcat_var_lib_t:s0

After installation GitHub can be accessed using the URL http://$ip:8080/gitbucket. Lazy administrators can easily create a forwarding for Apache using mod_proxy_ajp:

1ProxyPass /gitbucket ajp://localhost:8009/gitbucket

Screenshots

Some screenshots showing the software: