Frequently Asked Questions about the INRIA Forge

How to contact INRIA Forge administrators ?

Send a email at : help.et.gforge@inria.fr

Who can start a project on InriaGforge ?

InriaGforge has been setup to enable people to work on projects related to Inria. Anyone can take part, but only people working for Inria (i.e using a email @inria.fr, @irisa.fr, @sophia.inria.fr, @inrialpes.fr or @loria.fr in their profile) can start a project. You can read more about the general terms of service

Who can delete a project ?

Deleting a project is a privileged operation that can only be performed by InriaGforge's admins. Please sent any request to help.et.gforge<AT>inria.fr.

Why can't I find the 'create project' option in my administration page?

Only people working for Inria (i.e using a email @inria.fr, @irisa.fr, @sophia.inria.fr, @inrialpes.fr or @loria.fr in their profile) can register a project.

How can I remove myself from a project ?

To do so :

• Go to "My Page" tab
• Check the "My Projects" paragraph at the bottom right of the page
• Select the project you want to be removed from and click on the trash bin image appearing next to the project name.
  The trash bin image must not be slashed, otherwise it means you are an admin of the project and you are not allowed to remove yourself from the project this way.
• You get a page that will ask you to confirm your deletion.

How to simplify my interface (i.e. remove unuseful tabs) ?

On the admin project page (tab Admin), click on the first link "Edit Public Info".
Now you can select active features like Tracker, File Release System, Wiki, etc ...

Where can I find the certificate authority that has signed the certificate for InriaGforge ?

If you are tired of your browser asking you if you trust InriaGforge because it could not verify its certificate, you should download the identity of the certificate authority that is available on Irisa's site.

What is the default language on InriaGforge ?

InriaGforge's interface is maintained in French and in English. Depending on your browser settings and on your personnal preferences when you are logged in you will see the web interface in French or in English. To be more precise :

• When not logged in, the language used will be the first of French or English seen in your browser settings.
• When logged in, the language used will be the one you last set in your preferences.

Each project also defines a natural language. This is an indication of the language that should be used when submitting bugs or writting to the mailing lists of the project. It has no known influence on the language of the interface, even when browsing the project's pages.

Finally, the websites each project can setup on <project_name>.gforge.inria.fr define their own behaviour. The gforge team or software has no influence on them.

SCM (source control manager) questions

Can I access the code repository on the InriaGforge server ?

Your code repository is located on the InriaGforge server on host scm.gforge.inria.fr, directory :

• for SVN repositories : /svnroot/<project_name>
• for git repositories : /gitroot/<project_name>/<project_name>.git

$ sftp <yourlogin>@scm.gforge.inria.fr:/svnroot/<project_name>
sftp> ls
sftp> exit

To know who can access the code repository, go to next FAQ entry.

Who can access my code repository ?

With the default settings, project members with Doc Writer or Support Tech roles cannot commit changes into the SCM.
Source code repository access depends on the settings of the project and on the privileges of the user trying to access the code repository. The following table sums the situation.

		Read access to source code			Write access to source code
		cvsweb pserver	ssh	webdav	ssh	webdav
Public project/anonymous acces enabled	Anonymous user
	Logged user
	Project member, no SCM access
	Project member, read access to SCM
	Project member, read/write access to SCM
Public project/ anonymous access disabled	Anonymous user
	Project member, no SCM access
	Project member, read access to SCM
	Project member, read/write access to SCM
Private project	Anonymous user
	Project member, no SCM access
	Project member, read access to SCM
	Project member, read/write access to SCM

Changing user privileges is done through the edition of user roles in a project's admin tab.

Why should I move from CVS to Subversion while migrating to InriaGforge ?

CVS support has been deprecated in InriaGforge, so if you have an existing CVS repository that you wish to host on the forge, it must be migrated to Subversion or Git. Even though CVS is very stable and widely used, it has some known drawbacks: It doesn't keep track of renaming files and directories or doesn't store information about a commit as a whole, and handling branches is a pain.

Subversion was written by the maintainers of CVS and is a stable alternative to CVS. Subversion is based on the idea that you don't create branches or tags but just create a copy of your sources as one would do with no other tools at hand than just the 'cp' copy command. To avoid the overhead of copy operations an efficient storing system (Berkley DB or FSFS) is used to hold all the data.

Ok, but how to change from cvs to subversion when migrating to InriaGforge ?

You can import your whole existing CVS repository, or just one module, into your newly created Subversion repository on the GForge. First, you have to create a local Subversion repository from your local CVS repository (SVN_REP is the path of your temporary local subversion repository, automatically created by the cvs2svn tool):

cvs2svn --fs-type fsfs -s SVN_REP /path/to/my/local/cvs/repository

or from only one module of your local CVS repository:

cvs2svn --fs-type fsfs -s SVN_REP /path/to/my/local/cvs/repository/this_module

This will create the SVN_REP directory and fill it with the history of your CVS repository/module history. When this is done, follow the instructions of How do I import my Subversion history ?.

