Gitolite
Gitolite allows you to host Git repositories for multiple users easily and securely.
Contents
Installation
Configuration
Installing gitolite automatically adds the gitolite user to the system, with home directory /var/lib/gitolite
.
Admin SSH access
To give you admin access, copy your SSH public key to /var/lib/gitolite/username.pub
, where username
is your username.
# install -o gitolite -g gitolite ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub /var/lib/gitolite/username.pub
Then run the Gitolite setup script as the gitolite user.
# sudo -u gitolite gitolite setup -pk /var/lib/gitolite/username.pub
This puts your public key into the gitolite-admin keydir and gives your username RW+ access to the gitolite-admin repository
You can now remove the copy of your SSH public key
# rm /var/lib/gitolite/username.pub
Now as your user you can check that everything went correctly
$ ssh gitolite@hostname info
hello username, this is gitolite@hostname running gitolite3 v3.6.2 on git 2.3.3 R W gitolite-admin R W testing
Do NOT add repositories or users directly as gitolite on the server! You MUST manage the server by cloning the special gitolite-admin repository
$ git clone gitolite@hostname:gitolite-admin
For reference see Gitolite
Adding http(s) access via Apache (with basic authentication)
We need to create an suEXEC wrapper script. To satisfy suEXEC's security requirements, the script and the directory containing it must be owned by gitolite:gitolite
and below /srv/http
in the directory hierarchy. For this example, we create the directory as /srv/http/git/cgi-bin
.
# install -o gitolite -g gitolite -d /srv/http/git/cgi-bin
Create an suEXEC wrapper for the gitolite shell with the contents below. For this example, we create it as /srv/http/git/cgi-bin/gitolite-suexec-wrapper
.
/srv/http/git/cgi-bin/gitolite-suexec-wrapper
#!/usr/bin/bash # # suEXEC wrapper for gitolite-shell # export GIT_PROJECT_ROOT=/var/lib/gitolite/repositories export GITOLITE_HTTP_HOME=/var/lib/gitolite exec /usr/lib/gitolite/gitolite-shell
Make the wrapper executable and owned by gitolite:gitolite
.
# chown gitolite:gitolite /srv/http/git/cgi-bin/gitolite-suexec-wrapper # chmod 0755 /srv/http/git/cgi-bin/gitolite-suexec-wrapper
Create an empty password database file, owned by gitolite:http
# install -o gitolite -g http -m 0640 /dev/null /srv/http/git/htpasswd
Apache's basic authentication mechanism is separate from ssh, and therefore requires a separate set of credentials. Create your web users using htpasswd
.
# htpasswd /srv/http/git/htpasswd username
Add the following to your Apache vhost configuration:
SuexecUserGroup gitolite gitolite ScriptAlias /git/ /srv/http/git/cgi-bin/gitolite-suexec-wrapper/ <Directory /srv/http/git/cgi-bin> Require all granted </Directory> <Location /git> AuthType Basic AuthName "Git Access" AuthBasicProvider file AuthUserFile /srv/http/git/htpasswd Require valid-user </Location>
Restart httpd.service
.
Finally, in the gitolite-admin repository you cloned in the previous section, edit conf/gitolite.conf
, add an R = daemon
access rule to all repositories you want to make available via http, and push the changes.
Add users
ssh users
Ask each user who will get access to send you a public key. On their workstation generate the pair of ssh keys:
$ ssh-keygen
Rename each public key according to the user's name, with a .pub extension, like sitaram.pub or john-smith.pub. You can also use periods and underscores. Have the users send you the keys.
Copy all these *.pub files to keydir in your gitolite-admin repo clone. You can also organise them into various subdirectories of keydir if you wish, since the entire tree is searched.
Edit the config file (conf/gitolite.conf in your admin repo clone). See the gitolite.conf documentation (http://sitaramc.github.com/gitolite/admin.html#conf) for details on what goes in that file, syntax, etc. Just add new repos as needed, and add new users and give them permissions as required. The users names should be exactly the same as their keyfile names, but without the .pub extension
$ nano conf/gitolite.conf
Commit and push the changes them:
$ git commit -a $ git push
http(s) users
User management for http(s) is more suitable for single-user setups. To add a new user or to change an existing user's password:
# htpasswd /srv/http/git/htpasswd username
Gitosis-like ssh usernames
If you want to distinguish users with the same login (like username@server1
, username@server2
) you may want to do the following (tested with gitolite 3.04-1):
- edit
/usr/lib/gitolite/triggers/post-compile/ssh-authkeys
and replace
$user =~ s/(\@[^.]+)?\.pub$//; # baz.pub, baz@home.pub -> baz
by
$user =~ s/\.pub$//; # baz@home.pub -> baz@home
- update authorized_keys file (for example, by pushing into the gitolite-admin repository)
Troubleshooting
In case you cannot log in with the gitolite account, it may be caused by the account being locked, and depending of your ssh configuration.
If you have done some SSH hardening, it may be the cause of this behavior, as noted in SSH and locked users Article and Unix & Linux StackExchange - How to unlock account for public key ssh authorization, but not for password authorization.
To solve this you have to allow PAM in sshd_config
or unlock the account by:
# usermod -p '*' gitolite
# nano /etc/passwd
... gitolite:*:16199:0:99999:7::: ...