Bazaar does not require a specialised server because it operates over HTTP, FTP or SFTP. There is an optional smart server that can be invoked over SSH, from inetd, or in a dedicated mode.
We describe HTTP, FTP, SFTP and HTTP-WebDAV as "dumb" servers because they do not offer any assistance to Bazaar. If you make a Bazaar repository available over any of these protocols, Bazaar will allow you to read it remotely. Just enter the URL to the branch in the Bazaar command you are running.:
bzr log http://bazaar-vcs.org/bzr/bzr.dev
Bazaar supports writing over FTP, SFTP and via a plugin over HTTP-WebDAV.
In development
The high performance server is currently in development. The version of Bazaar that accompanies this documentation is able to use the servers underlying protocol as a dumb server. This is the first stage high performance server functionality to be delivered.
The current high performance server provides read only access by default for security. To enable read-write access, run it with --allow-writes. When using the SSH access method, bzr automatically runs with with the --allow-writes option.
It can be configured to run in three different ways:
Using Bazaar over SSH requires no special configuration on the server:
BZR_REMOTE_PATH=~/bin/bzr bzr log bzr+ssh://host/path/to/branch
The BZR_REMOTE_PATH environment variable adjusts how bzr will be invoked on the remote system. By default, just bzr will be invoked, which requires the bzr executable to be on the default search path.
The bzr+ssh:// URL scheme only supports absolute paths from the root of the filesystem. Future versions are expected to support ~ in the same way as sftp:// URLs.
This example shows how to run bzr with a dedicated user bzruser for a shared repository in /srv/bzr/repo which has a branch at /srv/bzr/repo/branchname
Running a Bazaar server from inetd requires an inetd.conf entry:
1234 stream tcp nowait bzruser /usr/bin/bzr serve --inet --directory=/srv/bzr/repo
When running client commands, the URL you supply is a bzr:// URL relative to the --directory option given in inetd.conf:
bzr log bzr://host:1234/branchname
This mode has the same path and URL behaviour as the inetd mode. To run as a specific, you should use su or login as that user. This example runs bzr serve on localhost port 1234.
server:
bzr serve --port=localhost:1234 --directory=/srv/bzr/repo
client:
bzr log bzr://host:1234/branchname