You can find the cvs2svn tool and its documentation here. Packages exist for various Linux distributions (Debian, RedHat, Fedora, Mandrake, ...).

How do I import my Subversion history ?

Please note that the following does not work when you use subversion 1.0.9 (packaged with Fedora Core 2 for example). You'll need to upgrade the version of subversion you are using.

Please note that since 4th December 2008, InriaGforge recognize svn repositories which complies to format 5 (information stored in /svnroot/<project>/format).

• --pre-1.4-compatible: use this option if you're running at least version 1.4 and want to produce a format 3 repository usable by versions older than 1.4.

If you're confused about your svn version and what it produces, you may refer at this page.

svnadmin create --fs-type fsfs SVN_FSFS
svnadmin dump -q SVN_BDB | svnadmin load SVN_FSFS

Now here is how to import your Subversion repository tree in FSFS format. Let SVN_REP be your local Subversion repository tree, and <project_name> the unix name of your project on gforge. Make sure you did upload your ssh key in order to be able to connect to scm.gforge.inria.fr. Then,

chmod -R g+w SVN_REP/*
scp -rp SVN_REP/* <yourlogin>@scm.gforge.inria.fr:/svnroot/<project_name>

This copies your subversion tree in place of the one on gforge. Don't forget the /* after SVN_REP, or else a directory will be created in /svnroot/<project_name> and you definitely don't want this.

How do I import several repositories in one subversion repository ?

> svnadmin dump -q /path/to/calc/repos > calc-dumpfile
> svnadmin dump -q /path/to/calendar/repos > calendar-dumpfile
> svnadmin dump -q /path/to/spreadsheet/repos > spreadsheet-dumpfile
> svn mkdir -m "Imported project roots" \
     svn+ssh://<yourlogin>@scm.gforge.inria.fr/svnroot/<project_name>/calc \
     svn+ssh://<yourlogin>@scm.gforge.inria.fr/svnroot/<project_name>/calendar \
     svn+ssh://<yourlogin>@scm.gforge.inria.fr/svnroot/<project_name>/spreadsheet

> scp calc-dumpfile  <yourlogin>@scm.gforge.inria.fr:/home/users/<yourlogin>/
> scp calendar-dumpfile  <yourlogin>@scm.gforge.inria.fr:/home/users/<yourlogin>/
> scp spreadsheet-dumpfile  <yourlogin>@scm.gforge.inria.fr:/home/users/<yourlogin>/

$ svnadmin load /svnroot/<project_name> --parent-dir calc < /home/users/<yourlogin>/calc-dumpfile
$ svnadmin load /svnroot/<project_name> --parent-dir calendar < /home/users/<yourlogin>/calendar-dumpfile
$ svnadmin load /svnroot/<project_name> --parent-dir spreadsheet < /home/users/<yourlogin>/spreadsheet-dumpfile

How can I use git/subversion on windows with ssh authentication ?

If you have followed ths configuration steps described in the ssh for windows page mentionned in How do I setup ssh (even on windows ?), you can use either a graphical or a shell-based utility to access your git/svn repository.

To use the graphical utility, follow the steps described in our tortoise page.

To use svn from a shell, you can follow these steps:

• Download a binary version of subversion from there or, if it does not work, from there. If you do not have administrator privileges on your machine, ask your system administrator to do it for you.
• Start the pageant.exe utility which comes with putty. This program installs a small icon (a computer screen with a hat) in your panel notification area located at the bottom right of your screen. Right click on this icon and select the Add key item. In the file selection dialog which pops up, select the private key file you saved during the ssh configuration as described in How do I setup ssh (even on windows ?).
• Open a terminal, go to the directory you want to store your files in. Set the SVN_SSH environment variable with this command:

      set SVN_SSH=plink.exe
  

  and then run this subversion command:

      svn co svn+ssh://<your_username>@scm.gforge.inria.fr:/svn/<project_name>
  

How can I change the type of SCM used in my gforge project ?

This is not doable using the admin pages. To do so, you need to contact the InriaGforge administrators by mail to help.et.gforge<AT>inria.fr.

Why can't I no longer download a snapshot of my SCM repository ?

Shapshot generation was disabled because it caused to big a load on the server because of the way the snapshot was made on projects with too many branches. There is no generic way of making a snapshot in a way that avoids the problems encoutered. Therefore, projects relying on snapshots should either use the tarball that is generated (and available on the admin page of each project) or make a snapshot themselves.

A snapshot is nothing more than a tarball of the checkout of the complete repository made available each night. You can program the same functionnality whith the script available here for svn.

