Many of Gitolite's advanced features and configuration options are managed by editing the rc file. This is a file named .gitolite.rc, which is present in the home directory of the Gitolite hosting user.

The file is liberally commented and it is generally easy to see where things go.

The bulk of the file is within a top-level definition that looks as follows:

%RC = (
...several variables defined...
)

If you're familiar with Perl, you might realize that this is a Perl hash, but it is not necessary to know Perl in order to edit this file.

The file has several simple variables defined, for example:

    UMASK                           =>  0077,

When the Gitolite documentation (or this book) tells you to edit a variable in the rc file, it's best to look for such a variable first—most of the important ones are already in the file but may be commented out, waiting to be un-commented and the value edited as needed.

One of the variables within the %RC block is a list variable...