gitolite/doc/mob-branches.mkd
Sitaram Chamarty b706719a56 (here's more proof that writing code is easier...)
streamline the README and the install doc a fair bit, especially make
'from-client' install deprecated, and relegate it to an Appendix.
2011-05-28 18:14:19 +05:30

2.7 KiB

mob branches in gitolite

WARNING: This is hairy stuff. But what's life without a little danger?

WARNING 2: girocco does mob branches quite differently; the controls on what a mob branch can do are much more fundamental. Here we just trick gitolite into accepting anonymous ssh connections and pretending they're from a mythical user called "mob". This means all the access control is -- as you might expect -- in the gitolite.conf file, so make sure you don't give the mob user too many rights!

(tested on Fedora 14; assumes your gitolite server userid is "gitolite" and install was "non-root" method; adjust according to your environment. If you need more than this, you should not be enabling mob branches anyway ;-)

[hah! Easy way out of being badgered with questions!]

  • create a file called /tmp/mobshell (put it somewhere more permanent if you wish). This file should be chmod +x and contain

    #!/bin/sh
    shift
    export SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND
    SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND="$*"
    
    /home/gitolite/bin/gl-auth-command mob
        # see one of the lines in ~gitolite/.ssh/authorized_keys for the
        # precise location of the gl-auth-command script
    
  • create a user called mob. Give it the same UID number and $HOME as your gitolite server userid, and set the login shell to be the script you just created. Also delete the password.

    id -u gitolite
    # returns 503 or something...
    useradd -d /home/gitolite -s /tmp/mobshell -u 503 -o mob
    passwd -d mob
    
  • make sure you have a recent enough sshd and put these lines at the bottom, then restart sshd

        Match user mob
            PermitEmptyPasswords yes
    

That's it. Now you can add stuff to your gitolite.conf file. Here's some examples:

  • This allows the mob user to do anything to the "mob" branch:

    repo foo
        RW+         =   alice bob
        R           =   eve
        RW+ mob$    =   mob
        # only the mob branch, nothing more
    
  • This is the same, except it can be any branch under "mob/" so you get some flexibility:

        RW+ mob/    =   mob
    
  • Girocco allows pushing to the mob branch only if it already exists (that is, the mob user cannot create the mob branch, but if it already exists he can push to it). Here's how you'd do that in gitolite:

    repo foo
        RW+C        =   alice bob
        R           =   eve
        RW+ mob$    =   mob
    
  • This gives every repo a mob branch (be careful!)

    repo @all
        RW+ mob$    =   mob
    

How do mob users access it? The URLs just look like: mob@server:repo instead of gitolite@server:repo That's it!