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+# when gitolite is overkill
+
+Note: I wrote this to help people for whom gitolite is genuinely overkill.  I
+believe it will all work, but YMMV.
+
+----
+
+You don't always need something like gitolite.  If you have a fixed (or very
+rarely changing) number of users, and all of them have full access to all your
+repos, you can use plain Unix permissions to get a lot of this done:
+
+  * dedicate a userid (say "git") to host all your repos.  This user will also
+    have a group (normally called "git" on most distros I think)
+
+  * create a directory that is accessible (at least "r" and "x" permissions)
+    to the group "git", all the way upto the root.  (That is, if the directory
+    you chose is /home/git/repos, then /, /home, /home/git, and
+    /home/git/repos must all be "g+rx").
+
+  * create all repos in this directory, as the "git" user, using the following
+    command:
+
+        git init --bare --shared reponame.git
+
+  * For each user who needs access to the repos, add them as members to the
+    "git" group also.  On Mandriva this is:
+
+        usermod -G git username
+
+    Don't forget that `-G` *replaces* the list of supplementary groups for the
+    user, so be sure to first check if he is already member of some groups and
+    keep those in the command (comma-separated).
+
+And that's basically it.  The "init --shared" will create the repos with
+"chmod -R g+s".  If you have existing repos where you forgot (or didn't know)
+the "--shared" argument, do this on each of them:
+
+        cd reponame.git
+        git init --shared --bare
+        chmod -R g+w .
+        chmod g+s `find . -type d`
+
+I think that should do it.
+
+----
+
+You can do more complex things using Unix acls.  If you do, and feel like
+writing it up, send it to me and I will add it here (with credit given of
+course).  Personally, I can't be bothered -- once you have differing needs for
+different people, you really need gitolite anyway, because you probably need
+different rights for branches as well and Unix ACLs can't do that.