gitolite/doc/5-delegation.mkd

# delegating access control responsibilities

[Thanks to jeromeag for forcing me to think through this...]

### lots of repos, lots of users

Gitolite tries to make it easy to manage access to lots of users and repos,
exploiting commonalities wherever possible.  (The example under "simpler, more
powerful syntax" [here][ml] should give you an idea).  As you can see, it lets
you specify bits and pieces of the access control separately -- i.e., *all*
the access specs for a certain repo need not be together; they can be
scattered, which makes it easier to manage the sort of slice and dice needed
in that example.

[ml]: http://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite/blob/ml/update.mkd

But eventually the config file will become too big.  If you let only one
person have control, he could become a bottleneck.  If you give it to multiple
people, they might make mistakes or stomp on each others' work accidentally.

The best way is to divide up the config file and give parts of it to different
people.  Ideally, we would delegate authority for *groups* of repos, not
individual repos, otherwise it doesn't scale.

It would also be nice if we could specify what repos can be delegated to a
particular admin, and prevent him/her from specifying access control for any
other repos.  This would be a nice "security" feature.

### splitting up the config file into fragments

To start with, recall that gitolite allows you to specify **groups** (of users
or repos, same syntax).  So the basic idea is that the main config file
(`~/.gitolite/conf/gitolite.conf` by default) will specify some repo groups:

    # group your projects/repos however you want
    @webbrowser_repos           = firefox lynx
    @webserver_repos            = apache nginx
    @malware_repos              = conficker storm

    # any other config as usual, including access control lines for any of the
    # above projects or groups

Now just create these files (assuming default `$GL_ADMINDIR` location):

    ~/.gitolite/conf/fragments/webbrowser_repos.conf
    ~/.gitolite/conf/fragments/webserver_repos.conf
    ~/.gitolite/conf/fragments/malware_repos.conf

Within each of those files put in whatever access control rules you want for
the repos that are members of that group.  Notice that the basenames of the
files must be exactly the same as the name of the corresponding repo group in
the main config file.

For instance, `~/.gitolite/conf/fragments/webbrowser_repos.conf` would only
contain access control for firefox and lynx.  If it referenced any other repo
(say "storm") those lines would be ignored (and a warning message generated).

When you run the compile script (`src/gl-compile-conf`), the **net effect is
as if you appended the contents of all the "fragment" files, in alphabetical
order, to the bottom of the main file**.

(Except of course, while processing a fragment, it will ignore attempts to set
permissions for repos that are not members of the same-named "repo group").

And that's basically it, in the simplest usage.

["But WAIT, there's MORE!"][bwtm]

[bwtm]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Valenti#But_Wait.21_There.27s_More

### delegating ownership of fragments

Splitting up the file does help, but there's also that little security issue
-- anyone can make any change to any "fragment", unless you (once again) go
back to Unix permissions to keep them separate.

Fixing that requires using "push-to-admin".

The page on [push-to-admin][ptd] explains clearly how to set it up.  Unlike
gitosis, I refuse to make it the default because it's a support nightmare.
Don't get me wrong -- it's a great feature, and I use it myself, but the
learning curve is too steep to make it *required*.

[ptd]: http://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite/blob/pu/doc/4-push-to-admin.mkd

So, having setup push-to-admin, you add these lines to the main config file,
assuming Alice is in charge of all web browser development projects, Bob takes
care of web servers, and Mallory, as [tradition][abe] dictates, is in charge
of malware ;-)

[abe]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_and_Bob#List_of_characters

    # you probably added these two lines while setting up push-to-admin
    repo gitolite-admin
        RW+                     = sitaram
    # now add these 3 lines
        RW  webbrowser_repos    = alice
        RW  webserver_repos     = bob
        RW  malware_repos       = mallory

As you can see, for each repo group you want to delegate authority over,
there's a **branch** in the `gitolite-admin` repo with the same name.  Whoever
has write access to that branch, is allowed to define rules for repos in the
corresponding "repo group".

In other words, **we use gitolite's per-branch permissions to "enforce" the
separation between the delegated configs!**

Here's how to use this in practice:

  * Alice clones the `gitolite-admin` repo, creates (if not already created) and
    checks out a new branch called `webbrowser_repos`, and adds a file called
    `conf/fragments/webbrowser_repos.conf` in that branch

      * (the rest of the contents of that branch do not matter; she can keep
        all the other files or delete all of them -- it doesn't make any
        difference.  Only that one specific file is used).

  * she writes in this file any access control rules for the "firefox" and
    "lynx" repos.  She should not write access rules for any other project --
    they will be ignored

  * Alice then commits and pushes this branch to the `gitolite-admin` repo

Naturally, a successful push invokes the post-update hook that you installed
(while setting up [push-to-admin][ptd]).  Here's what it does:

  * for each branch, say `br`, of the `gitolite-admin` repo, it checks if
    there is a file called `conf/fragments/br.conf`

  * if there is, it extracts it and copies it with the exact same name and
    path, into the `$GL_ADMINDIR` directory (`~/.gitolite` by default)

After that, it runs the compile script, and things work the same as described
in the previous section.