The Git plugin is useful if you would like to track changes to your bcfg2 repository using a Git backend. It enables you to get revision information out of your repository for reporting purposes. Once the plugin is enabled, every time a client checks in, it will include the current repository revision in the reports/statistics.
Additionally, if the GitPython library is installed, the Git plugin exposes an additional XML-RPC method call, Git.Update. With no arguments, Git.Update updates the working copy to the latest version in the remote tracking branch. If the current working copy doesn’t have a remote tracking branch, then nothing is done.
Git.Update can also be given a single argument, the name of a git tree-ish (branch, tag, ref, commit, etc.) to check out. When this is done, the new working is updated as well.
For example:
bcfg2-admin xcmd Git.Update master
This checks out the master branch and updates it to the latest data from the remote master (if applicable). If you then run:
bcfg2-admin xcmd Git.Update
This updates to the latest remote data without changing branches. Then:
bcfg2-admin xcmd Git.Update dd0bb776c
This checks out the specified commit. Subsequently:
bcfg2-admin xcmd Git.Update
This does nothing, because the working copy is now in “detached HEAD” state, and there can be no remote tracking branch to update from.
To put it another way, once you tell Git.Update which tree-ish to checkout, it stays on that tree-ish until you tell it otherwise.
To enable the Git plugin, simply add it to your plugins line in /etc/bcfg2.conf:
[server]
plugins = Bundler,Cfg,Metadata,...,Git