Diffusion User Guide

Phabricator User Documentation (Application User Guides)

Guide to Diffusion, the Phabricator application for hosting and browsing repositories.

Overview

Diffusion allows you to create repositories so that you can browse them from the web and interact with them from other applications.

Diffusion can host repositories locally, or observe existing remote repositories which are hosted elsewhere (for example, on GitHub, Bitbucket, or other existing hosting). Both types of repositories can be browsed and interacted with, but hosted repositories support some additional triggers and access controls which are not available for observed repositories.

Diffusion is integrated with the other tools in the Phabricator suite. For instance:

• when you commit Differential revisions to a tracked repository, they are automatically updated and linked to the corresponding commits;
• you can add Herald rules to notify you about commits that match certain rules;
• for hosted repositories, Herald can enforce granular access control rules;
• in all the tools, commit names are automatically linked.

The remainder of this document walks through creating, configuring, and managing repositories.

Adding Repositories

Repository administration is accomplished through Diffusion. You can use the web interface in Diffusion to observe an external repository or create a new hosted repository.

• For hosted repositories, make sure you go through the setup instructions in Diffusion User Guide: Repository Hosting first.
• For all repositories, you'll need to be running the daemons. If you have not set them up yet, see Managing Daemons with phd.

By default, you must be an administrator to create a new repository. You can change this in the application settings.

Managing Repositories

Diffusion repositories have an array of configurable options and behaviors. For details on the available options and guidance on managing and administrating repositories, see Diffusion User Guide: Managing Repositories.

Repositories can also be managed via the API. For an overview on using the API to create and edit repositories, see Diffusion User Guide: Repositories API.

Repository Clustering

Phabricator repository hosts can be set up in a cluster configuration so you can lose hosts with minimal downtime and data loss. This is an advanced feature which most installs do not need to pursue.

To get started with clustering, see Clustering Introduction. For details on repository clustering, see Cluster: Repositories.

Next Steps

Continue by:

• learning how to creating a symbol index at Diffusion User Guide: Symbol Indexes; or
• setting up repository hosting with Diffusion User Guide: Repository Hosting; or
• managing repository hooks with Diffusion User Guide: Commit Hooks; or
• understanding daemons in more detail with Managing Daemons with phd.

If you're having trouble getting things working, these topic guides may be helpful:

• get details about automatically taking actions in response to commits in Diffusion User Guide: Permanent Refs; or
• understand how Phabricator updates repositories with Diffusion User Guide: Repository Updates; or
• fix issues with repository imports with Troubleshooting Repository Imports.