Before installing GitCentric

This section describes the system requirements and environments that you need to have before installing GitCentric.

System Requirements

GitCentric requires the following software for a successful installation. Other components may have their own prerequisites.

Component Supported Configuration
Operating System

For GitCentric server:

  • Linux 2.6 or later.
  • SUSE 10 SP2 or later.

Compatible Ubuntu versions are 10.10 and later, RedHat 6.2 and later.

Other versions can be supported, but they have not been certified.

Web browsers can be run from any platform.

Browsers

GitCentric is supported on these browsers:

  • Chrome (latest).
  • Firefox (latest).
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 and later.
  • Microsoft Edge (the default browser in Microsoft Windows 10 R2 and Microsoft Windows 10 R2 Mobile).
Java Java 1.6 or later.

The AccuRev installation installs AccuRev at <ac_home>/jre. You may need to update your $PATH to point to this.

AccuRev

Version 5.6 or later.

Note: AccuRev installations have their own prerequisites such as Perl for running triggers.)

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Install Linux

Currently the GitCentric server is supported only on Linux operating systems.

If you have an existing Linux machine that you wish to use as a host, you can install GitCentric on that system. Create an administrative <gc_installer> user and log into that account. This is the account you will use to install AccuRev and GitCentric.

If you need to install a Linux operating system, check the support matrix for the current AccuRev release and choose a Linux version.

After the installation, you may need to add some support packages and do some configuration as described below.

For a new Linux installation:

  1. Go to the download page for the Linux distribution you have decided to use and install the latest stable release.
  2. Once you have installed Linux, you will be prompted to set up a username and password. Create a <gc_installer> user and log in to this account. (This assumes that you do not already have an existing Linux AccuRev admin user on your network such as acserver.) This is the account you will use to install AccuRev and the GitCentric software. You will also use this account to start and stop servers. This user should also have a corresponding AccuRev account that is a member of the Admin group. The samples use gcadmin as an example installer account.
  3. As you use your new system, you will probably find that you need to install extra packages. If you are a Microsoft Windows user, read documentation about the apt-get install command on Ubuntu (or yum on Red Hat or CentOS). Basic Linux commands and procedures are beyond the scope of this document, so be prepared to do some web searching. Most basic questions can be answered by searching for whatever task you want to perform, and appending "Ubuntu" or “Red Hat” or “CentOS”, and so forth.

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Install AccuRev

Before you install GitCentric, you need to have an AccuRev (5.6 or higher) server (including the AccuRev Web UI Tomcat server and the AccuRev PostgreSQL server) on the Linux machine to act as the GitCentric server.

If you already have AccuRev 5.6 or higher installed on a Linux host that you can use for GitCentric, we recommend that you review the fresh install instructions below to ensure that you have everything that you need.

  1. Log into Linux as the <gc_installer> administrative user (see Install Linux ).
  2. Ensure that you have a Downloads directory (for example, ~/Downloads). If you do not, create one: 
    > cd
> mkdir Downloads
  3. Download a copy of the full AccuRev installer (version 5.6 or higher) from the AccuRev web site. The full installer is for installing the AccuRev Server (which also installs the AccuRev database), AccuRev Web UI Server (which installs a Tomcat web server), and a local copy of the AccuRev Client.

  4. Follow the procedures in the AccuRev Installation and Release Notes to do a full install as the OS <gc_installer> user to install the AccuRev Server, AccuRev Web UI Server, database, and AccuRev Client. Although you can install these to wherever you want, the default is to install them under the <gc_installer> home directory (for example, ~<gc_installer>/accurev).

    Note: If you choose to install in a different directory such as the root-owned /opt directory, you will need to be able to perform a sudo mkdir command, and then chmod and chown for <gc_installer>. You cannot install AccuRev or GitCentric as root.

  5. After installing, make sure that the AccuRev Server, AccuRev database server, and AccuRev Tomcat (Web UI) server are running.
    Note: Make sure that the AccuRev license file you acquire includes a license for GitCentric as well as UI) server are running. for AccuRev.
  6. When the installation is complete, let AccuRev guide you through the Quick Setup Wizard and create a user account for the <gc_installer> admin user.

  7. Use the user and group options under the Admin > Security menu in the AccuRev GUI, or the mkuser, mkgroup, and addmember AccuRev Command Line Interface commands, to create AccuRev users and groups to work with GitCentric. Either now or later, you can also choose to create additional AccuRev users who you want to have accounts on the GitCentric AccuRev Server.

    The following table summarizes the minimal AccuRev users and groups that you should define when first installing GitCentric. The specific names shown are suggestions; they are not required to be used.

    Name User or Group Member of Group Description
    admin group N/A Standard AccuRev group for administrative users.
    scm_bridge_group group   Group of users on each AccuRev Server that the GitCentric bridge uses to keep Git branches in sync with AccuRev streams. Typically consists of at least user gcSyncUser, and is assigned to ASSIGN_USER_PRIVILEGE in each AccuRev Server's acserver.cnf file. Different users with different access rights can be assigned to this group for security reasons. Value does not necessarily need to be scm_bridge_group.
    gcadmin user admin Administrative login account on the GitCentric AccuRev Server. Value does not necessarily need to be gcadmin.
    gcSyncUser user scm_bridge_group The “service account” user on each AccuRev Server that is mapped to branches in a Git repository. Member of the scm_bridge_group group, which is assigned to the ASSIGN_USER_PRIVILEGE setting in each AccuRev Server’s acserver.cnf file. (See Step 8 below.) Should not be a member of the admin group. You need to have at least one service account user, and you can have multiple such users with different privileges for different streams. This user's AccuRev Element ACL (EACL) permissions determine which files can be edited in the GitCentric repository. Files that cannot be edited do not appear at all in the GitCentric repository. You will set up ACLs after the installation is complete. For details, see Repository Access Rights (ACLs).
  8. On each AccuRev Server that will have streams mapped to Git branches (which may or may not include the GitCentric AccuRev Server, depending on your configuration), open the AccuRev Server configuration file <ac_home>/bin/acserver.cnf and add the following line: 
    ASSIGN_USER_PRIVILEGE = scm_bridge_group
  9. Save acserver.cnf and close the editor.
    Note: If you have an existing AccuRev installation and the acserver.cnf file contains a line defining CC_USER, see ASSIGN_USER_PRIVILEGE and CC_USER in the Troubleshooting section.

  10. Restart the AccuRev Server: 

    > acserverctl stop
> acserverctl start

    Important: If GitCentric 2017.1 is installed on the same machine as an earlier version of AccuRev, and that AccuRev is upgraded to 7.0. AccuRev 7.0 uses a different database (PostgreSQL 9.5 instead of PostgreSQL 8.4). When AccuRev upgrades, it migrates the databases it uses, but leaves behind the two databases that GitCentric uses. To resolve this issue you must follow a manual procedure documented in the AccuRev Installation and Release Note. In case of a clean install of AccuRev 7.0, you do not have to follow the procedure.

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