What version of svn is running on the server ?

The server is running subversion 1.5.1

How to configure http proxy with svn webdav ?

Edit your subversion configuration file : ~/.subversions/servers and add in global section :

http-proxy-host = <your-proxy-server>
http-proxy-port = <your-proxy-server-port>
  

How can I add/modify hook script as post-commit for the subversion repository of my project hosted on InriaGforge ?

A hook script is a program triggered by some repository event, such as the creation of a new revision or the modification of an unversioned property.
On each subversion repository hosted on InriaGforge server, you find a directory named hooks, filled with templates for various repository hooks (such as pre-commit.tmpl). This directory hooks is located on /svnroot/myproject_unixname/hooks.
To access the content of this directory, check this FAQ entry.
By default, the post-commit hook is implemented for each subversion repository on InriaGforge in such a way that when the repository is modified after a commit, an email containing the diff is sent to the list myproject-commits.
For more information concerning the subversion hooks, consult Subversion hook related page.

How to repair my Subversion repository ?

If your subversion repository is corrupted (i.e. messages like "Svn diff too large, svn repository corrupted, ..."), follow this procedure :

• You must lock your repository in order to disable commit during the maintenance operation. For that, add a simple pre-commit hook script in your directory yourlogin@scm.gforge.inria.fr:/svnroot/<unix_project_name>/hooks/ with some lines like :
  #!/bin/sh
  echo "Repository in maintenance, please retry later"
  exit 1
  nb: your script name must be pre-commit and executable.
• Retrieve the repository on your local machine with command : scp -r yourlogin@scm.gforge.inria.fr:/svnroot/<unix_project_name> /tmp/
• Check your repository : svnadmin verify /tmp/<unix_project_name>
• If the verify process failed on revision n, try the following command on revision n and n+1: fsfsverify -f /tmp/<unix_project_name>/db/revs/<n and n+1>
  And follow the instructions shown when the command ends. You may need to use the command fsfsverify -f several times.
• When the command fsfsverify seems ok, then recheck your repository : svnadmin verify /tmp/<unix_project_name> and/or test a checkout : svn co file:///tmp/<unix_project_name> mytest
• If it is ok then push your repository back on InriaGforge server using : scp -r /tmp/<unix_project_name>/* youlogin@scm.gforge.inria.fr:/svnroot/<unix_project_name>/
  or send us an email at help.et.gforge<at>inria.fr
• Remove the pre-commit hook

How can I be notified that a commit has happened ?

By default each project on InriaGforge is provided with a mailing-list : project_name-commits.
When the repository of a project on InriaGforge is modified after a commit, an email containing the diff is sent to the list myproject-commits. This is done via a post-commit hook mechanism. See this entry for more information about this hook.
If you want to be notified by mail, you need to subscribe to the project_name-commits list. To do so :

• Select the "Lists" tab
• You will find a table with the lists available for your project.
  Retrieve the line for the list project_name-commits, and click on the link "Subscribe/Unsubscribe/Preferences"
• You will access to the mailman page dedicated to the list.
  Fill the form shown at paragrah "Subscribe to project-name-commits".
  The administrator of the list (whose address is shown at the end of the page) will receive your subcription demand.

How can I be notified that a push has been received (git)?

The project_name-commits mailing list may also be used to post digests of pushes to your git repository. To do so, set up a post-receive hook: (in the following lines, $GIT_DIR is assumed to point to /gitroot/myproject/myproject.git)

• connect to the server ssh scm.gforge.inria.fr
• go to the directory : cd /gitroot/[project]/[project].git/hooks/
• copy the template email script /usr/share/doc/git-core/contrib/hooks/post-receive-email to a temporary location, modify it if needed and make it executable
• move post-receive-email to $GIT_DIR/hooks/
• copy $GIT_DIR/hooks/post-receive to a temporary location
• modify post-receive so that it runs $GIT_DIR/hooks/post-receive-email and make it executable if needed. Then, move it to $GIT_DIR/hooks/, overwriting the previous one
• configure the "hooks.mailinglist" property:
  

  $ git config hooks.mailinglist [project]-commits@lists.gforge.inria.fr 

• configure your mailing list from the administation page like that : Privacy options.. / [Sender filters] / frame for"accept_these_nonmembers" add ^.*$
• (optionally) add a brief description of your repository in the file $GIT_DIR/description

How to start with an empty GIT repository ?

By default a Git repository is empty and you cannot clone an empty Git repository.
If your Git repository already exists, simply push it. Otherwise, follow this procedure :

mkdir my_project
cd my_project
git init
git remote add origin git+ssh://loginf@scm.gforge.inria.fr/gitroot/project/project.git
echo "Description of your project" > README
git add README # Note: it is mandatory to have a commit to be able to push.
git commit -m "Addition of a readme file"
git push origin master

How to configure my Git client to comply with the INRIA Forge https setup ?

