added README and TODO

This commit is contained in:
Sitaram Chamarty 2009-08-24 07:29:25 +05:30 committed by Sitaram Chamarty
parent 2e38867b59
commit e8e7bda41c
2 changed files with 80 additions and 0 deletions

71
README.markdown Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
# gitosis-lite
In this document:
* "lite"?
* what's extra
* whats missing/TODO
* workflow
* conf file example
----
### "lite"?
I have been gitosis for a while, and have learnt a lot from it. But in a
typical $DAYJOB setting, there are some issues. It's not always Linux, so you
can't just "urpmi gitosis" and be done. "python-setuptools" isn't often
installed (and on a Solaris 9 I was trying to help remotely, we never did
manage it). And the most requested feature (see next section) had to be
written anyway.
While I was pondering having to finally learn python (I hate whitespace based
flow logic except for plain text; this is a *personal* opinion so pythonistas
can back off :-), I also realised that:
* no one in $DAYJOB settings will use or approve access methods that work
without any authentication, so I didn't need gitweb/daemon support in the
tool
* the idea that you admin it by pushing to a special repo is cute and
convenient, but not really necessary because of how rarely these changes
are made.
All of this pointed to a rewrite. In perl, naturally.
I also gained (and used) an unfair advantage: gits newer than 1.6.2 can clone
an empty repo, so I don't need complex logic in the permissions checking part
to *create* the repo initially -- I just create an empty bare repo when I
"compile" the config file (see "workflow" below).
### what's extra?
A lot of people in my $DAYJOB type world want per-branch permissions, so I
copied the basic idea from
git.git:Documentation/howto/update-hook-example.txt. I think this is the most
significant extra I have. This includes not just who can push to what branch,
but also whether they are allowed to rewind it or not (non-ff push).
### what's missing/TODO
See TODO file
### workflow
I took the opportunity to change the workflow significantly.
* all admin happens *on the server*, in a special directory
* after making any changes, one "compiles" the configuration. This
refreshes `~/.ssh/authorized_keys`, as well as puts a parsed form of the
access list in a file for the other two pieces to use.
Why pre-parse? Because access control decisions are taken at two separate
stages now:
* the program that is run via `~/.ssh/authorized_keys` (called
`gl-auth-command`, equivalent to `gitosis-serve`) decides whether even git
should be allowed to run (basic R/W/no access)
* the update-hook on each repo, which decides the per-branch permissions.
But the user specifies only one access file, and he doesn't have to know these
distinctions. So I avoid having to parse the access file in two completely
different programs by pre-compiling it and storing it as a perl "variable".

9
TODO Normal file
View file

@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
* a proper INSTALL file with clear instructions for non-experts
* make a proper test suite
* `use Git` instead of run git commands: I don't run too many git commands
in this and Git.pm just runs the same commands (per the documentation), so
it's sorta moot right now, but it's worth trying
* change the "rc" file to use "gitconfig" instead...