2. Git Basics
7. Git Tools
10. Git Internals
4.4 Git on the Server - Setting Up the Server
Setting Up the Server
Let’s walk through setting up SSH access on the server side.
In this example, you’ll use the
authorized_keys method for authenticating your users.
We also assume you’re running a standard Linux distribution like Ubuntu.
A good deal of what is described here can be automated by using the
First, you create a
git user account and a
.ssh directory for that user.
$ sudo adduser git $ su git $ cd $ mkdir .ssh && chmod 700 .ssh $ touch .ssh/authorized_keys && chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys
Next, you need to add some developer SSH public keys to the
authorized_keys file for the
Let’s assume you have some trusted public keys and have saved them to temporary files.
Again, the public keys look something like this:
$ cat /tmp/id_rsa.john.pub ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABAQCB007n/ww+ouN4gSLKssMxXnBOvf9LGt4L ojG6rs6hPB09j9R/T17/x4lhJA0F3FR1rP6kYBRsWj2aThGw6HXLm9/5zytK6Ztg3RPKK+4k Yjh6541NYsnEAZuXz0jTTyAUfrtU3Z5E003C4oxOj6H0rfIF1kKI9MAQLMdpGW1GYEIgS9Ez Sdfd8AcCIicTDWbqLAcU4UpkaX8KyGlLwsNuuGztobF8m72ALC/nLF6JLtPofwFBlgc+myiv O7TCUSBdLQlgMVOFq1I2uPWQOkOWQAHukEOmfjy2jctxSDBQ220ymjaNsHT4kgtZg2AYYgPq dAv8JggJICUvax2T9va5 gsg-keypair
You just append them to the
authorized_keys file in its
$ cat /tmp/id_rsa.john.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys $ cat /tmp/id_rsa.josie.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys $ cat /tmp/id_rsa.jessica.pub >> ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
Now, you can set up an empty repository for them by running
git init with the
--bare option, which initializes the repository without a working directory:
$ cd /srv/git $ mkdir project.git $ cd project.git $ git init --bare Initialized empty Git repository in /srv/git/project.git/
Then, John, Josie, or Jessica can push the first version of their project into that repository by adding it as a remote and pushing up a branch.
Note that someone must shell onto the machine and create a bare repository every time you want to add a project.
gitserver as the hostname of the server on which you’ve set up your
git user and repository.
If you’re running it internally, and you set up DNS for
gitserver to point to that server, then you can use the commands pretty much as is (assuming that
myproject is an existing project with files in it):
# on John's computer $ cd myproject $ git init $ git add . $ git commit -m 'initial commit' $ git remote add origin git@gitserver:/srv/git/project.git $ git push origin master
At this point, the others can clone it down and push changes back up just as easily:
$ git clone git@gitserver:/srv/git/project.git $ cd project $ vim README $ git commit -am 'fix for the README file' $ git push origin master
With this method, you can quickly get a read/write Git server up and running for a handful of developers.
You should note that currently all these users can also log into the server and get a shell as the
If you want to restrict that, you will have to change the shell to something else in the
You can easily restrict the
git user account to only Git-related activities with a limited shell tool called
git-shell that comes with Git.
If you set this as the
git user account’s login shell, then that account can’t have normal shell access to your server.
To use this, specify
git-shell instead of bash or csh for that account’s login shell.
To do so, you must first add the full pathname of the
git-shell command to
/etc/shells if it’s not already there:
$ cat /etc/shells # see if `git-shell` is already in there. If not... $ which git-shell # make sure git-shell is installed on your system. $ sudo -e /etc/shells # and add the path to git-shell from last command
Now you can edit the shell for a user using
chsh <username> -s <shell>:
$ sudo chsh git -s $(which git-shell)
git user can only use the SSH connection to push and pull Git repositories and can’t shell onto the machine.
If you try, you’ll see a login rejection like this:
$ ssh git@gitserver fatal: Interactive git shell is not enabled. hint: ~/git-shell-commands should exist and have read and execute access. Connection to gitserver closed.
Now Git network commands will still work just fine but the users won’t be able to get a shell.
As the output states, you can also set up a directory in the
git user’s home directory that customizes the
git-shell command a bit.
For instance, you can restrict the Git commands that the server will accept or you can customize the message that users see if they try to SSH in like that.
git help shell for more information on customizing the shell.