You have 2 solutions : you might choose to avoid your Git client check the CA of the SSL connection or to install the requested CA certificates.

Avoid SSL checking

• Use environment variable before git command :

env GIT_SSL_NO_VERIFY=true git clone https://[...]
			

• Use Git live configuration (not permanent) :

git config http.sslVerify false
			

• Use Git configuration file (permanent).

Just add the following line in your ~/.git/config file :

[html]
sslVerify = false
			

Install CA certificate

[html]
sslCAinfo = /absolute/path/to/chain-TCS.pem
	

How do I setup ssh (even on windows ?)

To be able to:

• import your previous svn history,
• checkin a modification to the git or the svn repository,
• modify the project homepage,
• upload files to your private homedir

On Linux:

1. An ssh client should already be installed on your machine and should be accessible from the command line, as the "ssh" command. If not, contact your system administrator.
2. Generate a pair of rsa public/private keys with the ssh-keygen command: ssh-keygen -t rsa (make sure you enter a lengthy passphrase, ie non null, when asked to).
3. Copy your public key in an easy-to access file: cp ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub ~.
4. Paste your public key in the gforge website. To do this, you need to go to your account and then go to the Account maintainance tab. At the bottom of the Account maintainance tab, you should see a Shell Account Information section which contains an [Edit keys] link. Paste your public key(s) in the empty field below and click the Update button.

On Windows, consult the ssh for windows page.

A common problem is that the Shell Account Information field does not appear in your account page. This usually happens because you do not belong to any gforge project. To correct this problem, either create your own project first or request the project admin of the project you want to join to add you to the list of the project's contributors.

Please, be aware that uploading your ssh public key on the server will not allow you to connect to the server immediately through ssh. To do so, you will need to wait at most 24h. If your connection is impossible 24h later, please, contact the server administrators.

How to migrate from Subversion to GIT ?

• First, we suggest to install a pre-commit hook that fails (i.e exit 1) to your SVN repository to disable commit during migration.
• Create a git repository (in bare mode) from your SVN repository, with git-svn or by other means.
• On the source tab, select Administration. Then select git and upgrade. A periodical task will automatically create an empty repository (up to 6 hours delay)
• Finally, copy this deposit by ssh (scp) to scm.gforge.inria.fr:/gitroot/<unix_project_name> /<unix_project_name> .git on, and check it is valid (history, clone, push ...).

About public, private projects and access control

What is the difference between a public and a private project ?

A private project is a project that only exists for those who know that it has been created and that can only be seen by the people that are registered as members of this project. All members of a project have access to the source control Manager (SCM) and to the webspace of the project.

A public project appears in the list of project hosted on the forge. Anybody can find it using the search function, the project tree or a search engine and can browse all public items of the project. But a public project does not necessarily mean that all items of the project are public. The visibility of each item can be controlled item by item. For example, you could have a public tracker for bugs, a private tracker for security problems, and anonymous access to the source. The visibility of each item is controlled by the admin link that is accessible to the project's admins on the page showing the item.

In all cases, only registered members of the project can change the web pages of the project or its source code.

Can a project change visibility (become public ?)

Project visibility is a project attribute chosen at the start of the life of a project. Project administrators can change the visibility of their project by changing the properties of the Anonymous role.

This can be done in the project admin pages, in the section "Users and permissions". Set "Project visibility" to "visible" for the Anonymous role to make a project public. If the role does not exist, you should reference (link) the global Anonymous role from your project.

You should be aware that changing the visibility of a project does not change the visibility of the different elements of the forge you are using. After having made a project public, you will need to evaluate if you want to change the visibility of any other element (eg. your SCM repository or your bug tracking tools).

Can I give different access to parts of my project to different users ?

The key to controlling access to the different parts of your project on InriaGforge is the admin page of your project. On the right of this page, each member of your project is given a role, and to each role, access rights are associated. You can change them by using the edit role part of the page.

Two roles deal with users that are not part of your project: "Logged In" (for registered forge users that do not belong to your project) and "Anonymous" (for all users). These roles can be linked from the administration page to define permissions for external users.

NB : Due to availability of both protocols (https and svn+ssh), restricting access to a Subversion subdirectory for somes users (among those participating in the whole project) is not possible. Creating a private project is the only way to gain this feature.

How can I prevent anonymous users from inserting spam in a tracker or a forum ?

Some projects enable anonymous users to post issues on the trackers or forums they run, for reporting for example. Some spammer are using this setting for advertising using the trackers or forums, either by posting new issues, or by commenting open issues.

