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gitolite installation

(Note: git servers are most commonly used with ssh URLs, and this document describes installing gitolite to support such usage. If your users prefer http URLs, read this to install gitolite to support "smart http").

In this document:

Impatient to install?

This top section is for the impatient. You might qualify if you can understand the following:

A bare minimum gitolite setup has:

  • a server
  • a "hosting user" on the server (a real Unix userid; we use "git" in this document, although RPM/DEB installs use "gitolite")
  • a virtual "admin user" -- the user who sets up gitolite and configures it
  • the admin user's client or workstation, from which he does all his work

If you didn't get all that, or thought you did then ran into problems, beg/borrow some patience and read the rest of this document before trying it again.

Gitolite allows 3 methods of install:

  • package method if you have a gitolite RPM or a DEB available
  • root method if you have root access to the server, and you plan to have multiple "hosting users" on it
  • non-root method if you don't have root access to the server, but you do have at least one account with a password

These install methods are described in detail below. (Once you finish the install, read the admin document to administer your gitolite installation).

(side note) upgrading

Upgrading is easy; you just re-run some of the same commands used for install. These commands are clearly noted in the install instructions below.

However, if you've added any new hooks, you must also run the next step (the gl-setup command), although this time you don't need to supply a pubkey filename as an argument.

package method

(Unlike the rest of this document, this specific method uses "gitolite" as the "hosting user" instead of "git", because that is what the RPM/DEB creates).

On your workstation:

  • copy your ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub file to /tmp/YourName.pub on the server

On your server, as root:

yum install gitolite    # or 'apt-get install gitolite', or whatever
# this is the only step you need to repeat when upgrading gitolite

# current RPM/DEB create a hosting user called "gitolite"
su - gitolite

# (now as gitolite)
gl-setup /tmp/YourName.pub

On your workstation:

git clone gitolite@server:gitolite-admin

root method

On your workstation:

  • copy your ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub file to /tmp/YourName.pub on the server

On your server, as root:

git clone git://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite
cd gitolite
src/gl-system-install
# defaults to being the same as:
# src/gl-system-install /usr/local/bin /usr/local/share/gitolite/conf /usr/local/share/gitolite/hooks

# to upgrade gitolite, repeat the above commands.  Make sure you use the
# same arguments for the last command each time.

# create your "hosting user" if not already created
useradd git

su - git

# (now as git)
gl-setup /tmp/YourName.pub

On your workstation:

git clone git@server:gitolite-admin

non-root method

IMPORTANT WARNING -- IGNORE AT YOUR PERIL: if you want to use this method you had better know the password to the hosting user on the server, just in case you manage to lock yourself out by messing with the keys.

NOTE: This method is exhaustively described in the tutorial, if you're interested. (That tutorial is by someone else but it's nice enough for me to link it here).

On your workstation:

  • copy your ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub file to /tmp/YourName.pub on the server

On your server, as git (the "hosting user"), first check if $HOME/bin is on the default PATH. If not, fiddle with the .bashrc or .bash_profile or similar files and add it somehow. Then:

git clone git://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite
cd gitolite
src/gl-system-install
# defaults to being the same as:
# src/gl-system-install $HOME/bin $HOME/share/gitolite/conf $HOME/share/gitolite/hooks

# to upgrade gitolite, repeat the above commands.  Make sure you use the
# same arguments for the last command each time.

gl-setup /tmp/YourName.pub

On your workstation:

git clone git@server:gitolite-admin

upgrading from from-client method to non-root method

Since the from-client method is now deprecated for reasons explained elsewhere, some folks may want to do their next upgrade using the non-root method.

There are many, many ways to skin this cat; here's one way:

  • follow non-root install but stop after the gl-system-install step

  • temporarily rename your ~/.gitolite.rc file to something else

  • now run the gl-setup step

    (background: this will create a default rc file with default values, but crucially, it will give you the correct values for two very critical variables that are not used in the old from-client install method)

  • edit ~/.gitolite.rc and bring in any non-default settings you may have had in your old rc file.

