Docker-gitlab: SSH configuration in host with multiple services

[innuendonh]

Hi to all,
This is not really an issue, but I didn't know how to share this config.

I installed the image in a server already managing different services, and exposing ssh to different users for different purposes. I have no way to manage dns records for this machine, so I wanted to have a 'proxy' for SSH to forward requests made to the git user to the embedded SSH server in the image.

Instead I ended up with a different (possibly simpler) solution. The idea is:

• have your container mount its volume data at /home/git/data:/home/git/data;
• every new ssh key will be stored in /home/git/data/.ssh/authorized_keys and its entries will contain the command /home/git/gitlab-shell/bin/gitlab-shell key-x

So if you create in /home/git/gitlab-shell/bin/gitlab-shell a script like this:

#!/bin/bash
docker exec -i gitlab_gitlab_1 sh -c \
 "SSH_CONNECTION='$SSH_CONNECTION' SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND='$SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND' /home/git/gitlab-shell/bin/gitlab-shell $1"

Assuming that gitlab_gitlab_1 is the name of your gitlab container, this calls the command gitlab-shell into the container from the outside, using your host ssh server, only on the git user.
The only remaining bit is to link your .ssh/authorized_keys to the one manager by gitlab.

I just implemented this solution and it works. It allowed me to expose gitlab without arranging a different machine and having a single server exposing ssh to many users.

Are there other simpler solutions out there?

[sameersbn]

@innuendonh I think you can install gitlab-shell on the host itself and use GITLAB_SSH_HOST if required. I haven't tried this but should probably work.

[innuendonh]

Thank you!
It was my first thought, but I had issues in upgrading gitlab on gentoo so
I tried to avoid having to install anything separated from the image.
Actually, I hoped I could achieve this as a configuration in ssh, but I
could not find any way to implement this behaviour. I hope this can be
useful for someone.
Il 22/giu/2015 19:08, "Sameer Naik" [email protected] ha scritto:

@innuendonh https://github.com/innuendonh I think you can install
gitlab-shell on the host itself and use GITLAB_SSH_HOST if required. I
haven't tried this but should probably work.

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[kwizzn]

Thanks @innuendonh, I had to solve the same problem and found your solution great!
I ended up setting the data dir as the git user's home so I didn't have the linking problem for .ssh/authorized_keys.

In order to make the docker exec command work, the git user needs to be in the docker group.

Oh, and I believe the path has changed to /opt/gitlab/embedded/service/gitlab-shell/bin/gitlab-shell.

[innuendonh]

An update: I am having issues with this setup regarding file permissions.
What I suspect is that docker exec runs gitlab-shell as root, creating some files owned by root in the objects directory.
I am testing a little modification of the setup currently:

#!/bin/bash
docker exec -i -u git gitlab_gitlab_1 sh -c \
 "SSH_CONNECTION='$SSH_CONNECTION' SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND='$SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND' /home/git/gitlab-shell/bin/gitlab-shell $1"

Which means that I force the command to use the gituser instead of the default one (root).

EDIT: I actually checked that this change solves permission issues,

[IlyaSemenov]

It could be further simplified as:

#!/bin/bash
# Proxy SSH requests to docker container
docker exec -i -u git gitlab sh -c "SSH_CONNECTION='$SSH_CONNECTION' SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND='$SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND' $0 $1"

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