InriaGforge does not have any technical mesures in place to prevent that kind of spam. Therefore, if your project suffers from this, you should change the access rights of all your trackers or forums to prevent anonymous posting, by editing the Anonymous role.

About mailing lists and InriaGforge

I cannot access the admin interface for the mailing-lists

I created the project and/or I am an admin of a project but my normal gforge password does not allow me to access the admin web interface of the mailing-lists.

This is normal. The password used to control access to the mailing-lists admin web interface is different from your normal gforge account. This different password has been emailed to all the admins of the project at the time the mailing-list was created. The Subject of the email was InriaGforge New Mailing List. It contained the password used to access to the admin url: http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/mailman/admin/your-mailing-list

How can I reset the mailing-list administration password ?

If you lose/forget the password of the mailing-list administrator, you can reset it with the INRIAGForge interface. On the tab "lists" associated with your project, click on the link "Admin". Then you can reset your mailing list password. In less than one hour, the new password will be sent to the adminstrator of the list.

How can I make my mailing-lists refuse postings from non-subscribers ?

To do this, you need to be the mailing-list administrator. Go to: http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/mailman/admin/your-mailing-list. To be able to log successfully, you need your special mailing-list administration password. For information on this password, see I cannot access the admin interface for the mailing-lists.

1. Log into the administrative interface of your list
2. Go to privacy options
3. Go to the sender filter
4. Find the Should messages from non-members, which are automatically discarded, be forwarded to the list moderator? line and answer No.
5. Find the Action to take for postings from non-members for which no explicit action is defined line and answer Discard.
6. Save your changes

How can I make my mailing-lists automatically accept mails from some domains ?

To do this, you need to be the mailing-list administrator. Go to: http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/mailman/admin/your-mailing-list. To be able to log successfully, you need your special mailing-list administration password. For information on this password, see I cannot access the admin interface for the mailing-lists.

1. Log into the administrative interface of your list
2. Go to privacy options
3. Go to the sender filter
4. Find the List of non-member addresses whose postings should be automatically accepted line and add something like (example from the default settings)

   ^.*@users.gforge.inria.fr
   ^.*@inria.fr
   ^.*@irisa.fr
   ^.*@inrialpes.fr
   ^.*@loria.fr
   ^.*@sophia.inria.fr
   

5. Save your changes

How to name mailing-lists on INRIA Gforge?

On INRIA Gforge, each mailing-list name is of the form :

• <project_name>-suffixname@lists.gforge.inria.fr

To know what kind of suffixname is allowed, see this FAQ entry

If you need to add a member to the list that is already registered on INRIA Gforge, you can use the address <userlogin>@users.gforge.inria.fr.
This will refer automatically to the email address the user has given when registered on INRIA Gforge.

About web hosting for projects

How can I modify the web hosted pages for my project?

The web hosted pages for a projet on InriaGforge are located under host scm.gforge.inria.fr, and directory /home/groups/<project_name>/htdocs/.

By default, a index.php file is created for each project when the project has been registrated on the InriaGforge. As you can not access to the server scm.gforge.inria.fr directly through ssh, you must use the commands : sftp, scp, or rsync.

To list the files, you can use sftp:

$ sftp <yourlogin>@scm.gforge.inria.fr:/home/groups/<project_name>/htdocs/
sftp> ls
sftp> exit

In order to modify the web hosted pages, you can use rsync to retrieve the files already hosted at scm.gforge.inria.fr:/home/groups/<project_name>/htdocs/ :

$ rsync -avz <yourlogin>@scm.gforge.inria.fr:/home/groups/<project_name>/htdocs/ <localpath>

Modify the files locally on your machine, then send back the modified pages to scm.gforge.inria.fr:/home/groups/<project_name>/htdocs/ :

$ rsync -av <localpath>/ <yourlogin>@scm.gforge.inria.fr:/home/groups/<project_name>/htdocs

$ sftp <yourlogin>@scm.gforge.inria.fr:/home/groups/<project_name>/htdocs/
sftp> ls
sftp> chmod o+r filestobemodified
sftp> exit

You may check also this FAQ entry explaining why the owner of the files on your site must be to nobody_<project_name>

Can I have access to the access statistics of my project's webspace ?

Yes. You can find an access log file under /home/groups/<project_name>/log and a HTML file containing information generated by awstats under /home/groups/<project_name>/htdocs/log/. You can visualize the generated statistics using the URL :

• http://<project_name>.gforge.inria.fr/log/

• http://<project_name>.gforge.inria.fr/log/<year>/

Can I implement access control for my project's webspace ?

Yes. Apache honors the .htaccess files that you place in the file hierarchy of your projects (files under /home/groups/<project_name>/htdocs/). You can therefore implement access protection using .htpasswd. Please refer to the apache documentation to implement this.

Can I use php on my project's webspace ?

