Files
playbooks/gitea/roles/ssh/tasks/main.yaml
T
tanshu fc70acb66b Run Gitea as a rootless Podman Quadlet, with git over SSH on the host's sshd
Replaces the docker_container deployment on monoco with a Quadlet systemd user
unit on emily, and moves state from /var/lib/gitea to ~/podman-data/gitea. Gitea
is SQLite -- the live app.ini on monoco says DB_TYPE = sqlite3 with
PATH = /data/gitea/gitea.db -- so there is no postgres role and the database
travels inside the data tree.

git-over-SSH is the part that could not simply be moved. Port 22 stays the host's
sshd, so no client changes its remote, but the second hop does: the Docker-era
design sshed into an sshd *inside* the container, and under keep-id that sshd runs
as a subuid which cannot read the authorized_keys Gitea writes as tanshu. It is
replaced by a `podman exec`, reached through a shim sshd runs as a new `git` login
user, a one-command sudoers rule, and an AuthorizedKeysCommand that hands sshd the
key file without the ownership check StrictModes would otherwise apply.

Two things stopped it starting, and both only showed up when it was run:

keep-id runs the container *process* as the uid it maps, not just the file
ownership, so the whole container came up as `git` while the image's start-up is
written to begin as root. /usr/bin/entrypoint rewrites /etc/passwd,
/etc/s6/gitea/setup prepares /data before the run script `su-exec git`s the
server, and the image's own CMD is s6-svscan, which has to create
.s6-svscan/lock inside root-owned /etc/s6. The container died on the last two --
"sed: can't create temp file '/etc/passwdXXXXXX': Permission denied" and
"s6-svscan: fatal: unable to open .s6-svscan/lock: Permission denied" -- and
Restart=always turned that into a crash loop, which `is-active` reports as
`activating` rather than as a failure. User=0 restores root for the start-up and
leaves the mapping alone: the server still runs as git through su-exec, which is
what satisfies mustNotRunAsRoot. (nextcloud.container carries the same pair for
the same reason.)

The `ssh/` directory under /data is only ever a mount point -- the in-image
sshd's host keys are mounted over it from ~/podman-data/gitea-sshd -- so it is
hidden inside the container and nothing ever chowns it. When Podman has to create
it, it lands in the data tree owned by the subuid, and the role's own "nothing
here belongs to another user" check fails on it, correctly. Creating it in the
role first is what keeps the tree wholly tanshu's.

Start, is-active and the health check are now one block whose rescue dumps
status, journal and podman logs, because they fail the same way: `systemctl
start` reports success as soon as systemd holds the unit, so a container that
dies a second later surfaces only as `activating` -- which is exactly how the two
failures above were reported, with the reason in the journal and nowhere the play
looked.

Verified on emily: the play runs to ok=27/changed=7/failed=0, the health check
and the stray-owner assertion both pass, and the ssh second hop still returns the
container's Gitea 28.1.0 through the wrapper. The role's comments and the readme
were corrected where they explained the old failures as EPERM from the root
phases: container root holds the usual capabilities inside its user namespace, so
those phases succeed and leave subuid-owned files behind, which is the real reason
the tree is created up front. The readme's list of "expected" chmod EPERM lines is
gone, because the log is clean. The data directory was emptied of the fresh
app.ini afterwards and the unit left stopped, ready for the copy from monoco.
2026-10-16 16:44:14 +05:30

