git:// — anonymous, unauthenticated, unencrypted Git clones.
git daemon serves the Git pack transfer protocol on 9418, the transport behind git:// URLs; the registration is Linus Torvalds' own, from 2005. It is the fastest way to publish read-only repositories because it does no authentication and no encryption at all, and by default it will only export repositories explicitly marked with git-daemon-export-ok. GitHub disabled git:// entirely in 2022 because an unauthenticated transport gives a network attacker the ability to alter the code you clone.
Expose with care
Read-only public mirrors are the design intent, but there is no integrity protection on the wire — prefer HTTPS or SSH, and never enable the receive-pack (push) service, which would let anyone write to your repositories.
$ git -c protocol.version=1 ls-remote git://TARGET/repo.gitSeen this on your network? Beige Box scans your Wi-Fi and shows every open port on every device — and its Ports tool links straight back here.
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