Re: Git server side "pre-receive" hook to create new repositories

[Sitaram Chamarty <sitaramc@gmail.com>]

On 19/03/2019 17.46, Dimitri Joukoff wrote:
> Thanks for the feedback.
> 
> Whilst I understand the options that you've both proposed, the intent
> was to enable the Swift Package Manager to mirror repositories in a
> transparent way.  I'll look into whether these options can be
> implemented inside the SPM.

I don't know the Swift Package Manager, but looking at the preceding
discussion reminded that gitolite allows this.

I'm not saying that someone should install gitolite just to get this
feature, but rather that *any* script that traps the incoming request
can do this.  Almost trivial if the request is coming in via ssh,
actually.  Just set the shell to a script that looks at and parses
SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND and do whatever is needed before passing control to
git proper.

sitaram

> 
> Cheers,
> Dimitri.
> 
> 
> On 19/3/19 7:24 pm, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
>> On Tue, Mar 19 2019, Jeff King wrote:
>>
>>> On Sat, Mar 09, 2019 at 10:46:09AM +0000, Dimitri Joukoff wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thus, this feature request is asking that the 'pre-receive' hook
>>>> triggers when someone tries to push to a repository regardless of
>>>> whether the repository exists.  This would allow automatic creation of
>>>> new repositories and smooth the work-flow described above.  If the
>>>> semantics of the existing 'pre-receive' hook are such that it would not
>>>> be suitable for such a purpose, then an alternative way of providing the
>>>> call-back ability would be implemented.
>>> The pre-receive hook is a bit too late for this. It runs after the
>>> server has told the client what it has in the repo, the client decides
>>> what to push, and the server has received the pack. So receive-pack
>>> would have to know about this and fake having an empty repository. And
>>> then figure out where to store the incoming packfile, since we have no
>>> repo.
>>>
>>> So I think it would have to be another hook that runs before the rest of
>>> receive-pack. I.e., a system-level config option that says "if you are
>>> asked to accept a push for a repo and it doesn't exist, run this instead
>>> and then run as usual".
>>>
>>> It does feel a little error-prone, though, if the client does not
>>> positively say "I want you to create this if it doesn't exist".
>>> Otherwise if I do "git push server:my-misspelled-repo.git", the result
>>> is going to be rather confusing. And retro-fitting that into the
>>> receive-pack protocol is going to be tricky.
>>>
>>> It would be much easier to have a separate endpoint for the client to
>>> say "please make this repo if it doesn't exist". And then just run that
>>> before doing the push.
>>>
>>> For an unrestricted client connecting over ssh, we already have that:
>>> you can just run "ssh $host git init /path/to/repo". There isn't a
>>> similar thing that can be done over HTTP, though.
>> Sounds simpler to just change the user's login shell to a wrapper that
>> checks if the repo exists, and if not create it before proceeding.
>>
>> The same with http(s). I.e. in whatever webserver that's now pointing to
>> git-http-backend as a script point to the same wrapper script.
>>
>>
> 
> 
> 

-- 
sitaram