gitosis asking for password

Question

I have setup a gitosis server following instructions from here. It works fine for the initial user but I have recently added a new user. Here are the steps I took.

Created an rsa keypair using ssh-keygen with filename johndoe.
Then copied it to the keydir in gitosis admin repo.
Edited the gitosis config file and added user johndoe to the list of members
Commited the changes using git commit -a -m "what i did"
Pushed the changes to the server

After that I tried to check out with the new keyfile. It asks for the passphrase and when I enter it correctly, it the asks for the password for user git!!! There is not password for user git.

Now I have turned off PasswordAuthentication in sshd_config and now it says 'Permission denied (publickey). I have checked the git user's authorized_keys file and only one key is authorized inside it, i.e. the initial key for the gitosis admin.

I have also double checked the permissions on the ./gitosis-admin.git/hooks/post-update hook and it has 755

I don't even remember what I did to solve this or if I even did solve it. I currently use gitolite and feel it's much better. What should be done to a question like this? — andho, Jul 17 '11 at 17:01

ebneter · Answer 1 · 2011-02-03T19:57:06.267

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Gitosis is kind of stupid — is the filename you used for the keyfile literally "johndoe"? If so, change that:

git mv keydir/johndoe keydir/johndoe.pub
git commit -m "changed key name"
git push

and try again.

Also, as Arlen Cuss points out, make sure it actually is the public key, not the private key.

edited Feb 03 '11 at 19:57

answered Feb 03 '11 at 05:43

ebneter

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OP, if the issue is the public vs. private key, please accept Arlen Cuss's answer. I'm leaving this here for those people who've left the ".pub" off of public keys. – ebneter Feb 03 '11 at 19:57
To be honest I have no idea what gitosis *does* do if a private key is put in instead, but I assume it won't function, and that this may be the issue .. who knows :-} – Asherah Feb 04 '11 at 06:58
@Arlen Cuss, it will install the private key in the authorized keys file, and then ssh won't work. (I've had people do it. :-) ) – ebneter Feb 04 '11 at 22:58

score 5 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 23 '11 at 10:43

Hi, I had the same problem, and I finally found a way out.

I had to follow the instructions given by many websites, but each time after

git clone git@[serveur_name]:gitosis-admin.git

It was asking password for GIT.

Resolution: I have inserted the admin public key (the one created on my client user; then imported into the server's tmp directory) inside my authorized_keys file (located in the /home/git/.ssh/ directory of the server) and it works now.

 cp authorized_keys authorized_keys.bak
 cat /tmp/id_dsa_git.pub >> authorized_keys

I found this @ http://fclose.com/b/linux/366/set-up-git-server-through-ssh-connection/

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 03 '11 at 08:02

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Make sure you're putting your public key inside your gitosis repo, and not your private one!

When you generate a keyfile, you'll get a .pub file—use that one, but put the name in your gitosis.conf without the .pub.

answered Feb 03 '11 at 08:02

Asherah

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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 24 '11 at 11:22

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Make sure you have also added (git add) the .pub-files, and committed and pushed them properly to the repository.

answered Jul 24 '11 at 11:22

Marcus E

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 23 '12 at 10:18

one thing that often goes wrong for windows users and isn't catched by most of the tutorials out there (since they assume you're on a linux client)

msysgit, the windows git console, is looking for your private key at /home/YOURUSERNAME/.ssh/id_rsa which at windows is (Windows 7) C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME.ssh\id_rsa

while most get it right with the folder, since its created automaticly, they miss that the file HAS TO be named "id_rsa" or it wont be used by msysgit. I didn't find a way to tell msysgit to use other keys

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Nov 01 '16 at 07:02

Most likely what happened is that the post-update hook didn't run properly.

Check that ~git/.ssh/authorized_keys has your public key in it.

If not, the post-update hook didn't run. Permissions which have subsequently been changed? Some other configuration error. Copied from somewhere else?

On the server, checkout gitosis admin: git clone /path/to/gitosis-admin.git. Make an insignificant change to gitosis.conf. Check that your public key is in keydir. I had to run this as the git user.
Commit gitosis.conf. git add gitosis.conf && git commit -m "refresh keys".
Now check authorized_keys file.
Change gitosis.conf back and commit again.

Test access. If authorized_keys isn't updated after this process, look in logs for error messages.

score 0 · Answer 7 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:17

I recently ran into this issue with a private repository for work. I came across this answer and read the answers; this and this did the trick.

To sum it up for posterity, make sure you add the .pub key to the gitosis-admin/keydir directory. It has to be a .pub file.

Commit & Push your changes to gitosis-admin.

Your ~/.ssh/authorized_keys will be automatically updated so no need to cat-redirect the output of your public key file to it.

Hope this helps

gitosis asking for password

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