Unsure how to use REPOSITORIES_HOME_LINK

[mikejholly]

Hi, git-server-docker is working well so far, but I'm unsure how the REPOSITORIES_HOME_LINK feature is supposed to work. I noticed the link is created in the home directory, but when cloning, only the /srv/git directory is factored in. What am I doing wrong?

git-server:
    image: rockstorm/git-server
    environment:
      SSH_AUTH_METHODS: "publickey"
      REPOSITORIES_HOME_LINK: /srv/git
    volumes:
      - ./config/git-repos:/srv/git
      - ./config/ssh/authorized_keys:/home/git/.ssh/authorized_keys

./config/git-repos has the following structure:

tree -a
.
└── projects
    └── snippets
        └── .git
            ...

12 directories, 17 files

GIT_SSH_COMMAND="ssh -i ~/.ssh/id_rsa" git clone ssh://git@172.17.0.3/projects/snippets
Cloning into 'snippets'...
fatal: '/snippets' does not appear to be a git repository
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

[rockstorm101]

Hi, thanks for your detailed report. I believe what you might be missing is simply that your link should be:

      REPOSITORIES_HOME_LINK: /srv/git/projects

Let me know if that works for you. The documentation is confusing regarding this, I shall update it.

[mikejholly]

Thanks for the reply. I'm still seeing an error with this setup:

docker run -d -v ./config/git-repos:/srv/git -v ./config/ssh/authorized_keys:/home/git/.ssh/authorized_keys -e SSH_AUTH_METHODS=publickey -e REPOSITORIES_HOME_LINK=/srv/git/projects rockstorm/git-server

GIT_SSH_COMMAND="ssh -i ~/config/ssh/id_rsa" git clone ssh://git@172.17.0.3/projects/snippets    
Cloning into 'snippets'...
fatal: '/projects/snippets' does not appear to be a git repository
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights
and the repository exists.

[rockstorm101]

./config/git-repos has the following structure:

tree -a
.
└── projects
└── snippets
└── .git
...

12 directories, 17 files

Wild guess here. Could it be that you are not using a bare repository in your server? I.e. a repository created via git init --bare instead of plain git init. See https://thelinuxcode.com/difference-between-git-init-and-git-init-bare/

[alsastre]

I am having a similar issue.

Command being used:

docker run --rm -d --name gitserver -p 2233:22 --network=pgnetwork --label deployed-by=git-server.sh -v /Users/alejandro/TMP/dc-git-server:/srv/git -v ./authorized_keys:/home/git/.ssh/authorized_keys -e REPOSITORIES_HOME_LINK=/srv/git -e SSH_AUTH_METHODS=publickey rockstorm/git-server:2.4

dc-git-server contents:

~/TMP/dc-git-server ❯ find .
.
./xlinq
./xlinq/tcs.dc.git
./xlinq/tcs.dc.git/config
./xlinq/tcs.dc.git/objects
./xlinq/tcs.dc.git/HEAD
....

On the host I do see that the env variable was correctly assigned:

/ # echo $REPOSITORIES_HOME_LINK
/srv/git
/ # [ -n "${REPOSITORIES_HOME_LINK-}" ] && echo "TRUE" || echo "FALSE"
TRUE
/ # [ -d "${REPOSITORIES_HOME_LINK}" ] && echo "TRUE" || echo "FALSE"
TRUE
/ # echo $GIT_HOME
/home/git
/ # 
/ # 
/ # cd /home/git/
/home/git # ls -larth
total 28K    
drwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        4.0K Jan 16 20:55 ..
drwxr-sr-x    1 git      git         4.0K Jan 16 20:55 git-shell-commands
lrwxrwxrwx    1 root     git            8 Feb 18 12:58 git -> /srv/git
drwxr-sr-x    2 git      git         4.0K Feb 18 12:58 .ssh
drwxr-sr-x    1 git      git         4.0K Feb 18 12:58 .
/home/git # ls git
xlinq

I still cannot do:

git clone ssh://git@localhost:2233/git/xlinq/tcs.dc.git
nor
git clone ssh://git@localhost:2233/git/tcs.dc.git
nor
git clone ssh://git@localhost:2233/xlinq/tcs.dc.git

[rockstorm101]

I still cannot do:

git clone ssh://git@localhost:2233/git/xlinq/tcs.dc.git

I would expect that one to work I guess. Does the absolute path work? I.e.:

git clone ssh://git@localhost:2233/srv/git/xlinq/tcs.dc.git

[alsastre]

Yes, it does but without the .git

git clone ssh://git@localhost:2233/srv/git/xlinq/tcs.dc

[rockstorm101]

Yes, it does but without the .git

I'm not sure what is going on there. I'm unable to replicate such behavior. I mean, working without '.git' and not with it.

