Git (JetBrains)

This page contains description of the fields and options available when setting up VCS roots using the Git Version Control System. The VCS is visible as "Git (JetBrains)" in VCS chooser to eliminate confusion with third-party plugin if third-party plugin is installed and as "Git" otherwise.

General Settings

Option	Description
Fetch URL	The URL of the remote Git repository.
Push URL	The URL of the target remote Git repository.
Ref name	The name of the git ref (e.g. "master", "refs/tags/v5.1"), or left this field blank to use "master" branch.
Clone repository to	The path to a directory on TeamCity server where a bare repository should be created. Leave it blank to use default path.
User Name Style	Changing user name style will affect only newly collected changes. Old changes will continue to be stored with the style that was active at the time of collecting changes.
Submodules	Select whether you want to ignore the submodules, or treat them as a part of the source tree.
Username for tags	Custom username used for labeling

Starting with TeamCity 7.1 you can configure the branches you want to monitor in a build configurations right in the VCS root:

Branch Specification

In this area list all the branches you want to be monitored for changes. The syntax is similar to checkout rules: +|-:branch_name, where branch_name is specific to the VCS e.g. refs/heads/ in Git (with optional * placeholder). Note that only one asterisk is allowed, and each rule has to start with a new line.

If the branch matches a line without patterns, the line is used.
If the branch matches several lines with patterns, the best matching line is used.
If there are several lines with equal matching, the one below takes precedence. Everything that is matched by the wildcard will be shown as a branch name in TeamCity interface. For example, +:refs/heads/* will match refs/heads/feature1 branch but in TeamCity interface you'll see feature1 only as a branch name. The short name of the branch is determined as:
if the line contains no brackets, then full line is used, if there are no patterns or part of line starting with the first pattern-matched character to the last pattern-matched character.
if the line contains brackets, then part of the line within brackets is used. When branches are specified here, and if your build configuration has VCS trigger and a change is found in some branch, TeamCity will trigger a build in this branch.

Branch Name

Use this field to define a so-called default branch. Default branch is used in situations when branch name was not specified. For example, if someone clicks on a Run button TeamCity will create build in default branch. Note that parameter references are allowed in branch specification as well.

The following protocols are supported for the server-side VCS Checkout Mode:

ssh: (e.g. ssh://git.somwhere.org/repos/test.git, ssh://git@git.somwhereElse.org/repos/test.git, scp-like syntax: git@git.somwhere.org:repos/test.git)
Scp-like syntax requires a colon after hostname, while usual ssh url does not. This is a common source of errors.
git: (e.g. git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/git/git.git)
http: (e.g. http://git.somewhere.org/projects/test.git)
file: (e.g. file:///c:/projects/myproject/.git)
When you run TeamCity as a Windows service it cannot access a mapped network drives and repositories located on them.

Authentication Settings

Authentication Method	Description
Anonymous	Select this option to clone a repository with anonymous read access.
Default Private Key	Valid only for SSH protocol and applicable to both fetch and push urls. Uses mapping specified in `<USER_HOME>\.ssh\config` if that file exists. The key should be present on the server and also on the agent if agent-side checkout is used. Specify a valid username if there is no username in the clone URL. The username specified here overrides username from the URL.
Password	Specify username and password to be used to clone the repository. (Until TeamCity 7.1.2 this is supported only for server-side checkout, since TeamCity 7.1.2 it is supported also for agent-side checkout if git 1.7.3+ client is installed on the agent. See TW-18711.)
Private Key	Valid only for SSH protocol and applicable to both fetch and push urls. (Supported only for server-side checkout, see TW-18449). When this method is used you have to specify an absolute path to private key in Private Key Path field. A private key must be in OpenSSH format.

Server Settings

Option	Description
Convert line-endings to CRLF	Convert line-endings of all text files to CRLF (works as setting `core.autocrlf=true` in a repository config). When not selected, no line-endings conversion performed (works as setting `core.autocrlf=false`). Affects a server-side checkout only. A change to this property causes a clean checkout. Introduced in TeamCity 7.1.2.

Agent Settings

Please note that agent-side checkout has limited support for SSH. The only supported authentication method is "Default Private Key". Also you should set "StrictHostKeyChecking" to "no" in <USER_HOME>\.ssh\config, or add keys of remote hosts to the Known-Hosts database manually. If you plan to use VCS Checkout Mode, you need to have Git 1.6.4+ installed on the agents.

Option	Description
Path to git	Provide path to a git executable to be used on agent. When set to `%\env.TEAMCITY_GIT_PATH%` - will use automatically detected git, see agentGitPath for details
Clean Policy/Clean Files Policy	Specify here when "git clean" command is run on agent, and which files should be removed.