141 lines
5.1 KiB
YAML

---
# The host half of Gitea's git-over-SSH support.
#
# Port 22 belongs to the host's sshd and stays that way: clients keep using
# git@git.tanshu.com:user/repo.git, and no remote URL changes. Four host-side
# pieces make that work:
#
# 1. a `{{ git_user }}` login user with no interactive access — every key
# Gitea accepts carries a forced command, so sshd runs the shim and
# nothing else;
# 2. {{ shim_path }}, the shim those forced commands invoke;
# 3. {{ podman_exec_wrapper }} plus a one-command sudoers rule — how the shim,
# running as `{{ git_user }}`, reaches a container owned by
# {{ podman_user }};
# 4. the sshd and sudoers drop-ins that tie the above together.
#
# What differs from the Docker-era role is the second hop. It used to be an ssh
# into an sshd running *inside* the container; under keep-id that sshd runs as a
# subuid and cannot read the authorized_keys Gitea writes as {{ podman_user }},
# so the hop is a `podman exec` instead. readme.md, "How git over SSH works
# now", is where the reasoning lives.
#
# Every task here is root-only (users, /usr/local/bin, /etc/ssh, /etc/sudoers),
# so each elevates on its own. The play carries no become, because the Quadlet
# units have to belong to the connection user.
- name: Ensure the git group exists
ansible.builtin.group:
name: "{{ git_user }}"
become: true
# The shell matters even though nobody ever gets one: sshd runs a forced command
# through the login user's shell (`/bin/bash -c '...'`), so a nologin shell would
# break git-over-SSH outright.
#
# The uid is deliberately left to the system. On monoco the host git account was
# uid 1003 because the container's git account was 1003 and the two shared one
# uid space; under keep-id the container's 1003 is mapped onto {{ podman_user }}
# instead, so nothing on this host depends on this number any more — not the
# key file (owned by name), not the sudoers rule (matched by name), not the
# authorized_keys hook (run as {{ podman_user }}).
- name: Add the git login user
ansible.builtin.user:
name: "{{ git_user }}"
comment: Gitea SSH login user
group: "{{ git_user }}"
home: "{{ git_home }}"
shell: /bin/bash
create_home: true
become: true
# There is deliberately no ~/.ssh for this user any more. Its old contents were
# the shim's client key and the authorized_keys Gitea maintains; the key is
# obsolete (nothing authenticates over ssh in this design) and the file lives in
# the container's data tree now, where Gitea writes it. The migration notes in
# readme.md move the file into place.
- name: Install the git-over-SSH passthrough shim
ansible.builtin.template:
src: gitea.j2
dest: "{{ shim_path }}"
owner: root
group: root
mode: '0755'
become: true
- name: Install the container exec wrapper
ansible.builtin.template:
src: gitea-container-exec.j2
dest: "{{ podman_exec_wrapper }}"
owner: root
group: root
mode: '0755'
become: true
- name: Install the authorized_keys hook sshd runs for the git user
ansible.builtin.template:
src: gitea-authorized-keys.j2
dest: "{{ authorized_keys_command }}"
owner: root
group: root
mode: '0755'
become: true
# valid with `visudo -cf %s`: a syntax error in /etc/sudoers.d does not fail one
# rule, it fails *every* sudo invocation on the host, which on a server reached
# by ssh is a nasty way to find out.
- name: Let the git user reach the container as {{ podman_user }}
ansible.builtin.template:
src: sudoers-gitea.j2
dest: "{{ sudoers_path }}"
owner: root
group: root
mode: '0440'
validate: /usr/sbin/visudo -cf %s
become: true
- name: Point sshd at Gitea's authorized_keys
block:
- name: Install the sshd drop-in for the git user
ansible.builtin.template:
src: sshd-gitea.conf.j2
dest: "{{ sshd_dropin_path }}"
owner: root
group: root
mode: '0644'
register: gitea_sshd_dropin
become: true
# A drop-in that does not parse is not a failed play, it is a host nobody can
# log in to after the next reboot: sshd reads the whole directory at start-up.
# Validate the resulting configuration before it is ever loaded, and take the
# file away again if it does not parse.
- name: Validate the resulting sshd configuration
ansible.builtin.command: /usr/sbin/sshd -t
changed_when: false
become: true
when: gitea_sshd_dropin.changed
rescue:
- name: Take the sshd drop-in back out
ansible.builtin.file:
path: "{{ sshd_dropin_path }}"
state: absent
become: true
- name: Fail
ansible.builtin.fail:
msg: >-
{{ sshd_dropin_path }} did not validate, so it has been removed and
sshd is still running — and still restarting — on its previous
configuration. Run `/usr/sbin/sshd -t` on the host to see why.
# `reload`, not `restart`: a reload re-execs sshd without dropping the connection
# this play is running over.
- name: Reload sshd
ansible.builtin.systemd_service:
name: "{{ sshd_service }}"
state: reloaded
become: true
when: gitea_sshd_dropin.changed