Yes. We have enabled php for project's webspace. Nevertheless, the primary reason php is installed on the webserver is to support the web interface of InriaGforge. Therefore, php.ini and the php version installed are configured to match InriaGforge's needs. If a security warning imposes changes on the configuration, we will act without notice to project admins. If the change is the result of a planned upgrade, project admins will receive advance notice so that they can plan for the upgrade.

Who is the user nobody_<project_name> and why is he the owner of the files of my site?

To secure the server, all php scripts used by a project are run with suPhp, which runs the scripts as the owner of the php file. To ensure a badly written php script does not compromise to much data, a regular script changes the owner of each php file to nobody_<project_name> automatically. Therefore, if your php script is insecure, an attacker would not gain access to the source code repository nor to data of other projects. Nevertheless, you must be carefull to allow further modifications to your script by giving write access to php files to the group:

$ sftp <yourlogin>@scm.gforge.inria.fr:/home/groups/<project_name>/htdocs/
sftp> cd path_where_phpfile_installed
sftp> chmod g+w myfile.php
sftp> exit

Some projects have all their files owned by nobody_<project_name>. This is the result of a buggy version of the regular script that changes the owner of .php files. Please contact the site administrators to have this corrected if you need to change the files and you don't have the correct access rights to do this.

Can you create a database backend for my project's webspace ?

No. The database server on InriaGforge has for only purpose to host InriaGforge's data. If you need a database backend for your project's webspace, please use other ressources.

How to redirect to another existing site ?

Change the home page (file index.php) hosted by gforge. Put the following HTML code between HEAD tags : <meta HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" content="0; url=http://myotherserver/myproject">

About the Wiki plugin

How to activate the Wiki plugin for my project

A Wiki plugin is available for projects hosted on INRIA Forge and it is based on MediaWiki.
By default this plugin is not activated at the creation of a project.

To activate this plugin, you need to do the following as project's admin :

• Go to the Admin tab
• Click on Tools sub-tab
• Select Use MediaWiki Plugin box within the Active Tools box
• Click on the Update button located at the bottom
• Return to the Summary tab
• Then you will notice a Mediawiki tab.

The Wiki plugin after migration to FusionForge 5.1

Due to security and support issues, PhpWiki - the former wiki plugin used by the INRIA Forge - has been removed since the migration. It has been replaced by MediaWiki.

For users who had a wiki project, a read-only version of previous Forge has been set up to ease migrations at http://snapshot.gforge.inria.fr. It will be available during 6 months starting from March 2012.

About the docs area

I can not submit new documentation in my docs area

This happens if you try to upload a large documentation file. Unfortunatly, the exact file size limit is unknown and depends on the content of the file itself. Furthermore, no error message is displayed to explain that the submission failed because the file is too big.

To workaround this problem, you can upload your documentation to your web area and then fill in the OR specify an outside URL where the file will be referenced : field in the documentation submission form to point to that uploaded file with something like: http://yourproject.gforge.inria.fr/yourfile.ps

This workaround suffers from the fact that the uploaded documentation file will be publicly accessible to all, even for private projects, because it will be served by the web server with no access control.

How can I delete a document file uploaded in the docs area ?

To delete a document file uploaded in the docs area (see "Docs" tab):

• Click on "Admin" link at the top left of the page
• Select either the document if it appears or the document group onto which the document has been added
• Once the document as been selected, you are shown a page given information about that uploaded document : its name, its description, its status, ...
• Click on the link "Permanently delete this document" located at the bottom of the page.

If you see no "Admin" link, your role on the project does not allow you to delete a document. So contact a member of your project who is "Admin" to do that or to modify your role to be allowed to. For more information about the roles, see this FAQ entry.

XX does not work

When you create a new project, when you upload a new ssh key, when you create a new mailing-list, you might notice that the results of these operations are not immediate. Even after a new project has been created, browsing the git or subversion repository and accessing the web space are not immediate. Many operations (the above list is not exhaustive) can take up to 24hrs to complete. This happens because the server records operations and only periodically performs them.

If you are really in a hurry, you can send an email to help.et.gforge<AT>inria.fr to ask for a special server update. Otherwise, we ask you to be patient and wait for the server to complete these tasks on its own which will improve its reliability.

How can a tracker/forum send mail to a mailing list ?

You might want a tracker or a forum to send mails to a mailing list, for example so that any new bug submission is announced in the developper mailing list.

First you need to be a member whom role allows to administrate the tracker or the forum. Then you can access to the "Admin" page relative to the tracker, or forum. Once on the "Admin" page :

• For tracker, you need to :
  • click to the "Update preferences"
  • then fill the "Send email on new submission to address" field with the relevant list address. If you want to use a list created via InriaGforge, see how to name the list FAQ entry.
• For forum, you need to :
  • click on the forum name of interest
  • fill the "Email All Posts To" field with the relevant list address. If you want to use a list created via InriaGforge, see how to name the list FAQ entry.

