# gitlab-shell: ssh access and repository management
# gitlab-shell: git access for GitLab
GitLab Shell is an application that allows you to execute git commands
and provide ssh access to git repositories.
It is not a Unix shell nor a replacement for Bash or Zsh.
GitLab Shell is a progam that executes git commands for GitLab.
GitLab Shell is not a Unix shell nor a replacement for Bash or Zsh.
Hwen you access the GitLab server over ssh then GitLab Shell will:
1. Checks if your ssh key is known in authrorized keys.
1. Limits you to predefined git commands (git push, git pull, git annex).
1. Call the GitLab Rails API to check if you are authorized
1. It will execute the pre-receive hooks (called Git Hooks in GitLab Enterprise Edition)
1. It will excute the action you requested
1. Process the GitLab post-receive actions
1. Process any custom post-receive actions
If you access a GitLab server over http(s) what happens depends on if you pull from or push to the git repository.
If you pull from git repositories over http(s) the GitLab Rails app will completely handle the authentication and execution.
If you push to git repositories over http(s) the GitLab Rails app will not handle any authentication or execution but it will delegate the following to GitLab Shell:
1. Call the GitLab Rails API to check if you are authorized
1. It will execute the pre-receive hooks (called Git Hooks in GitLab Enterprise Edition)
1. It will excute the action you requested
1. Process the GitLab post-receive actions
1. Process any custom post-receive actions
Maybe you wonder why in the case of git push over http(s) the Rails app doesn't handle authentication before delegating to GitLab Shell.
This is because GitLab Rails doesn't have the logic to interpret git push commands.
The idea is to have these interpretation code in only one place and this is GitLab Shell so we can reuse it for ssh access.
Actually GitLab Shell executes all git push commands without checking authorizations and relies on the pre-receive hooks to check authorizations.
When you do a git pull command the authorizations are checked before executing the commands (either in GitLab Rails or GitLab Shell with an API call to GitLab Rails).
The authorization checks for git pull are much simpler since you only have to check if a user can access the repo (no need to check branch permissions).
An overview of the four cases described above:
1. git pull over ssh -> gitlab-shell -> API call to gitlab-rails (Authorization) -> accept or decline -> execute git command
1. git pull over http -> gitlab-rails (AUthorization) -> accept or decline -> execute git command
1. git push over ssh -> gitlab-shell (git command is not executed yet) -> execute git command -> gitlab-shell pre-receive hook -> API call to gitlab-rails (authorization) -> accept or decline push
1. git push over http -> gitlab-rails (git command is not executed yet) -> execute git command -> gitlab-shell pre-receive hook -> API call to gitlab-rails (authorization) -> accept or decline push
## Code status
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@@ -11,7 +44,26 @@ It is not a Unix shell nor a replacement for Bash or Zsh.
**GitLab shell will always use your system ruby (normally located at /usr/bin/ruby) and will not use the ruby your installed with a ruby version manager (such as RVM).**
It requires ruby 2.0 or higher.
Please uninstall any old ruby versions from your system:
```
sudo apt-get remove ruby1.8
```
Download Ruby and compile it with:
```
mkdir /tmp/ruby && cd /tmp/ruby
curl -L --progress http://cache.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/2.1/ruby-2.1.5.tar.gz | tar xz