    When you're done, the only difference between your old and current rc files should be that the $GL_PACKAGE_CONF and the $GL_PACKAGE_HOOKS variables are no longer commented out and look somewhat like this:

    $GL_PACKAGE_CONF = '/home/git/share/gitolite/conf';
$GL_PACKAGE_HOOKS = '/home/git/share/gitolite/hooks';

    Now save the file.

troubleshooting

  • The most common thing that goes wrong in an install is something to do with ssh.

    Here are three facts of ssh:

    • ssh is a pain
    • most people don't know ssh well enough
    • even people who think they do, don't

    Please read how gitolite uses ssh and the ssh troubleshooting documents before asking for help.

  • If you've tried multiple methods of install, you may have multiple copies of the sources lying around. This could be a problem; see appendix b for how to detect and deal with this.

If none of this works read the rest of this document, understand it as much as you can, then ask for help.

important points to note

  • gitolite runs as a single (real) user on a server, and is invoked via ssh. Traditionally, this "hosting user" is "git", and thus all git URLs start with ssh://git@server (or the equivalent shorter form git@server:).

    • RPM/DEB create and use "gitolite" as the hosting user

    • there is usually only one hosting user per server (machine), but gitolite makes it trivial to have as many as you want. In fact, every user on the server is a potential hosting user. Advanced users can look here!)

  • using this single user and sshd (or httpd) authentication, gitolite allows you to create any number of "virtual" users. Virtual user names only mean something to gitolite, and they need not be the same as any real userid on the server or any of the clients accessing it.

    • the first such virtual user is the "admin user", created during the install sequence.

  • gitolite depends heavily on ssh pubkey (passwordless) access. Do not assume you know all about ssh -- most people don't. If in doubt, use a dedicated userid on both client and server for installation and administration of gitolite.

    To make matters worse, ssh problems in gitolite don't always look like ssh problems. See doc/ssh-troubleshooting.mkd for help.

  • gitolite does NOT like it when people with shell access to the server fiddle with files and directories it controls.

    Apparently this was not obvious to some people.

It is possible to have the server and the client be the same machine, and even the admin user be also the hosting user, (i.e., sitaram@server can install and administer a gitolite setup running under sitaram@server, a situation that is common with some hosting services). It's actually fairly easy and safe to do, as long as you have password access to the server for emergency use. However, I will not be documenting it because (a) if you know ssh you'll know how to extrapolate my instructions to do this and (b) if you don't know ssh it'll be a nightmare to support you.

naming conventions used

Throughout the documentation, we use "YourName" as the admin user, and his workstation is called "client". The hosting user is "git", and the server is called "server". Please substitute your values as needed.

If you're using DEB or RPM, the installer creates a user called "gitolite", so substitute that for "git" anywhere in the docs where the "hosting user" is mentioned as "git".

Also, we often say "the rc file". This means ~/.gitolite.rc on the server. And when we say the "access control rules", or "conf file", or "config file", we mean conf/gitolite.conf on your gitolite-admin clone.

requirements

client/workstation

  • git version 1.6.2 or greater
    • even msysgit on Windows is fine; please don't ask me for help if you're using putty, plink, puttygen, etc., for ssh; I recommend msysgit for Windows and the openssh that comes with it
  • if you're using the "from-client" method of install (see below), the bash shell is needed
    • again, msysgit on Windows is fine

server

  • any Unix system with a posix compatible "sh".
    • people using "csh" or derivatives please don't ask me for help -- tell your admin csh is not posix compatible
  • git version 1.6.2 or greater
    • can be in a non-PATH location if you are unable to install it normally; see the $GIT_PATH variable in the "rc" file
  • perl (but since git requires it anyway, you probably have it)
  • openssh or any ssh that can understand the authorized_keys file format (probably optional if you're using the http backend)
  • a Unix userid to be the hosting user, usually "git" but it can be any user, even your own normal one. (If you're using an RPM/DEB the install probably created one called "gitolite").

technical skills

  • if you're installing gitolite, you're a "system admin", like it or not. Ssh is therefore a necessary skill. Please take the time to learn at least enough to get passwordless access working.

  • you also need to be somewhat familiar with git itself. You cannot administer a whole bunch of git repositories if you don't know the basics of git.