The mails coming from the tracker or the forum are set such as the sender is :

• For a tracker : projectname-trackername@gforge.inria.fr
• For a forum : projectname-forumname@gforge.inria.fr

The list manager may complain that the message coming from a tracker or forum was not an explicit destination and may reject it. To solve this, you have to modifiy the mailing list configuration. The option you are looking for appears under Privacy Options/Recipient filters. You should set require_explicit_destination to no.

How are the statistics of the front page computed ?

The front page presents InriaGforge Statistics to all the visitors. On top of that, on the default page of each project displays an Activity Percentile for the project. These statistics don't always seem right. Here is a list of reasons they might not show expected numbers.

1. The number of hosted projects seems low: this is because only public project are counted here. Better stats are available from InriaGforge's admins.
2. There seems to be no correlation between the box displaying the number of downloads and the one displaying the most active projects. This is because the first box is cumulative, whereas the second only takes into account the previous week.
3. There seems to be no relation between the activity of a project and the percentile displayed on InriaGforge. This is because the percentile is computed from incomplete information. In particular, projects using a subversion repository don't have their repository activity taken into account whereas projects using a cvs repository do. This should change during the next upgrade cycle for the software behind InriaGforge, planned in 2006. To be a bit more precise, activity percentile is computed from
   1. Activity in the project's forums
   2. Activity on the project's task manager
   3. Activity on the project's bug, tech support and patch trackers
   4. Number of downloads
   5. Number of released files
   6. Activity in the cvs repository
   Beware that the percentile reflects only the rank of the project regarding its activity computed as explained above. If N projects have an activity (i.e. there are downloads, releases or activity in forums, etc.), then the "most active" project have an activity of 100%, the second project has (100-(1/N))%, the third has (100-(2/N))%, etc. In general project with rank M has an activity percentile of (100-(M-1)/N)%. Only public projects are displayed in the list active projects.

How can I use git/subversion on windows with ssh authentification ?

If you have followed ths configuration steps described in the webpage mentionned in How do I setup ssh (even on windows ?), you can use either a graphical or a shell-based utility to access your git/svn repository.

To use the graphical utility, follow the steps described in our tortoise page.

To use svn from a shell, you can follow these steps:

• Download a binary version of subversion from there or, if it does not work, from there. If you do not have administrator privileges on your machine, ask your system administrator to do it for you.
• Start the pageant.exe utility which comes with putty. This program installs a small icon (a computer screen with a hat) in your panel notification area located at the bottom right of your screen. Right click on this icon and select the Add key item. In the file selection dialog which pops up, select the private key file you saved during the ssh configuration as described in How do I setup ssh (even on windows ?).
• Open a terminal, go to the directory you want to store your files in. Set the SVN_SSH environment variable with this command: set SVN_SSH=plink.exe and then run this subversion command: svn co svn+ssh://<your_username>@scm.gforge.inria.fr:/svn/<your_project_name>

How to configure Eclipse to work with INRIA Gforge?

To manage your ssh connection with Eclipse, see HowTo configure Eclipse.

How to name forums, mailing-lists on INRIA Gforge?

Because of predefined reserved names on gforge architecture, when naming your forums or mailing-lists, please AVOID theses words :

• For Forums:
  • forum
• For Mailing-lists:
  • projectname-admin
  • projectname-bounces
  • projectname-request
  • projectname-subscribe
  • projectname-confirm
  • projectname-join
  • projectname-leave
  • projectname-owner
  • projectname-unsubscribe
  • projectname-post

How to change the license for a project ?

Resources of a public project (mainly the code) are supposed to be distributed under a legally valid license.
"None" is not applicable choice in this case.

To change the project license, you need to (requires project admin privileges) :

• Go to the "Admin" tab
• Click on "Edit" link from Trove Categorization
• Search for the "License" paragraph.
• Choose between the available licenses in the selectable menu.
• Then click on the button "update all category changes".

How to connect Hudson (continuous integration server) to INRIAGForge ?

How to notify my Hudson server of commits on my Subversion repository?

Just edit the post-commit hook

/svnroot/<project>/hooks/post-commit

/usr/bin/wget -o /dev/null http://<hudson-url>/job/<job-name>/build

/usr/bin/wget -o/dev/null -username=<bot-name> -password=<bot-pwd> -no-check-certificate -auth-no-challenge https://<hudson-url>/job/<job-name>/build

Sources:

• http://wiki.hudson-ci.org/display/HUDSON/Building+a+software+project
• http://wiki.hudson-ci.org/display/HUDSON/Authenticating+scripted+clients

How to transmit parameters to my job ?

