Few Questions

Hi,

   I am new to Git. Earlier I have configured svn with LDAP auth and svnwebclient.

I want to have following with Git

- LDAP and ssh authentication.

- checkin and checkout using web interface and ssh

- when ever someone checkin something then a email should be send to a email address (a mailing list)

please let me know how to do this with Git

-Manish 

"Arya, Manish Kumar" <m.arya@yahoo.com> writes:

AFAIK, there isn't any authentication mechanism built into Git. Instead, Git relies on existing (proven, reliable, ...) mechanisms. SSH authentication is what you get when accessing a repository with e.g. git clone ssh://host.com/path/to/repo (either you have a full ssh shell access on the server, or you can restrict the access with git-shell to allow only basic git operations on the server).

There's probably a way to let your server use LDAP for authentication when using SSH, but that's independant from Git (and I'm helpless here).

Gitweb for the web interface. "checkin" and "checkout" have different meanings depending on the tool, so I'm not sure I understand the question correctly.

In Git, the equivalent of "checkout" for centralized VCS would be "clone" (i.e. get a local working tree for a remote repository, but Git also duplicates the history), see above, it works straigtforwardly through SSH. I don't think you can do it from a web interface, but I don't understand what would be the point in doing it.

With a hook. You probably don't want to have this as the commit hook, since the advantage of Git is to make "commit" a local, somehow private operation, and to distinguish it from "push" (which somehow means "publish", "show to the rest of the world"). So sending email when some server receives the new revisions is sensible, this is the post-receive hook.

These can help:

http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git.git;a=blob;f=contrib/hooks/post-receive-email;h=28a3c0e46ecf9951f3f42a025a288a65c70e0424;hb=HEAD http://source.winehq.org/git/tools.git/?a=blob;f=git-notify;hb=HEAD

"Arya, Manish Kumar" <m.arya@yahoo.com> writes:

Instead of inventing (and failing) its own protocol and its own authentication git uses established solutions for authentication: SSH for "smart" server, and WebDAV for push via (currently only "dumb") HTTPS protocol.

There exist solutions that help with setting up SSH for git: git-shell, ssh_acl, and I think most commonly used Gitosis (see seminal reference about Gitosis on http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/BlogPosts).

Git is distributed version control system: checkin (named 'commit' in git) and checkout are _local_ operations. Fetch (getting new changes from remote repository) and clone (creating new local repository following or forking specified remote repository) can be done via local filesystem, via git:// protocol, via "dumb" HTTP, and via SSH. Push (sending changes to remote repository) needs autheticated channel: most common used is SSH, but you can also use WebDAV with HTTPS.

There are web interfaces for Git, something like SVN::Web or ViewVC, like gitweb (in Perl, developed in git.git repository) and cgit (in C). See also "Web interfaces" section on InterfacesFrontendsAndTools page on git wiki.

If by 'checkin' you mean publishing changes to a server (i.e. push in
git terminology), see for example contrib/hooks/post-receive-email
hook.
 

Please learn that Git is _different_ from Subversion, and not try to follow your SVN workflow and expectations blindly.

Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:

 
Yup.  Gitosis is very popular for this.

At my last job I rolled my own Gitosis-lite, but in Perl, because they are a Perl based shop. It also uses the update-paranoid hook for access controls, as its more flexible (and easier to confuse the heck out of yourself) than Gitosis. But if you can get along with Gitosis, its a good choice. Unfortunately its authentication is limited to public keys registered in the authorized keys file of the "git" user.

<plug type="not-quite-ready-but-will-be-soon">

Gerrit2 is also likely to enter this "market" soon. I'm trying to get it production ready and live for one major project before the end of this month. It embeds its own SSH daemon on a non-standard port, completely disconnected from the OS authentication. This may make it slightly more palatable in some enviroments then Gitosis, as you don't need a huge authorized_keys file, and you don't have to worry quite so much about attack vectors.

Unlike with Gitosis, public key management is placed on end-users by using web authentication to identify the user, and letting the user manage their own "authorized key list". It also has a full blown web based code review system built in. Which right now a project must use if it is hosted by Gerrit2. :-)

</plug>

On Tue, 2009-01-20 at 08:04 -0800, Shawn O. Pearce wrote:

<plug type="not-really-existent-yet-but-gee-golly-i-wish-it-were" variant="mildly-offtopic" unnecessary:attribute="is-unnecessary">

I talked with Chris Wanstrath (defunkt) of Git Hub once upon a time about them open sourcing their additions onto the openSSH sshd(8) to work public key lookup into a MySQL database instead of simply reading a flat file.

It'd be nice to add some peer pressure to get them to release it already ;)

</plug>

I read your thread(s) on groups.google.com regarding Gerrit2 and it seems quite promising as well. Looking forward to it being ready ;)

Cheers