  • some familiarity with Unix and shells is probably required

  • regular expressions are a big part of gitolite in many places but familiarity is not necessary to do basic access control.

getting the gitolite software

You can get the latest version of gitolite from github or indefero using the 'git clone' command:

git clone git://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite.git
        # (OR)
git clone git://sitaramc.indefero.net/sitaramc/gitolite.git

getting a tar file from a clone

If you are on an internal network and cannot clone the gitolite repo, you can do the clone on some other machine and create a tar file from it to use on the internal network. Here's how:

git clone git://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite.git
        # (OR)
git clone git://sitaramc.indefero.net/sitaramc/gitolite.git
cd gitolite
make master.tar
# or maybe "make pu.tar"

Please use the make command as shown, not a plain "git archive", because the Makefile adds a file called .GITOLITE-VERSION that will help you identify which version you are using.

special cases -- multiple gitolite servers

(Advanced users only, please!)

There is no gitolite "daemon"; it gets invoked via sshd which calls "gl-auth-command" via the "command=" option in the authkeys file (see gitolite and ssh for more).

If you think about it, this means every real (unix) user on the system can host her own gitolite server!

Of course, one doesn't normally do that in the interests of sanity, but let's say you want to create one gitolite instance for each department on some company-wide mega-server.

Using one of the first two methods of installation, it's trivial to create multiple gitolite instances -- essentially any Unix user can then run gl-setup with some pubkey filename as an argument and that user is now a gitolite host.

You can even do this without giving shell access to the admins. Here's an example with just two "departments", and their admins Alice and Bob:

  • create userids webbrowser_repos and webserver_repos
  • ask Alice and Bob for their pubkeys; copy them to the respective home directories for convenience
  • run su - webbrowser_repos, then gl-setup alice.pub
  • (similarly with webserver_repos and bob.pub, and so on for others)

That's it. The URL for all web browser projects is now something like webbrowser_repos@server:reponame, and similarly for the others.

Notice that you only have to do this once for each "department", and it's really just one command after creating the userid. None of these admins need to have a command line on the server, so don't give them the passwords if you don't need to -- the pubkey will allow them to be gitolite admins on their domain, and that's quite enough for normal operations.

uninstalling

cleaning out a botched install

When people have trouble installing gitolite, they often try to change a bunch of things manually on the server. This usually makes things worse ;-) so here's how to clean the slate.

  • client-side
    • edit ~/.ssh/config and delete the paragraph starting with host gitolite, if present.
    • remove ~/gitolite-admin
  • server-side
    • edit ~/.ssh/authorized_keys and delete all lines between # gitolite start and # gitolite end inclusive.
    • remove ~/.gitolite, ~/.gitolite.rc and ~/repositories/gitolite-admin.git

uninstalling gitolite completely

There's some duplication between this and the previous section, but uninstalling gitolite is described in great detail in doc/uninstall.mkd

appendix a: the from-client method

This method was the only install mode at one time, but the newer ones are much better, so it's kinda legacy now (Wow -- fancy something being "legacy" in software that is not yet 2 years old!)

The only advantage of this method is that it forces you to solve the ssh pubkey problem before attempting to install.

But I'm not sure if that is worth the hassle of supporting an install scheme that ends up with the admin user having two keys, though. And this in turn forces the admin to use a different URL to access gitolite repos than normal users, which seems to confuse a heck of a lot of people who don't read the prominently displayed messages and/or the documentation.

All in all, I plan to obsolete it eventually. Meanwhile, it is verbosely documented in this transcript, including outputs of the commands concerned.

appendix b: PATH issues for gl-setup

If you've tried multiple methods of install, you may have multiple copies of the sources lying around, and when you ran gl-setup it picked up the wrong one. This might also happen if the directory you supplied as the first argument to src/gl-system-install is not even in the $PATH.

Run su - git then which gl-setup to see which it picked up. This is what it should be for each method:

  • RPM/DEB method: probably /usr/bin
  • root method: the first argument to the src/gl-system-install command (or /usr/local/bin by default)
  • non-root method: the first argument to the src/gl-system-install command (or $HOME/bin by default)

If this is not what you get, remove the partially installed or extraneous sources, if any, and try again. Or fix your $PATH.

One situation that is not easy to solve is if the system admin installed gitolite using the RPM/DEB or root methods, and you want to install a later version using the non-root method. Since /usr/bin and /usr/local/bin are usually earlier than $HOME/bin in the $PATH, you'll have to get creative. Good luck.