For builds configured, the URL is slightly different:

https://<hudson-url>/job/<job-name>/buildWithParameters?<param1><value1>=\&=<param2><value2\>\&...

How to avoid project building systematically, if commit doesn't concern my job ?

It is possible to run a polling on SCM rather than forcing the build, so the project will be built only if significant changes to the workspace have occurred. For that you must replace the end of the usual URL ("build") by "polling". We therefore get:

http://<hudson-url>/job/<job-name>/polling

Many jobs are impacted by my commits, do I list them all in the post-commit hook ?

When multiple jobs are to be built after a commit, there is an alternative to the complete reporting of all jobs. In the Subversion plugin, there is a mechanism to notify a change in the repository without triggering the build or polling a specific job. Hudson then automatically determines the jobs impacted. This solution is simpler but also more accurate because Hudson is based on the path of files modified in the changeset to identify jobs that need to be built. To do this, add this to the post-commit hook:

   REPOS="$1"
   REV="$2"
   UUID=`svnlook uuid $REPOS`
   /usr/bin/wget \
     --header "Content-Type:text/plain;charset=UTF-8" \
     --post-data "`svnlook changed --revision $REV $REPOS`" \
     --output-document "-" \
   https://<hudson-url>/subversion/${UUID}/notifyCommit?rev=$REV

How to build the revision that corresponds to the notification (and thus build absolutely all revisions)?

It is possible to force Hudson to build the revision that triggered the hook, but the job requires a setup that goes beyond just tick a box as is the case for other methods of notification. It is necessary to create a job and set to pass the revision number as parameter. It then uses two things:

• SVN plugin to retrieve a particular version if you suffix the URL of the repository by @ddddd... (d=digit 0-9)
• Hudson overrides settings build in all fields of the configuration. They just need to be written like this ${PARAM}

We must therefore define a parameter we call such REVISION. By default, it will be empty, it will mean "HEAD", otherwise it will contain @ddddd.

We write the URL of the repository as well: https://scm.gforge.inria.fr/svn/<project>/<path>${REVISION}

Through the mechanism of substitutes results, we will have a URL understood by reference to the plugin and the good review:

https://scm.gforge.inria.fr/svn/<project>/<path>@dddd 

Then, you should define the field "local directory module" and repeat the last file path (this avoids the issue of our workspace is suffixed with "${REVISION}" not substituted ! )

Finally, it should trigger a build set from the post-commit hook (see the section devoted to this subject). The URL should look like this:

https://<hudson-url>/job/<job-name>/buildWithParameters?REVISION=$40%rev

Leaving REVISION undefined, the variable ${REVISION} will be replace with a blank (default value set in the project), and the URL of the repository will not be suffixed with @dddd and so Subversion will grab the last revision date.

I get the error 405: Method Not Allowed

Do not forget to give permission Job/Build for the user running the build in the security matrix (defined in https://<hudson-url>/configure ).
Source: http://wiki.hudson-ci.org/display/HUDSON/Subversion+Plugin
This can also happen if you try to pass parameters to build using the wrong URL. See the section on parameterized builds.

About Spam and InriaGforge

How can I make my mailing-lists refuse postings from non-subscribers ?

See this FAQ entry.

How can I prevent anonymous users from inserting spam in a tracker or a forum ?

See this FAQ entry.

How can I delete a spammed (or unwanted) message from a forum ?

To delete spammed message or unwanted message from a forum, first you need to be a member whom role allows to administrate the forum. If so, follow these steps:

• From the "Forums" tab, select the forum where the unwanted message has been added
• Select the topic message to be deleted
• Click on the link which name is the subject message to be deleted (below the line beginning with "By:")
• You will get a page where the content of the message is in a box which title is "Message" followed by a number : the message identifier
• Note this identifier
• Click on the "Delete" link at the top of this page
• Enter the identifier and click on the "Delete" button

Older topics

Depending on feedback from our users, default settings for newly created projects evolve over time. This section of the FAQ holds a list of topics usefull to project admins who requested creation of their project before some of the settings evolved. You can still discover usefull information in this section, so it is kept as a reference.

How to avoid having to moderate messages generated by commits ?

By default, mailing lists request moderation for messages sent using e-mail adresses that are not subscribed to the list. At the same time, message generated by cvs or svn during commit or import operations are sent using an adress in the form <yourlogin>@users.gforge.inria.fr. To avoid to have to moderate these messages, it is possible to whitelist all messages sent from the users.gforge.inria.fr domain. To do this, you need to :

1. Log into the administrative interface of your list
2. Go to privacy options
3. Go to the sender filter
4. Add

   ^.*@users.gforge.inria.fr

   to the list of non-member addresses whose postings should be automatically accepted
5. Save your changes