Re: [RFC] Secure central repositories by UNIX socket authentication

On Mon, 28 Jan 2008, Shawn O. Pearce wrote:

Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

"Shawn O. Pearce" [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

Hmm.  core.sharedrepository is sometimes a bad solution.

core.sharedrepository means I need to give write access to both the 
refs database and the object database to all members of the project. 
Some of whom may not be able to be trusted with tools like "rm", but 
who need real shell access to that system anyway.  And sometimes 
management won't allow users to have two accounts on the same system 
(one that is fixed to git-shell, and one that has a real shell) 
because the world would implode if a user was given two different 
accounts for two different access purposes.

Ok, that was the motiviation I did not get from your original message. 
It begins to make sense somewhat.

Another approach to do the same I can think of, without having to add 
50 new accounts for 50 users, would be to collect a ssh key from each 
of these 50 users, and have 1 line per user in the authorized_keys file 
of gitadmin.gitadmin user (who owns the repository with the paranoia 
hook that decides the authorization aspect of the repository).  The 
authentication would come from the environment="Name=value" option in 
the authorized_keys file. Each of your aunt tillies can push or fetch 
over ssh using the key she has in the gitadmin.gitadmin's 
authorized_keys file.

Yea.  The downside to this is we have to maintain that authorized_keys 
file.  Today each user can generate their own SSH key and upload to 
their own authorized_keys file.

I've had enough cases of users losing their SSH key and needing to 
recreate it that I'd rather not have to manage a 50 user long 
authorized_keys file.

For what it's worth, if you haven't seen gitosis yet, you might want to 
take a look - at least it makes managing the keys easy. 
http://scie.nti.st/2007/11/14/hosting-git-repositories-the-easy-and-secure-way 
has a nice tutorial.

-- Asheesh.

-- 
He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hopes for
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