Creating new repos

Creating new repos

[Horst H. von Brand]

I'm trying to set up git repos for remote access here. I set up git-daemon
and got it working (some older repositories do work fine), but now:

  $ mkdir /var/scm/user/SomeRepo.git
  $ cd /var/scm/user/SomeRepo.git
  $ git --bare init-db
  $ touch git-daemon-export-ok

All OK, but then, from a remote machine:

  $ git clone git://git-server/user/SomeRepo.git
  fatal: no matching remote head
  fetch-pack from 'git://git-server/user/Test.git' failed.

The empty repo created by init-db should be cloneable, so as to get the ball
rolling easily.

You can't push into such an empty repository either.

Any suggestion of how to set up a server into which users can create their
own repos /without/ giving out full shell accounts?

Also, the behaviour of git-daemon is different when using git or ssh+git,
you need to give the full path for the later but not the former (given
--base-path=/var/scm):

  git://git-server/user/Test.git
  ssh+git://git-server/var/scm/user/Test.git

Is this intentional?
-- 
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                   User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica                    Fono: +56 32 2654431
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria             +56 32 2654239
Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile               Fax:  +56 32 2797513

Re: Creating new repos

[Petr Baudis]

Dear diary, on Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 02:29:10PM CEST, I got a letter
where "Horst H. von Brand" <vonbrand@inf.utfsm.cl> said that...
> I'm trying to set up git repos for remote access here. I set up git-daemon
> and got it working (some older repositories do work fine), but now:
> 
>   $ mkdir /var/scm/user/SomeRepo.git
>   $ cd /var/scm/user/SomeRepo.git
>   $ git --bare init-db
>   $ touch git-daemon-export-ok
> 
> All OK, but then, from a remote machine:
> 
>   $ git clone git://git-server/user/SomeRepo.git
>   fatal: no matching remote head
>   fetch-pack from 'git://git-server/user/Test.git' failed.
> 
> The empty repo created by init-db should be cloneable, so as to get the ball
> rolling easily.

Well there's really nothing to clone, so it's tough. :-) What would such
a clone be supposed to do? It has no branches to record as belonging to
origin, and note that Git's git-clone is long-term broken in the sense
that it won't pick new branches as they appear in the remote
repository. So a clone of an empty repository would be useless anyway.

> You can't push into such an empty repository either.

This is supposed to work. What error do you get?

> Any suggestion of how to set up a server into which users can create their
> own repos /without/ giving out full shell accounts?

Sure:

	http://repo.or.cz/w/repo.git

But it may be quite an overkill for you. ;-)

If you want them to be able to do it over ssh, you would need to provide
a trusted tool which would manage the repository setup, that means not
only doing init-db, but also managing the export-ok files, description
file, you'd likely want to enable the post-update hook (but probably not
any other hook or let the user edit it since at that point you've given
him full shell access), etc. And the tool would have to be carefully
reviewed since it's security-critical.

> Also, the behaviour of git-daemon is different when using git or ssh+git,
> you need to give the full path for the later but not the former (given
> --base-path=/var/scm):
> 
>   git://git-server/user/Test.git
>   ssh+git://git-server/var/scm/user/Test.git
> 
> Is this intentional?

git+ssh has nothing to do with git-daemon, it's executing other git
commands remotely.

-- 
				Petr "Pasky" Baudis
Stuff: http://pasky.or.cz/
#!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj
$/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1

Re: Creating new repos

[Horst H. von Brand]

Petr Baudis <pasky@suse.cz> wrote:
> Dear diary, on Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 02:29:10PM CEST, I got a letter
> where "Horst H. von Brand" <vonbrand@inf.utfsm.cl> said that...
> > I'm trying to set up git repos for remote access here. I set up git-daemon
> > and got it working (some older repositories do work fine), but now:
> > 
> >   $ mkdir /var/scm/user/SomeRepo.git
> >   $ cd /var/scm/user/SomeRepo.git
> >   $ git --bare init-db
> >   $ touch git-daemon-export-ok
> > 
> > All OK, but then, from a remote machine:
> > 
> >   $ git clone git://git-server/user/SomeRepo.git
> >   fatal: no matching remote head
> >   fetch-pack from 'git://git-server/user/Test.git' failed.

> > The empty repo created by init-db should be cloneable, so as to get the
> > ball rolling easily.

> Well there's really nothing to clone, so it's tough. :-) What would such
> a clone be supposed to do? It has no branches to record as belonging to
> origin, and note that Git's git-clone is long-term broken in the sense
> that it won't pick new branches as they appear in the remote
> repository. So a clone of an empty repository would be useless anyway.

As useless as the empty set? ;-)

> > You can't push into such an empty repository either.
> 
> This is supposed to work. What error do you get?

Pilot error. Sorry for the noise.

> > Any suggestion of how to set up a server into which users can create their
> > own repos /without/ giving out full shell accounts?
> 
> Sure:
> 
> 	http://repo.or.cz/w/repo.git

Cloning... 
"error: Can't lock ref" (?)

OK, got it; the repo is at git://repo.or.cz/repo.git. Better not calling it
*.git

> But it may be quite an overkill for you. ;-)

Will see.

> If you want them to be able to do it over ssh, you would need to provide
> a trusted tool which would manage the repository setup, that means not
> only doing init-db, but also managing the export-ok files, description
> file, you'd likely want to enable the post-update hook (but probably not
> any other hook or let the user edit it since at that point you've given
> him full shell access), etc. And the tool would have to be carefully
> reviewed since it's security-critical.

I was fearing something along these lines...

> > Also, the behaviour of git-daemon is different when using git or ssh+git,
> > you need to give the full path for the later but not the former (given
> > --base-path=/var/scm):
> > 
> >   git://git-server/user/Test.git
> >   ssh+git://git-server/var/scm/user/Test.git
> > 
> > Is this intentional?
> 
> git+ssh has nothing to do with git-daemon, it's executing other git
> commands remotely.

OK. But from an UI POW it is confusing.
-- 
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                   User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica                    Fono: +56 32 2654431
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria             +56 32 2654239

Re: Creating new repos

[Jakub Narebski]

Horst H. von Brand wrote:
> Petr Baudis <pasky@suse.cz> wrote:
>> Dear diary, on Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 02:29:10PM CEST, I got a letter
>> where "Horst H. von Brand" <vonbrand@inf.utfsm.cl> said that...

>>>   git://git-server/user/Test.git
>>>   ssh+git://git-server/var/scm/user/Test.git
>>> 
>>> Is this intentional?
>> 
>> git+ssh has nothing to do with git-daemon, it's executing other git
>> commands remotely.
> 
> OK. But from an UI POW it is confusing.

You can use ssh:// instead of ssh+git:// if you like. ssh+git:// is to note
that you should use git for that...
-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland
ShadeHawk on #git