Using su/sudo when accessing remote Git repositories over SSH
git, linux, ssh
Solution
Oh, you can do
git config remote.origin.uploadpack "sudo -u U git-upload-pack"
to get `git fetch` to use `sudo` for the remote called `origin`.
You'd need to ensure sudo is set up to allow this user to execute this command with no password, as I see no way to prompt for password.
Source:
I found myself wanting to do a somewhat similar thing, and found this nugget thoroughly buried in `man git-config`
I should point out that this does only half the job as I needed only `git fetch` to work. I imagine you could do a similar thing with `remote.origin.receivepack` in order to get `git push` to work but I have not tried that.
Problem
Suppose that there is a remote Git repository R on a Linux server. R is owned by a user U for which a remote login via SSH is not allowed at all (e.g. `root`). Neither password-based nor key-based authentication is available for that user. What is allowed, however, is logging on as a different user and then using `su` or `sudo` to issue commands as U. Is it possible to combine these two methods so that Git will use `su` or `sudo` on the remote server in order to access the repository? Alternatively, is there another method to access R without changing its access permissions or enabling SSH logins for U? P.S.: I don't mind having to type passwords manually e.g. at an `su` prompt, as long as Git handles the rest. EDIT: It seems from the comments that I need to clarify my reason for wanting to do something like this. The files tracked by R are system files that are in use by the server in question - R is not a bare repository. That means that the repository cannot really be moved, not without a lot of trickery. Getting Git to use `sudo` would allow R to be accessed using the same security model that protects these files, rather than through a separate avenue that would have to be configured and synchronized separately.