Hosting git repositories -- Gitolite allows you to setup git hosting on a central server, with very fine-grained access control and many (many!) more powerful features.
Find a file
Sitaram Chamarty 1e06fea3b6 (security) a different fix in place of 5fd9328
SECURITY NOTE: if you deleted or renamed a pubkey file after 5fd9328
went in (April 12th), please:

  - upgrade asap, then
  - go to your latest gitolite-admin clone and "git push -f"

Otherwise this is not urgent.

5fd9328 (and its minor successor 813a2a9) were about preventing the
gitolite admin from sneaking in files to src/ and hooks/ into
$GL_ADMINDIR.  It seemed easy enough to do this by converting the
path-less checkout to a with-paths checkout, but this has caused a worse
problem -- deleting a keydir/foo.pub now no longer has an effect; the
file still hangs around in the work tree.

Ouch!  (and thanks to teukka for noticing)

We now do this check as a separate step, so the checkout can revert to
being path-less.
2010-04-20 19:46:27 +05:30
conf allow user to define filenames that our hooks chain to 2010-04-13 18:26:34 +05:30
contrib/vim contrib: Add info of Vim syntax highlight 2010-02-25 04:57:09 +02:00
doc changelog for v1.4 2010-04-13 18:35:33 +05:30
hooks (security) a different fix in place of 5fd9328 2010-04-20 19:46:27 +05:30
src fix bug in 7bfb367 that causes "@all.git" to be created! 2010-04-13 10:07:59 +05:30
.gitattributes docs and .gitattributes hadn't been updated for the change in hooks dir 2010-03-10 06:24:53 +05:30
.gitignore add conf/VERSION to .gitignore 2010-03-02 05:39:19 +05:30
Makefile make VERSION work in both types of setups 2010-02-13 13:02:25 +05:30
README.mkd created gitolite@googlegroups.com, updated README 2010-03-19 07:18:12 +05:30

gitolite

[Update 2009-10-28: apart from all the nifty new features, there's now an "easy install" script in the src directory. This script can be used to install as well as upgrade a gitolite install. Please see the INSTALL document for details]


Gitolite is a rewrite of gitosis, with a completely different config file that allows (at last!) access control down to the branch level, including specifying who can and cannot rewind a given branch.

In this document:

  • what
  • why
  • extra features
  • security
  • contact and license

what

Gitolite allows a server to host many git repositories and provide access to many developers, without having to give them real userids on the server. The essential magic in doing this is ssh's pubkey access and the authorized_keys file, and the inspiration was an older program called gitosis.

Gitolite can restrict who can read from (clone/fetch) or write to (push) a repository. It can also restrict who can push to what branch or tag, which is very important in a corporate environment. Gitolite can be installed without requiring root permissions, and with no additional software than git itself and perl. It also has several other neat features described below and elsewhere in the doc/ directory.

why

I have been using 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; you can't just "urpmi gitosis" (or yum or apt-get) and be done
  • often, "python-setuptools" isn't installed (and on a Solaris9 I was trying to help remotely, we never did manage to install it eventually)
  • you don't have root access, or the ability to add users (this is also true for people who have just one userid on a hosting provider)
  • the most requested feature (see below) had to be written anyway

All of this pointed to a rewrite. In perl, naturally :-)

extra features

The most important feature I needed was per-branch permissions. This is pretty much mandatory in a corporate environment, and is almost the single reason I started thinking about rolling my own gitosis in the first place.

It's not just "read-only" versus "read-write". Rewinding a branch (aka "non fast forward push") is potentially dangerous, but sometimes needed. So is deleting a branch (which is really just an extreme form of rewind). I needed something in between allowing anyone to do it (the default) and disabling it completely (receive.denyNonFastForwards or receive.denyDeletes).

Here're some more features. All of them, and more, are documented in detail here.

  • simpler, yet far more powerful, config file syntax, including specifying gitweb/daemon access. You'll need this power if you manage lots of users+repos+combinations of access
  • apart from branch-name based restrictions, you can also restrict by file/dir name changed (i.e., output of git diff --name-only)
  • config file syntax gets checked upfront, and much more thoroughly
  • if your requirements are still too complex, you can split up the config file and delegate authority over parts of it
  • easier to specify gitweb owner, description and gitweb/daemon access
  • easier to sync gitweb (http) authorisation with gitolite's access config
  • more comprehensive logging [aka: management does not think "blame" is just a synonym for "annotate" :-)]
  • "personal namespace" prefix for each dev
  • migration guide and simple converter for gitosis conf file
  • "exclude" (or "deny") rights at the branch/tag level

security

Due to the environment in which this was created and the need it fills, I consider this a "security" program, albeit a very modest one.

For the first person to find a security hole in it, defined as allowing a normal user (not the gitolite admin) to read a repo, or write/rewind a ref, that the config file says he shouldn't, and caused by a bug in code that is in the "master" branch, (not in the other branches, or the configuration file or in Unix, perl, shell, etc.)... well I can't afford 1000 USD rewards like djb, so you'll have to settle for 1000 INR (Indian Rupees) as a "token" prize :-)

However, there are a few optional features (which must be explicitly enabled in the RC file) where I just haven't had the time to reason about security thoroughly enough. Please read the comments in conf/example.gitolite.rc for details, looking for the word "security".


contact and license

Gitolite is released under GPL v2. See COPYING for details.

sitaramc@gmail.com mailing list: gitolite@googlegroups.com