A while back I found out how
[gitolite](https://github.com/sitaramc/gitolite) handles multiple
users, by reading the manual, whilst trying to figure out how to
enable SSH agent forwarding so I can semi-automatically mirror some
repositories to, for instance, [github](http://github.com).  I came to
the conclusion that I had to override the *gitolite* settings and add
an extra line to my server's `authorized_keys` file.  This seemed to
work well.

Though apparently it didn't...  I had noticed that I couldn't set any
options through the `gitolite.conf`'s `config` commands, but I thought
this had something to do with not enabling the right settings to be
added.  I was wrong about that...

I looked at my `.gitolite.rc` on my server and saw that I had already
set `GIT_CONFIG_KEYS` to `'.*'`, so everything was allowed.  I also
tested adding random config values to git locally, like
`test.something`, which also worked; so it was neither git nor
*gitolite* that was causing the trouble.

I also noticed today that when I pushed changes to *gitolite*, at least
to the `gitolite-admin` repo, that it was complaining about not being
able to fingerprint some file in `/tmp/`.  At that time I didn't think
the issues were connected, since I hadn't changed much lately and
pushing/pulling to my repositories seemed to go fine, apart from the
config values.

After some testing I noticed that I couldn't use any config values,
not even the `gitweb.owner` setting which I was sure would work, since
I'd used that for every repo, but trying to reset them now didn't work
either.  So I started looking on the server.  It showed me the same
error as when I'd push to the `gitolite-admin` repo *plus* a message
about the first line of something being too long, showing the
beginnings of a line in `authorized_keys`.

After a lot of looking around, testing, screwing up my entire setup
**and** looking at the *gitolite* source on *github*, I think I
figured out what it's doing.  Now, I don't know any perl, but is
seemed to me that it splits up the `authorized_keys` file, checking
the validity of each line in it, except for the ones it put there.
This is where it was failing, since it would assume each line was just
a public key and could be verified by placing it in a temporary file
and fingerprinting that with `ssh-keygen -l -f`, and I had the
`command="..."` part in there as well, to override *gitolite*'s own
settings to enable agent forwarding.  So now I know why it was
complaining and why it was *always* about line 1, even when I put my
key on the last line in `authorized_keys`, but removing it would mean
no ssh agent forwarding.

So I started looking at the *gitolite* source code again, trying to
figure out where those settings of `no-X11-forwarding`,
`no-agent-forwarding`, etc. were coming from and after a little while
I found it.  Here I also saw that it was actually looking for the
`AUTH_OPTIONS` rc setting.  I don't remember reading anything about
this option, but then I'm still learning to navigate the *gitolite*
manual.  Setting that to whatever was in my `authorized_keys` file,
but leaving out the `no-agent-forwarding`, fixed this latest problem.

So, now I've got my ssh agent forwarding **and** I can set any git
config variable I want, which paves the way for writing a hook that
will try to mirror a repository after receiving an update.  This was
certainly an interesting experience, and looking at some perl code was
fun.

**Oh**, and I've also updated my *gitolite* installation, which now
includes a `update-description-file` `post-compile` trigger, which
takes the value from `gitweb.description` and puts it in the
`description` file, so programs like
[cgit](http://hjemli.net/git/cgit/) can use it too.

[[!tag git gitolite configuration ssh]]