Git with authentication but without ssh

Question

I have the project to set up a git server for my school with a web interface to create repositories and display them. This web part will be handled by Django, which knows the users.

Now the problem: I want authentication to pull and push private repositories but I can't use SSH to handle that part (the IT guys don't want to do support on that). The HTTP protocol is read-only without "complexe WebDAV" (according to the official doc) and use .htaccess as authentication. The problem with .htaccess is to manage them with Django: I tried to use a Django user's hash in it but it didn't work. And, finally, the Git protocol is read-write but it lacks authentication.

Summing up:

I want authentication linked with Django's users database. (To avoid having multiple places with same data)
No SSH
Avoid WebDAV and .htaccess

With these constraints I found that rewriting the git daemon (code on github) to handle authentication would be an idea but I don't know for sure how a Git client would react to that.

If you guys have another idea or want to tell me how better it would be to use WebDAV/.htaccess/..., I will be glad to hear it !

VonC · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-11 08:45:03Z

3

You could setup an Apache server (even one with https like I do in my config!), except you would ask your wsgi application to handle the authentication.

See "Access Control Mechanisms", in the mod_wsgi:

AuthType Basic
AuthName "Top Secret"
AuthBasicProvider wsgi
WSGIAuthUserScript /usr/local/wsgi/scripts/auth.wsgi
Require valid-user

The auth.wsgi script can check the credentials against your Django users database.

That solution means calling the git-http-backend (smart http transport), which is ore efficient than WebDAV.

answered Mar 11, 2013 at 8:45

VonC

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1 Comment

Cranium Over a year ago

Thanks ! Seems to be exactly what I wanted, let's try to implements it. :)

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