Installing Repo

Repo is a tool built on top of Git. Repo helps manage many Git repositories, does the uploads to revision control systems, and automates parts of the development workflow. To familarize various repo commands please see  RepoCommandReference

Repo comes in two parts:  One is a launcher script for installing, and it communicates with the second part, the full Repo tool included in a source code checkout. To install Repo:

  1. Make sure that you have a bin/ directory in your home directory and that it's included in your path:

    mkdir ~/bin PATH=~/bin:$PATH

  2. Download the Repo Launcher and ensure that it's executable:

    curl https://storage.googleapis.com/git-repo-downloads/repo > ~/bin/repo chmod a+x ~/bin/repo

Initializing a Repo client

After installing the Repo Launcher, set up your client to access the source code repository.

  1. Create an empty directory to hold your working files.

    mkdir WORKING_DIRECTORY 
cd WORKING_DIRECTORY



  2. Configure Git with your name and email address. The name that you provide here shows up in attributions for your code submissions.

    git config --global user.name "Your Name" 
git config --global user.email "you@example.com"



  3. Run repo init to get the latest version of Repo with its most recent bug fixes. You must specify a URL for the manifest.

    repo init -u https://code.rdkcentral.com/r/manifests -m <manifestfile.xml> –b <branch name>

    example : repo init -u https://code.rdkcentral.com/r/manifests -m rdkv-raspberrypi.xml –b morty

  • Cloning the code before login once to code.rdkcentral.com, user would get the Authentication error, even though the account is in good standing and has all the required access.
  • Please login to code.rdkcentral.com before attempting to clone.

To check out a branch other than master, specify it with -b. For a list of branches, 

A successful initialization ends with a message stating that Repo is initialized in your working directory. Your client directory should now contain a .repo directory where files such as the manifest are kept.

Downloading the RDK Source tree

To download the RDK source tree to your working directory from the repositories as specified in the default manifest, run:

repo sync

The RDK source files are located in your working directory under their project names. 

Using authentication

By default, access to the RDK source code is anonymous and for restricted content user need to set up credential in .netrc file.

The first step is to create a password with the key generator tool. The second step is to force authenticated access by using the manifest URI  https://code.rdkcentral.com/r/manifests. 

Notice how the /r/ directory prefix triggers mandatory authentication. You can convert an existing client to use mandatory authentication with the following command:

repo init -u https://code.rdkcentral.com/r/manifests

Troubleshooting Network issues

When downloading from behind a proxy (which is common in some corporate environments), you might need to to explicitly specify the proxy that is then used by Repo:

export HTTP_PROXY=http://<proxy_user_id>:<proxy_password>@<proxy_server>:<proxy_port> 
export HTTPS_PROXY=http://<proxy_user_id>:<proxy_password>@<proxy_server>:<proxy_port>




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7 Comments

  1. Unknown User (akzare)

    Jan 08, 2021

    I can successfully sign in via web browser. But, as I try to clone the code this error happens:


    $ repo init -u https://code.rdkcentral.com/r/manifests -m rdkv-raspberrypi.xml
Downloading Repo source from https://gerrit.googlesource.com/git-repo
remote: Counting objects: 2, done
remote: Finding sources: 100% (106/106)
remote: Total 106 (delta 60), reused 106 (delta 60)
Receiving objects: 100% (106/106), 119.92 KiB | 3.43 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (60/60), completed with 31 local objects.
Downloading manifest from https://code.rdkcentral.com/r/manifests
Username for 'https://code.rdkcentral.com': akzare
Password for 'https://akzare@code.rdkcentral.com': 
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/.repo/repo/main.py", line 630, in <module>
_Main(sys.argv[1:])
File "/home/.repo/repo/main.py", line 604, in _Main
result = run()
File "/home/.repo/repo/main.py", line 597, in <lambda>
run = lambda: repo._Run(name, gopts, argv) or 0
File "/home/.repo/repo/main.py", line 266, in _Run
result = cmd.Execute(copts, cargs)
File "/home/.repo/repo/subcmds/init.py", line 531, in Execute
self._SyncManifest(opt)
File "/home/.repo/repo/subcmds/init.py", line 232, in _SyncManifest
default_branch = m.ResolveRemoteHead()
File "/home/.repo/repo/project.py", line 1926, in ResolveRemoteHead
output = self.bare_git.ls_remote('-q', '--symref', '--exit-code', name, 'HEAD')
File "/home/.repo/repo/project.py", line 3041, in runner
(self._project.name, name, p.stderr))
error.GitError: manifests ls-remote: fatal: remote error: access at least one ref not permitted



