= About repo_shell

repo_shell provides a login shell simplifying hosting of centralized subversion
and git repositories.  Repositories are accessed via SSH as the requesting
user.  SSH key authentication is activated when a user adds their SSH private
key to their ~username:.ssh/authorized_keys file on the server.

repo_shell supports authorization on a per user and per repository basis.  For
git, repo_shell authorizes using an internal algorithm against a server-wide git
acl file.  For subversion, repo_shell leverages the already existing path based
access control functionality.

To increase integrity of the repositories and to simplify filesystem
permissions, repo_shell expects all repository files to be owned by a single,
configurable system user.  Users cannot access repository files directly on the
server, only using the git or subversion client side tools.

= Acquire, build and install

    git clone git://oss.titaniummirror.com/repo_shell.git
    cd repo_shell
    make
    sudo make install

Please build from a repository clone, as the make script uses
'git describe --tags' to generate the resulting executable's version string.

= Configure /etc/repo_shell.conf

The file /etc/repo_shell.conf must contain certain fields as shown in the
example below.  The spaces surrounding the equal sign ('=') are optional.

    owner = repo
    svn_root = /var/lib/svn/repositories
    git_root = /var/lib/git
    allowed_interactive =

owner is the system account username which will own all repositories, and is
preferaby a system account used for no other purpose.  Use the adduser or
another similar system script to assist in creating the user account.  The
account home directory can be one of the repository root paths

svn_root and git_root are self-explanatory, being the longest filesystem path
shared by repositories of that type, e.g. their shared root directory.

allow_interactive contains a list of users that may log into the server via SSH,
or that may issue arbitrary commands to the server via SSH.  Instead of a list,
the wildcard character '*' can be used to indicate all users.  Note that this
only affects users that have /usr/local/bin/repo_shell as their login shell.
If the server is only hosting repositories, there is no reason for users to be
allowed 'interactive' access.

= Create owner and paths

In accordance with the settings in /etc/repo_shell.conf:

    adduser --system --group <owner> --home /var/lib/svn \
	--shell /usr/local/bin/repo_shell <owner>
    sudo install -d -o <owner> -g <owner> -m 0755 <svn_root>
    sudo install -d -o <owner> -g <owner> -m 0755 <git_root>

= Configure subversion repository ACLs

Subversion repositories created with the svncreate command have their
conf/svnserve.conf file pointing to the global {svn_root}/../authz.conf file.
It is this file that is used to set access control permissions for repositories.
Subversion's authz file allows path based control as well.  For more
information, please see the Subversion Red Bean guide at:
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.7/svn.serverconfig.pathbasedauthz.html

= Configure git repository ACLs

Git repository access control is managed by the git acl file, located at
{git_root}/.gitacls (git_root is defined in /etc/repo_shell.conf).  This file
has a format similar but not exactly like Subversion's authz file.  The file
defines one of three levels of access for various combinations of users and
repositories, then compared to the git command arriving via SSH to determine if
the access will be allowed.  Please see README.gitacls for more information.

= Create a subversion repository

svncreate is a helper script installed by make install.  To create a new
subversion repository, simply type:

    sudo -u repo svncreate <reponame>

The script creates an fsfs type repository with proper permissions, and
referencing the {svn_root}/../authz.conf file for access control.  Edit this
file as necesssary to allow access to the new repository.

= Create a git repository

gitcreate is a helper script installed by make install.  To create a new git
repository, simply type:

    sudo -u repo gitcreate <repopath>

Git repositories may be placed in subdirectories under {git_root}.  A
subdirectory may be part of <repopath>.  So, for example, if one wishes to
create a repository tinyos-main.git under a subdirectory mirrors/tinyos, then
the create command would be:

    sudo -u repo gitcreate mirrors/tinyos/tinyos-main.git

= Configuring user accounts

Each user to access repositories via client side tools need an account on the
server.  This was a purposeful design decision to allow password authentication
as well as key authentication via SSH.  Accounts for repository users must have
/usr/local/bin/repo_shell set as their shell.

To create a new user:

    sudo adduser --shell /usr/local/bin/repo_shell <newuser>

To allow an existing user access to repositories via client-side tools:

    sudo chsh -s /usr/local/bin/repo_shell <existinguser>

To completely disable repository access for an existing user, return their shell
to /bin/bash:

    sudo chsh -s /bin/bash <existinguser>

or, instead, ensure their access permissions to repositories is set to none for
both subversion and git repositories.

= Access paths for client side access

Users interact with subversion and git repositories using what we somewhat
incorrectly call access paths.  In both cases, the access path is relative to
the respective repository type root, as defined in /etc/repo_shell.conf.  In
other words, the user does not need to know where the repository is stored.  In
the case of git, a repository can be under a subdirectory.  A couple of
examples:

    svn checkout svn+ssh://server/my_repository/trunk my_repository
    git clone server:my_repository.git
    git clone server:mirrors/tinyos/tinyos-main.git

= Repository access for other applications

Local system applications, such as web based viewers, may gain read-only access
to repositories by adding the user which runs such a tool to the repository
owner's group.  However, such an access method bypasses access control
functionality and all repositories will be viewable by the application.

A better solution, requiring some scripting work, would be to have the other
application use output from the repo_shell -c command to determine access.

    repo_shell -c <username> <reponame>

This command returns one of three results.  An empty return string means no
access, an "r" means read-only, and "rw" means read-write access.

= References and links

repo_shell owes great thanks to work shared by two other projects:

- The GIT stupid content tracker - http://git-scm.org
  Some useful information was gleaned from git's git-shell program.
  GIT is licensed under the GPLv2.

- The inih .ini parser library - http://code.google.com/p/inih/
  This is a great little library for handling simple configuration files.
  inih is licensed under a modified BSD license, available in inih/LICENSE.txt.

- Subversion's authz file
  http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.7/svn.serverconfig.pathbasedauthz.html