Linux user group configuration for Git bare repository

Question

I'm using a Ubuntu box to host my bare Git repositories for developers to work off.

At the moment I'm creating a user account for each developer on the box because it doubles as a filestore and local testing server.

When somebody pushes to the bare repository other developers are unable to work on the files which change in the objects folder as a result. The new files are created with the user of the developer who pushes.

I have placed all the developers into a dev group but the umask doesn't allow the group to edit.

I've never had to set up a Git repository so haven't had experience in working with the permissions. I do want each developer to have their own user account on the test server, and I would prefer them to do actions on the server using that account. I don't mind giving them sudo rights.

Is setting the umask for each developer the way forward?

Solution 1

While "How do I share a Git repository with multiple users on a machine?" does address your issue (and involves setting umask for the users), I prefer adding to my git installation an authorization layer like gitolite (see its documentation).

• No sudo right to give to anymone.
• All git repo operations are done by one 'git' user.
• you can set precisely the umask for newly created (and gitolite-managed) Git repos: "Setting umask in Git / Gitolite"

Solution 2

Make a common group, e.g. gitusers and add all developers to this group.

chown -R root:gitusers /path/to/repository.git
chmod 2775 /path/to/repository.git

You might need to change permissions recursively, e.g.:

find /path/to/repository.git -type d -exec chmod 2775 {} \;
find /path/to/repository.git -type f -exec chmod 0664 {} \;

Now all your developers should have write access to the repository.