gitolite/doc/1000-words.mkd
Sitaram Chamarty 6e29365316 MASSIVE set of changes to documents!
I got tired of being told "TL;DR".  Now the online versions of most
documents fit on a page or two, or at least most of them do.  The rest
has been split out (and you can see the links to the split out sections
right where the text is in the raw Markdown).

This is much more pleasant to read, and I've improved the linking so
it's much less effort for me to keep the links correct.
2011-11-02 21:04:33 +05:30

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F=pictures gitolite in pictures

Well, they say a picture speaks a thousand words, so here're a few!

NOTE: if you're viewing this file in raw text, please note that some characters in text within a ditaa drawing may not be ASCII. This is due to a ditaa flaw that treats even a single hyphen as a line drawing character, so I had to use Unicode 2010 for it. I expect that I will have to resort to similar tricks for colon, equals, and many others like it if and when I need those in text within a ditaa diagram.

installation and setup

Here's a picture showing the "non-root" install. We assume Alice is the gitolite admin, and "git" is the hosting user on the server.

.aa
Gitolite install and setup sequence (non_root method, default values)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

/-----------------\        /----------------------\
|  user "alice"   |        |     user "git"       |
|(on workstation) |        |     (on server)      |
|cPNK             |        |cGRE                  |
\-----------------/        \----------------------/
/-----------------\        /----------------------\
|~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub|------->|      alice.pub       |-----\
\----------+------/    (1) \----------------------/     |
                           /----------------------\     |
           /-------------->|     ~/gitolite       |-----+
           | (2)     /-----|                      |     |
           |         |     \----------------------/     |
           |         |     /----------------------\     |
           |         |     |        ~/bin         |-----+
           |         \---->|       ~/share        |     |
           |           (3) \----------------------/     |
/----------+------\        /----------------------\     |
|    (github)     |        |    ~/.gitolite.rc    |     |
|cBLU             |        |~/.ssh/authorized_keys|<----/
\-----------------/        |     ~/.gitolite      | (4)
                           |    ~/repositories    |
                           \----------------------/

The files names are there only for information. You do not have to do anything to them yourself; in fact you should not! You only need the command for each step shown:

  1. copy the admin's pubkey to the server as "alice.pub"
  2. git clone git://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite or equivalent
  3. gitolite/src/gl-system-install
  4. gl-setup alice.pub

Note also that you only need ONE real user on the server. In our example it is git. In particular, you do NOT create Unix userids for your gitolite users.

adding users to gitolite

Once you've done the install, here's how you add users.

.aa
Adding users to gitolite
------------------------------------------------------------------------

/-------------------\            /-----------------------\
|    user "git"     |            |     user "alice"      |
|    (on server)    |            |   (on workstation)    |
|    cGRE           |            |   cPNK                |
\-------------------/            \-----------------------/
/-------------------\            /-----------------------\
|    (gitolite)     |----------->|   ~/gitoliteadmin    |
|                   |    (1)     |                       |
|                   |            |                       |
|                   |<-----------|                       |
\-------------------/    (3)     \-----------------------/

                                 /-----------------------\ 
/-------------------\            |  (alice@workstation)  |
| bob          cYEL |----\       |~/gitoliteadmin/keydir|
| ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub |    |       |cPNK                   |
\-------------------/    |       +-----------------------+
                         \------>|      bobby.pub        |
/-------------------\     (2)    +-----------------------+
| carol        cYEL |----------->|      carol.pub        |
| ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub |            +-----------------------+
\-------------------/            |        (...)          |
                                 \-----------------------/

All this is done from the admin (Alice)'s workstation. The steps are:

  1. git clone git@server:gitolite-admin
  2. obtain pubkeys from each user. Email, USB, DHL, pigeon post, owl mail, any method you like. Rename each received file to the name of the user, add a ".pub" at the end, copy it into keydir/ in the gitolite-admin repo you cloned.
  3. git add keydir, then git commit, then git push

You do NOT need to add Carol or Bob as real (Unix) users. You do NOT add their keys directly anywhere on the server; you do it by cloning, adding keys, and pushing.

adding repos to gitolite

Adding a repo is even easier. It's so easy that you don't really need a picture. OK maybe a small one:

.aa
Adding repos to gitolite
------------------------------------------------------------------------

/-------------------\            /-----------------------\
|    user "git"     |            |     user "alice"      |
|    (on server)    |            |   (on workstation)    |
|    cGRE           |            |   cPNK                |
\-------------------/            \-----------------------/
/-------------------\            /-----------------------\
|    (gitolite)     |----------->|   ~/gitoliteadmin    |
|                   |    (1)     |                       |
|                   |            |                       |
|                   |<-----------|                       |
\-------------------/    (3)     \-----------------------/

                     /-----------------------------------\
                     |        (alice@workstation)        |
                     |~/gitoliteadmin/conf/gitolite.conf|
                     |            cPNK                   |
                     +-----------------------------------+
                     |    <config lines for repo foo>    |
                     +-----------------------------------+
                     |    <config lines for repo bar>    |
                     +-----------------------------------+
                     |               (...)               |
                     \-----------------------------------/

Again, all this is done from the admin (Alice)'s workstation. Steps one and three are the same as for adding users, but step 2 consists of adding config lines for whatever repo you want too add.

  1. git clone git@server:gitolite-admin

  2. edit conf/gitolite.conf in the repo clone you just made. Add repo paragraphs, maybe like this, and save the file:

    repo foo
        RW+     =   alice
        RW      =   bob
    
  3. git add conf/gitolite.conf, then git commit, then git push

You do NOT add the repos directly anywhere on the server; you do it by cloning, adding keys, and pushing.