joemiller / gitosis-ng

Yet another gitosis fork with some new features allowing admins and users to manage the repos via simple commands (no longer active, use gitolite instead!!!)

IMPORTANT! This project is no longer maintained. I recommend checking out gitolite instead, which is very similar but has more features and is actively supported. Had I known about gitolite, I would have used it instead of writing this (though I'm not sure if it existed at the time).

gitosis-ng -- software for hosting git repositories

Manage git repositories, provide access to them over SSH, manage them over SSH, with tight access control and not needing shell accounts.

gitosis-ng is a fork of the gitosis project which adds additional features to help users and admins interact directly with the gitosis-ng server by sending simple commands via SSH.

I created this fork because I wanted a simple way for my users (developers) to be able to list all of the git repositories hosted on the server. This quickly morphed into wanting to give users other commands, such as adding repos on their own so they did not have to wait for an admin to do it. Then, I realized I could give the same kind of simple command-based control to the admins.

gitosis-ng is licensed under the GPL, see the file COPYING for more information.

What makes gitosis-ng different from gitosis?

Not a whole lot, actually. gitosis is a great piece of software and all of its functionality still remains. If you are familiar with using gitosis, the transition to gitosis-ng will be trivial.

gitosis-ng extends the functionality of gitosis by adding the following features:

• Allow users and admins to interact with the gitosis-ng server via SSH commands, eg:

  ssh git@GIT_SERVER help
  ssh git@GIT_SERVER list
  ssh git@GIT_SERVER list-short
  ssh git@GIT_SERVER add-repo my-project
  

• Allow admins to configure ACLs on a per-repository basis by specifying "readonly = user1" and "writeable = user2 user3" within the "[repo myproject]" section of the gitosis.conf file.

Upgrading from gitosis to gitosis-ng

• Backup your ~git home directory first!

• Download the latest gitosis-ng code:

  git clone git://github.com/joemiller/gitosis-ng.git
  

• Install gitosis-ng:

  cd gitosis-ng
  python setup.py install
  

• That's it.

Setting it up from scratch

These directions are specific to CentOS/RHEL 5.x, but the concepts simple enough to translate to other platforms.

• Setup DAG and EPEL Yum repos. We will need some RPMs from the DAG rpmforge and EPEL yum repos. EPEL contains git 1.5, DAG contains git 1.7. Both should work with gitosis-ng, but testing was done with 1.7

DAG rpmforge:
    rpm -Uhv http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el5/en/i386/rpmforge/RPMS/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.i386.rpm
    rpm -Uhv http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el5/en/x86_64/rpmforge/RPMS//rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.x86_64.rpm

EPEL:
    rpm -Uvh http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/epel/5/i386/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm

• Install git:

  yum install git
  

• Install python-setuptools:

  yum install python-setuptools
  

• Install syck YAML library (optional):

  yum install syck-python
  

• Install simpleJSON library (optional):

  yum install python-simplejson
  

• Download the latest gitosis-ng code:

  git clone git://github.com/joemiller/gitosis-ng.git
  

• Install gitosis-ng:

  cd gitosis-ng
  python setup.py install
  

• Create a 'git' user and home directory ('/home/git'. Modify to suit your tastes):

  adduser -d /home/git -m -s /bin/bash -c gitosis-ng -r git
  

• Next, we will import our SSH key and initialize the gitosis-ng configuration. Your key will become the first user in the gitosis-ng system and a member of the gitosis-admin group:

  sudo -H -u git gitosis-init < id_rsa.pub
  

Modify the gitosis.conf config file

You should setup a few basic options in your gitosis.conf file as well as get familiar with the process.

The gitweb=yes option is recommend for gitosis-ng as this will allow your git users to list all repositories that they have either readonly or writeable access to.

This functionality can also be enabled on a per-repository basis by placing a gitweb=yes option in the [repo repo-name] section of the gitosis.conf file.