Git executable on the agent

Path to git executable can be configured in the agent properties by setting the value of an environment variable TEAMCITY_GIT_PATH.

If path to git is not configured, git-plugin tries to detect installed git on the start of the agent. It first tries to run git at following locations:

for windows - try to run git.exe, at:
- C:\Program Files\Git\bin
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\bin
- C:\cygwin\bin
for *nix - try to run git, at:
- /usr/local/bin
- /usr/bin
- /opt/local/bin
- /opt/bin

If git wasn't found at any of these locations, try to run git accessible from the $PATH.

If compatible git (1.6.4+) is found - it is reported in the TEAMCITY_GIT_PATH environment variable. This variable can be used in Path to git field in VCS root settings. As a result, configuration with such a VCS root will run only on agents where git was detected or specified in agent properties.

Internal Properties

For Git VCS it is possible to configure the following Configuring TeamCity Server Startup Properties:

Property	Default	Description
teamcity.git.idle.timeout.seconds	600	Idle timeout for communication with remote repository. If no data were sent or received during this timeout - plugin throws a timeout error
teamcity.git.fetch.timeout	600	Fetch process idle timeout. Fetch process reports what it is doing in the stdout and is killed if there is no output during this timeout.
teamcity.git.fetch.separate.process	true	Should TeamCity run git fetch in a separate process
teamcity.git.fetch.process.max.memory	512M	Value of JVM -Xmx parameter for separate fetch process
teamcity.server.git.gc.enabled	false	Whether TeamCity should run `git gc` during server cleanup (native git is used)
teamcity.server.git.executable.path	git	Path to native git executable on the server
teamcity.server.git.gc.quota.minutes	60	Maximum amount of time to run `git gc`
teamcity.git.stream.file.threshold.mb	128	Threshold in megabytes after which JGit uses streams to inflate objects. Increase it if you have big binary files in the repository and see symptoms described in TW-14947
teamcity.git.mirror.expiration.timeout.days	7	Number of days after which unused clone of repository will be removed from the server machine. Repository considered unused, if there were no TeamCity operations on this repository, like checking for changes or getting current version. These operations are quite frequent, so 7 days is reasonable high value.
teamcity.git.commit.debug.info	false	Log additional debug info on each found commit
teamcity.git.includeTagsInCurrentState	false	Include tags in the set of branches reported by git-plugin
teamcity.git.sshProxyType		Type of ssh proxy, supported values: http, socks4, socks5 (since 7.1.5)
teamcity.git.sshProxyHost		Ssh proxy host (since 7.1.5)
teamcity.git.sshProxyPort		Ssh proxy port (since 7.1.5)

Build Agent Configuration for Git:

Property	Default	Description
teamcity.git.use.native.ssh	false	When checkout on agent: whether TeamCity should use native SSH implementation.
teamcity.git.use.local.mirrors	false	When checkout on agent: whether TeamCity should clone to local agent mirror first and then clone to working directory from this local mirror. This option speed-ups clean checkout, because only build working directory is cleaned. Also if single root is used in several build configurations clone will be faster.
teamcity.git.use.shallow.clone	false	When checkout on agent: run fetch with option '--depth=1' if agent uses local mirrors. This property can be set either in agent properties or as an parameter in build configuration.

Limitations

When using checkout on agent, limited subset of checkout rules is supported, because Git cannot clone a subdirectory of repository. You can only map whole repository to a specific directory using following checkout rule +:.=>subdir. The rest checkout rules are not supported.

Known Issues

Tagging is not supported over HTTP protocol
java.lang.OutOfMemoryError while fetch repository. Usually happens when there are big files in repository. By default TeamCity runs fetch in a separate process, to run fetch in the server process set Configuring TeamCity Server Startup Properties teamcity.git.fetch.separate.process to false.
Teamcity ran as a Windows service cannot access a network mapped drives, so you cannot work with git repositories located on such drives. To make this work run TeamCity using teamcity-server.bat.
checkout on agent using ssh protocol can be slow due to java SSH implementation (see TW-14598 for details). To use native SSH implementation set teamcity.git.use.native.ssh to true.
inflation using streams in JGit prevents OutOfMemoryError but can be time consuming (see related thread at jgit-dev for details and TW-14947 issue related to the problem). If you meet conditions similar to described in the issue - try to increase teamcity.git.stream.file.threshold.mb. Additionally it is recommended to increase overall amount of memory dedicated for TeamCity to prevent OutOfMemoryError.

Development Links

Git support is implemented as an open-source plugin. For development links refer to the Git.

Last modified: 20 April 2023