# git-shell default working directory 7 messages from 2020-02-26 to 2020-02-28. Participants: Greg Anders, Andrei Rybak, Jeff King, Junio C Hamano. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/52886 ## Greg Anders, 2020-02-26 00:48 Subject: git-shell default working directory Message-ID: <20200226004830.oxd5562v7qqspnkk@Kepler> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20200226004830.oxd5562v7qqspnkk%40Kepler ``` Hello, I'm working on standing up a self-hosted git server. I'd like to keep my repositories under a dedicated directory, i.e. /srv/git, but I'd also like to be able to clone a repository using a simple syntax: git clone git@myserver:repo.git as opposed to git clone git@myserver:/srv/git/repo.git I've not yet found a way to get this to work without keeping the repositories in the git user's home folder. I've tried using a ~/.ssh/rc file to chdir into /srv/git and I've tried using the `command=` parameter in the authorized_keys file; however, both of these fail because `cd` is not recognized as a valid command by git-shell. I suppose I could create symlinks from the repositories in /srv/git into /home/git, but I'm wondering if there's a cleaner way to do this? Thanks, Greg ``` ## Andrei Rybak, 2020-02-26 09:10 Subject: Re: git-shell default working directory Message-ID: <241ea912-44b2-96fa-6f9a-3f04d5386b05@gmail.com> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/241ea912-44b2-96fa-6f9a-3f04d5386b05%40gmail.com In-Reply-To: <20200226004830.oxd5562v7qqspnkk@Kepler> ``` On 2020-02-26 01:48, Greg Anders wrote: > Hello, Hi Greg, > I'm working on standing up a self-hosted git server. I'd like to keep my > repositories under a dedicated directory, i.e. /srv/git, but I'd also > like to be able to clone a repository using a simple syntax: > > git clone git@myserver:repo.git > > as opposed to > > git clone git@myserver:/srv/git/repo.git > > I've not yet found a way to get this to work without keeping the > repositories in the git user's home folder. Disclaimer: I'm not at all familiar with git server setup. Would it make sense to change git user home directory to be the required dedicated directory? > I've tried using a ~/.ssh/rc > file to chdir into /srv/git and I've tried using the `command=` > parameter in the authorized_keys file; however, both of these fail > because `cd` is not recognized as a valid command by git-shell. > > I suppose I could create symlinks from the repositories in /srv/git into > /home/git, but I'm wondering if there's a cleaner way to do this? > > Thanks, > > Greg  ``` ## Jeff King, 2020-02-26 20:11 Subject: Re: git-shell default working directory Message-ID: <20200226201121.GA287048@coredump.intra.peff.net> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20200226201121.GA287048%40coredump.intra.peff.net In-Reply-To: <241ea912-44b2-96fa-6f9a-3f04d5386b05@gmail.com> ``` On Wed, Feb 26, 2020 at 10:10:05AM +0100, Andrei Rybak wrote: > > I've not yet found a way to get this to work without keeping the > > repositories in the git user's home folder. > > Disclaimer: I'm not at all familiar with git server setup. Would it make sense > to change git user home directory to be the required dedicated directory? Yeah, that's what I would suggest. git-shell does explicitly cd to $HOME, so any chdir you do before then will be lost (though you could perhaps just set $HOME in ~/.ssh/rc). -Peff ``` ## Junio C Hamano, 2020-02-26 20:29 Subject: Re: git-shell default working directory Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/xmqqeeuhhz3a.fsf%40gitster-ct.c.googlers.com In-Reply-To: <20200226201121.GA287048@coredump.intra.peff.net> ``` Jeff King writes: > On Wed, Feb 26, 2020 at 10:10:05AM +0100, Andrei Rybak wrote: > >> > I've not yet found a way to get this to work without keeping the >> > repositories in the git user's home folder. >> >> Disclaimer: I'm not at all familiar with git server setup. Would it make sense >> to change git user home directory to be the required dedicated directory? > > Yeah, that's what I would suggest. git-shell does explicitly cd to > $HOME, so any chdir you do before then will be lost (though you could > perhaps just set $HOME in ~/.ssh/rc). I didn't suggest it because the original request did not sound like building a dedicated machine that is used only to push into without interactive shell access. If $HOME is moved to such a git centric place, that would make it almost impossible to use the account for shell interactive access, I would imagine, and if that is acceptable, perhaps something like gitolite would fit the bill better? ``` ## Jeff King, 2020-02-26 20:39 Subject: Re: git-shell default working directory Message-ID: <20200226203931.GA288832@coredump.intra.peff.net> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20200226203931.GA288832%40coredump.intra.peff.net In-Reply-To: ``` On Wed, Feb 26, 2020 at 12:29:13PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote: > Jeff King writes: > > > On Wed, Feb 26, 2020 at 10:10:05AM +0100, Andrei Rybak wrote: > > > >> > I've not yet found a way to get this to work without keeping the > >> > repositories in the git user's home folder. > >> > >> Disclaimer: I'm not at all familiar with git server setup. Would it make sense > >> to change git user home directory to be the required dedicated directory? > > > > Yeah, that's what I would suggest. git-shell does explicitly cd to > > $HOME, so any chdir you do before then will be lost (though you could > > perhaps just set $HOME in ~/.ssh/rc). > > I didn't suggest it because the original request did not sound like > building a dedicated machine that is used only to push into without > interactive shell access. If $HOME is moved to such a git centric > place, that would make it almost impossible to use the account for > shell interactive access, I would imagine, and if that is acceptable, > perhaps something like gitolite would fit the bill better? I took the mention of /home/git to mean it was a dedicated "git" user. But yeah, that would be an awful suggestion for a regular user. :) And I second the notion of gitolite for a dedicated setup like this (I haven't really used it much myself, but the design always seemed quite sane to me). I _do_ keep git repositories on a host accessible by my normal user. It's a mild inconvenience to have to clone "git.peff.net:git/foo.git" instead of just "git.peff.net:foo.git". We could allow a config or environment variable to re-root a relative path given to upload-pack. As long as it was clear this isn't a security feature (it's for people who already have shell access, and could be overridden by an absolute path), I think it would be OK. -Peff ``` ## Greg Anders, 2020-02-27 21:57 Subject: Re: git-shell default working directory Message-ID: <20200227215715.qzxtbzvirxg3mnqv@Kepler> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20200227215715.qzxtbzvirxg3mnqv%40Kepler In-Reply-To: <20200226203931.GA288832@coredump.intra.peff.net> ``` Thanks for the replies everyone! >Disclaimer: I'm not at all familiar with git server setup. Would it >make sense to change git user home directory to be the required >dedicated directory? I did think about this but that doesn't really solve the problem. The reason I'd like to use a dedicated directory for the repositories is so that I can separate the repos from the git user's home files (e.g. .profile, .ssh, etc.) I am also hosting an HTTP front end that reads the repos and I don't want to introduce a security risk by giving the web server access to the git user's home directory. >Yeah, that's what I would suggest. git-shell does explicitly cd to >$HOME, so any chdir you do before then will be lost (though you could >perhaps just set $HOME in ~/.ssh/rc). I did try ~/.ssh/rc, but when using git-shell it says `/bin/sh .ssh/rc: Unknown command` or something to that effect. I'm assuming this has to do with the fact that git-shell can only run a certain subset of commands (although according to the SSH docs, the rc file _should_ be executed _before_ switching to the user's $SHELL, so I'm not actually quite sure why this doesn't work). >And I second the notion of gitolite for a dedicated setup like this (I >haven't really used it much myself, but the design always seemed quite >sane to me). I'd actually never heard of gitolite before. It does look like a great piece of software, but I'm worried it might be overkill for me since I'm running just a single-user setup (i.e. me). For now, I've just created symlinks from /srv/git into /home/git which allows cloning over SSH to work how I'd expect. I also created a interactive command under git-shell-commands/ that will create a new repository in /srv/git and also automatically generate the symlinks into /home/git. It feels a bit hacky, but it works! ``` ## Greg Anders, 2020-02-28 20:40 Subject: Re: git-shell default working directory Message-ID: <20200228204013.xihhlduk7sl4egvx@Kepler> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20200228204013.xihhlduk7sl4egvx%40Kepler In-Reply-To: <20200227215715.qzxtbzvirxg3mnqv@Kepler> ``` Just wanted to follow up one more time on this: I decided to give gitolite a look and am extremely impressed! It was quite easy to set up and does exactly what I want and quite a bit more! Just wanted to provide a glowing recommendation for anyone else considering doing their own git hosting. Greg ```