    This is also another issue:


    $ repo init -u https://code.rdkcentral.com/r/manifests -m rdkv-raspberrypi.xml –b morty
Usage: repo init [options]

main.py: error: init takes no arguments


    I have also another same issue which I posted here:

    https://github.com/psivasubramanian/rdkmanifest/issues/2

  2. Deepthi Suseelan

    Jan 13, 2021

    Unknown User (akzare)

    Repo init issue looks like access related. Can you please mail the details and error to support@rdkcentral.com

  3. Z-linjj

    Dec 19, 2021

    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "/media/jason/MySsdDisk/MySourceForge/RDK-V/.repo/repo/main.py", line 385, in <module>
        _Main(sys.argv[1:])
      File "/media/jason/MySsdDisk/MySourceForge/RDK-V/.repo/repo/main.py", line 365, in _Main
        result = repo._Run(argv) or 0
      File "/media/jason/MySsdDisk/MySourceForge/RDK-V/.repo/repo/main.py", line 121, in _Run
        copts, cargs = cmd.OptionParser.parse_args(argv)
      File "/media/jason/MySsdDisk/MySourceForge/RDK-V/.repo/repo/command.py", line 45, in OptionParser
        self._Options(self._optparse)
      File "/media/jason/MySsdDisk/MySourceForge/RDK-V/.repo/repo/subcmds/sync.py", line 126, in _Options
        self.jobs = self.manifest.default.sync_j
      File "/media/jason/MySsdDisk/MySourceForge/RDK-V/.repo/repo/manifest_xml.py", line 245, in default
        self._Load()
      File "/media/jason/MySsdDisk/MySourceForge/RDK-V/.repo/repo/manifest_xml.py", line 287, in _Load
        self.manifestProject.worktree))
      File "/media/jason/MySsdDisk/MySourceForge/RDK-V/.repo/repo/manifest_xml.py", line 302, in _ParseManifestXml
        root = xml.dom.minidom.parse(path)
      File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xml/dom/minidom.py", line 1918, in parse
        return expatbuilder.parse(file)
      File "/usr/lib/python2.7/xml/dom/expatbuilder.py", line 922, in parse
        fp = open(file, 'rb')
    IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/media/jason/MySsdDisk/MySourceForge/RDK-V/.repo/manifest.xml'

    1. Ganesh Sahu

      Dec 21, 2021

      can you please post the commands executed before this error?

  4. Z-linjj

    Dec 21, 2021

    i fixed this problem:

    because i forget used my system 'repo',  not used  rdk repo ;  this is the reason!

  5. shch20001

    Nov 19, 2022

    Whatever menifest or branch I tried to repo init, I got this error message


    $ repo init -u https://code.rdkcentral.com/r/manifests -m rdkb-extsrc.xml -b rdk-next
    Downloading Repo source from https://gerrit.googlesource.com/git-repo
    Username for 'https://code.rdkcentral.com': 
    Password for 'https://178150823@code.rdkcentral.com':

    manifests:
    fatal: remote error: manifests unavailable



  6. siiaceon bolton karl

    Sept 12, 2024

    how to resolve Unauthorized issue?


    $ repo init -u https://code.rdkcentral.com/r/manifests -m rdkv-raspberrypi.xml
    repo: reusing existing repo client checkout in D:\work\proj\research\RDK\code

    manifests:
    remote: Unauthorized
    fatal: Authentication failed for 'https://code.rdkcentral.com/r/manifests/'
    manifests: sleeping 4.0 seconds before retrying
    [31mfatal: cannot obtain manifest https://code.rdkcentral.com/r/manifests[m
    [31m================================================================================[m
    [31mRepo command failed: UpdateManifestError[m
    [31m   Unable to sync manifest rdkv-raspberrypi.xml[m

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