Extracts of relevant configuration files:

$ tree -L 3 test/repos/
test/repos/
└── projects
    └── test-repo.dc.git
        ├── branches
        ├── config
        ├── description
        ├── HEAD
        ├── hooks
        ├── info
        ├── objects
        └── refs
$ cat docker-compose.yml
[...]
    environment:
      REPOSITORIES_HOME_LINK: /srv/git/projects
    volumes:
      - ./test/repos:/srv/git
    ports:
      - "2222:22"
$ cat ~/.ssh/config
[...]
Host local 
    HostName localhost
    User git
    Port 2222

Testing for absolute paths, successful:

$ git clone ssh://git@localhost:2222/srv/git/projects/test-repo.dc.git
Cloning into 'test-repo.dc'...
git@localhost's password: 
remote: Enumerating objects: 47, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (47/47), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (19/19), done.
remote: Total 47 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
Receiving objects: 100% (47/47), done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1/1), done.

Testing for short paths, successful:

$ git clone local:projects/test-repo.dc.git
Cloning into 'test-repo.dc'...
git@localhost's password: 
remote: Enumerating objects: 47, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (47/47), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (19/19), done.
remote: Total 47 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
Receiving objects: 100% (47/47), done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1/1), done.

Testing for paths without the '.git', successful:

$ git clone ssh://git@localhost:2222/srv/git/projects/test-repo.dc
Cloning into 'test-repo.dc'...
git@localhost's password: 
remote: Enumerating objects: 47, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (47/47), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (19/19), done.
remote: Total 47 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
Receiving objects: 100% (47/47), done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1/1), done.

[rockstorm101]

Same configuration as above but setting:

    environment:
      REPOSITORIES_HOME_LINK: /srv/git

Yields successful results as follows:

$ git clone ssh://git@localhost:2222/srv/git/projects/test-repo.dc.git
Cloning into 'test-repo.dc'...
git@localhost's password: 
remote: Enumerating objects: 47, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (47/47), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (19/19), done.
remote: Total 47 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
Receiving objects: 100% (47/47), done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1/1), done.

and

$ git clone local:git/projects/test-repo.dc.git
Cloning into 'test-repo.dc'...
git@localhost's password: 
remote: Enumerating objects: 47, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (47/47), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (19/19), done.
remote: Total 47 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0 (from 0)
Receiving objects: 100% (47/47), done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (1/1), done.

[rockstorm101]

@mikejholly, were you able to find out what your issue was?

[alsastre]

@rockstorm101 Thanks for the support

I still cannot successfully clone the repo without the full path.
I see that on your relative path test you are not using the ssh:// path.

Could it be that the issue is related to that?
Is there any logs or other test you can think I can do to find out the issue?

[rockstorm101]

I see that on your relative path test you are not using the ssh:// path.

Could it be that the issue is related to that?

Well I do get an error when using "ssh://" on short paths:

$ git clone ssh://local:projects/test-repo.dc.git
Cloning into 'test-repo.dc'...
ssh: Could not resolve hostname local:projects: Name or service not known
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Is that the error you get? Did you manage to solve this already?

Is there any logs or other test you can think I can do to find out the issue?

Any other think I can think of would be to run the server with logs and see if something is out of place

[alsastre]

I did not manage to solve it, we are using full paths for now.
I need to specify the port so I need to use the ssh:// (unless I am missing something). For you to work I believe you need to specify host:port e.g git clone ssh://localhost:2222:projects/test-repo.dc.git
The error is the one of does not appear to be a git repository, the connection to the server is working but the path is not found.

I will try to run with logs and see if I get some more feedback but I believe is going to be the protocol in the url.

[rockstorm101]

I need to specify the port so I need to use the ssh:// (unless I am missing something).

You should not need to specify the port in the URL if your .ssh/config is properly configured. Mine looks like this for local tests:

$ cat ~/.ssh/config
Host local 
    HostName localhost
    User git
    Port 2222

[lindenaar]

@rockstorm101 I stumbled into this when starting to use your project as well.

What I experienced (and what I think the above examples also show) is that using REPOSITORIES_HOME_LINK requires setting up the host in your ~/.ssh/config as documented just below that.

Without that, i.e. when you specify the full ssh// URL including port (or without port, that doesn't matter), the provided path is always an absolute path (i.e. the concept of REPOSITORIES_HOME_LINK won't work unless you also create a similar symlink in the root (/) but that sounds like a bad idea to me.

Unless i am missing something here, perhaps good to clarify in the documentation that for REPOSITORIES_HOME_LINK to work, the setup in .ssh/config is mandatory to avoid confusion?