• First, clone the special gitosis-admin.git repository from your gitosis-ng server:

  git clone git@YOUR_GIT_SERVER:gitosis-admin.git
  cd gitosis-admin
  

• Edit the gitosis.conf file. In the [gitosis] section, add:

  gitweb=yes
  loglevel=ERROR
  

• Commit changes and push back to the server:

  git commit -a -m 'added new variables in global section'
  git push
  

Other resources

The installation process for gitosis-ng is basically identical to installing gitosis. Here are some other great resources on installing gitosis:

• http://nfocipher.com/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=12&blogId=1
• http://scie.nti.st/2007/11/14/hosting-git-repositories-the-easy-and-secure-way

Managing it

Show available gitosis-ng commands

• Send the 'help' command via SSH:

  ssh git@YOUR_GIT_SERVER help
  
      add-repo        : Create new repository. Usage: 'add-repo repo_name'
      help            : Get list of available commands
      list            : Get detailed list of git repositories
      list-json       : Get detailed list of repositories in JSON format
      list-short      : Get simple list of git repositories
      list-yaml       : Get detailed list of repositories in YAML format
  

Adding new users

• Checkout the special gitosis-admin.git repo:

  git clone git@YOUR_GIT_SERVER:gitosis-admin.git
  

• Copy the user's ssh public key to the keydir directory:

  cp username.pub gitosis-admin/keydir/
  

• Commit and push back to the gitosis-ng server:

  cd gitosis-admin
  git add keydir/username.pub
  git commit -a -m 'added ssh pubkey for user: username'
  git push
  

Creating new repositories

There are actually two ways to create repositories, the gitosis way and the gitosis-ng way. We'll cover the gitosis-ng way here. See the README.orig.rst file for the gitosis way.

Any user may create a repository. That user will automatically be given writeable access to that repository. At this time, only admins can grant access to other users or groups by checking out and modifying the gitosis.conf file:

ssh git@YOUR_GIT_SERVER add-repo myproject

    To /home/git/repositories/gitosis-admin.git
       22c1bd3..a06d3df  master -> master
    Created repository: myproject

    Next Steps:
      mkdir myproject
      cd myproject
      git init
      touch README
      git add README
      git commit -a -m 'first commit'
      git remote add origin git@GIT_SERVER_ADDRESS:myproject.git
      git push origin master

    Existing Git repo?
      cd myproject
      git remote add origin git@GIT_SERVER_ADDRESS:myproject.git
      git push origin master

Listing available repositories

Any user can list repositories that he has been given either readonly or writeable access on:

ssh git@YOUR_GIT_SERVER list
    Repository  : myproject.git
     Initialized: no
     Your Access: read/write
     Owner      : jmiller
     URL        :
     Description:

     Repository  : otherproject.git
     Initialized: no
     Your Access: readonly
     Owner      : bsmith
     URL        :
     Description:

Granting access to repositories

Only admins can grant access to repositories at this time by modifying the gitosis.conf file.

readonly and writeable (read/write) access can be granted to individual users or groups.

Grant access to individual users

• Checkout the special gitosis-admin.git repo:

  git clone git@YOUR_GIT_SERVER:gitosis-admin.git
  

• Edit gitosis.conf, create a [repo myproject] section if one does not exist already, and grant access to individual users:

  [repo myproject]
  writeable = jdoe bsmith
  readonly = rjones
  

• Commit that change and push.

Grant access to an entire group

• Checkout the special gitosis-admin.git repo

• Edit gitosis.conf, create a [group groupname] section, specify the members, and grant access to repostories. Example:

  [group myteam]
  members = jdoe
  writable = myproject
  readonly = otherproject
  

• Commit that change and push.

Using git-daemon

Anonymous read-only access to git repositories is provided by git-daemon, which is distributed as part of git. But gitosis will still help you manage it: setting daemon = yes in your gitosis.conf, either globally in [gitosis] or per-repository under [repo REPOSITORYNAME], makes gitosis create the git-daemon-export-ok files in those repository, thus telling git-daemon that publishing those repositories is ok.

To actually run git-daemon in Ubuntu, put this in /etc/event.d/local-git-daemon:

For other operating systems, use a similar invocation in an init.d script, /etc/inittab, inetd.conf, runit, or something like that (good luck).

Note that this short snippet is not a substitute for reading and understanding the relevant documentation.

Using gitweb

gitweb is a CGI script that lets one browse git repositories on the web. It is most commonly used anonymously, but you could also require authentication in your web server, before letting people use it. gitosis can help here by generating a list of projects that are publicly visible. Simply add a section [repo REPOSITORYNAME] to your gitosis.conf, and allow publishing with gitweb = yes (or globally under [gitosis]). You should also set description and owner for each repository.

Here's a LightTPD config file snippet showing how to run gitweb as a CGI:

And a simple gitweb.conf file:

Note that this short snippet is not a substitute for reading and understanding the relevant documentation.

Contact

You can email the author of gitosis-ng at [e-mail].

You can email the author of gitosis at [e-mail], or hop on irc.freenode.net channel #git and hope for the best.