Using Pidgin Mercurial

This page is intended to house documentation for using Pidgin's Mercurial repositories once we switch from Monotone to Mercurial.

Background

Pidgin's Mercurial repositories are served by the ​mercurial-server package. This relies entirely upon SSH key-based authentication, providing access control and a layer of accountability.

Anonymous Pull (Non-Developers)

All Pidgin Mercurial repositories will be available via HTTP from ​http://hg.pidgin.im.

Developers

Configure SSH For Access (Developers/CPW's/SoC Students Only)

If you wish, you can simplify Mercurial ssh: URL's by adding the following to ~/.ssh/config:

Host hg.pidgin.im
    Protocol 2
    User hg

SSH-based Push/Pull?

You can get your initial checkouts from Mercurial by:

• With SSH config above: hg clone ssh://hg.pidgin.im/path/to/repo
• Without SSH config above: hg clone ssh://hg@hg.pidgin.im/path/to/repo

Once initial clones are done, pulls are a simple matter of running hg pull within your working copy. You may optionally add -u to have your checkout automatically updated if possible.

Alternatively, you can clone the repository via http and add a default-push line to the [paths] section of the repository's .hg/hgrc file:

• With SSH config above: default-push ssh://hg.pidgin.im/path/to/repo
• Without SSH config above: default-push ssh://hg@hg.pidgin.im/path/to/repo

Pushes are a simple matter of hg push within your working copy. If you need to push a new repository, you must clone:

• With SSH config above: hg clone . ssh://hg.pidgin.im/path/to/repo in working copy
• Without SSH config above: hg clone . ssh://hg@hg.pidgin.im/path/to/repo in working copy

Administration

Access Control

Access control on Pidgin's Mercurial server is strict. The repositories will be structured like so (developers/CPW's listed here are for the purpose of example):

hg.pidgin.im          # Mercurial server
 + pidgin               # "Official" Pidgin and libpurple repositories
 |  + main                # replaces im.pidgin.pidgin in Monotone
 |  + 2_x_y               # replaces im.pidgin.pidgin.2.x.y in Monotone
 + dev                  # Developers' repositories
 |  + darkrain            # for all repositories darkrain wishes to create
 |  |  + irc                # replaces im.pidgin.cpw.darkrain42.irc in Monotone
 |  |  + xmpp_roster        # replaces im.pidgin.cpw.darkrain42.xppp.roster in Monotone
 |  + rekkanoryo          # for all repositories rekkanoryo wishes to create
 |     + examples           # replaces im.pidgin.cpw.rekkanoryo.examples in Monotone
 + cpw                  # Crazy Patch Writers' repositories
 |  + eionrobb            # for all repositories eionrobb wishes to create
 |     + newfeature          # new repository
 + www                  # For websites
 |  + pidgin              # for pidgin.im
 |  + imfreedom           # for imfreedom.org
 + soc                  # For Google Summer of Code projects (lines below should be obvious)
    + 2007
    |  + student1
    |     + project1
    + ...
    + 2012
       + studentx
          + projectx

Access control will be as follows:

• Developers have write access to pidgin/*
• Developers can create and modify repositories in dev/$NICKNAME/
• Crazy Patch Writers can create and modify repositories in cpw/$NICKNAME/*
• Summer of Code students can create and modify repositories in soc/$YEAR/$NICKNAME/*
• All of the above have read access to any repository on the server.
• Those people with "root" access can do anything to any repository. This access is strictly controlled.

Adding New Users

The process to allow new users SSH access to the Mercurial repositories is pretty simple, but requires someone with "root" access to mercurial-server. Currently those people are datallah, rekkanoryo, and lschiere.

1. Check out the hgadmin repo: hg clone ssh://hg@hg.pidgin.im/hgadmin pidgin-hgadmin
2. cd pidgin-hgadmin/keys. Inhere is a series of directories. The format is self-explaining. Developers go in devs/$NICKNAME, CPW's in cpws/$NICKNAME, SoC students in soc/$NICKNAME. This is to allow a single developer, CPW, or SoC student to have multiple SSH keys, perhaps for multiple machines.
3. Create the appropriate directory.
4. Within this directory create a file named for the SSH key being added, for example user@somehost.
5. Put the SSH public key in this file.
6. hg add $FILE
7. Go back to the root of pidgin-hgadmin.
8. Edit access.conf. Copy an existing line for the same class of user (developer, CPW, SoC student) and modify it as appropriate for the new person's nickname and, if applicable, SoC year.
9. hg commit
10. hg push (mercurial-server updates automatically on push)

A Special Note About "root" Access

As indicated above, people who have "root" access to mercurial-server have the ability to configure the server via the hgadmin repo. They also have the ability to bypass all ACL's, and thus can write to any repository, including developers', CPWs', and SoC students' repositories.

Additionally, there is a safety net built into the mercurial-server configuration. In /etc/mercurial-server on rock.pidgin.im is a default ACL (access.conf) and a keys directory structure. This default ACL is what grants "root" users their privileges, and the keys directory structure contains two keys in the keys/root directory. These two keys belong to rekkanoryo and lschiere. These keys are located here in the server's filesystem instead of in the hgadmin repository as a safety net. When building the files used by mercurial-server, the tools always read from /etc/mercurial-server before reading from hgadmin; this allows rekkanoryo and lschiere to always be able to access the hgadmin repo in the event that it is damaged either through accidental or intentional means. This safety net means that at least two people will always have access to our repositories.