NAME

       git-keeper - Tracks specified git repos for sysadmins

SYNOPSIS

       git-keeper  [-h] [--config CONFIG] [--parallel PARALLEL] [--version] {status | commit | update | vcs | ls
       | diff | motd | help} [...]

DESCRIPTION

       git-keeper is a tool to help sysadmins track the status of specified git repositories  on  a  server.  It
       checks  if  the  repositories  are  clean  (no uncommitted changes) and if they are up-to-date with their
       remote counterparts.

       git-keeper also provides an optional systemd service and timer, to help display status information in the
       message of the day (MOTD). This is useful for reminding sysadmins to clean and update their repositories.

CONFIGURATION

       Please make sure:

         1. Users running git-keeper have read and write access through sudo  (NOPASSWD  is  required)  for  git
            repositories specified in the config file.

            • git-keeper  is  aware of sudo as it uses SUDO_USER environment variable to determine which user to
              run git commands as. Other elevated privilege methods (like su, doas, pkexec, run0, etc.) are  not
              supported.

         2. Repositories needed to be pushed to remote are set up with SSH deploy keys. git-keeper would NOT try
            pushing repos using HTTPS.

            • Read EXAMPLE: SSH DEPLOY TRICKS below for details, especially if you are using GitHub.

         3. It's recommended to set up alias:

            alias gitkp="git-keeper vcs ."

            So  you  could  use  gitkp same as how you use git before.  The file /etc/git-keeper.conf is used to
            specify which git repositories to track. It is in INI format:

            [repo_name]
            path = /path/to/repo

       If you need to specify a user to run git commands, you can add a user field. By default, git-keeper  uses
       the owner of the specified folder, so usually you do not need to set this.

       [repo_name]
       path = /path/to/repo
       user = someuser

       For motd functionality, you can add a special section [.config] to configure git-keeper itself:

       [.config]
       # .config is a special case that used to configure git-keeper itself
       motd-template-dirty = /etc/git-keeper.d/motd-dirty.tmpl
       motd-template-clean = /etc/git-keeper.d/motd-clean.tmpl

       /etc/git-keeper.d/motd-dirty.tmpl  and  /etc/git-keeper.d/motd-clean.tmpl  are templates that uses Python
       PEP 292 format (Simpler  String  Substitutions).  motd-template-dirty  uses  $table  variable  and  motd-
       template-clean does not use any variable.

       Upon first run, git-keeper would ask for your email and use your username as name, unless ~/.gitconfig or
       ~/.git-keeper.conf is already configured.

       The MOTD service and timer would only be enabled if /etc/git-keeper.conf exists.

EXAMPLE: CHECK SYSTEM REPOS

       As sysadmin, you could check system status with:

       git-keeper status

       For repos not clean, you could inspect changes with:

       git-keeper diff repo_name

       Then you could commit changes with:

       git-keeper commit repo_name

       Finally, you could update repos with:

       git-keeper update repo_name
       # or update all repos
       git-keeper update

EXAMPLE: OPERATE ON CURRENT REPO

       git-keeper  supports  .  as a special name to represent the current directory repo if it exists in config
       file:

       git-keeper status .
       git-keeper diff .
       git-keeper commit .
       git-keeper update .

       Also, the vcs command allows you to run any git command on specified repos:

       git-keeper vcs . diff HEAD~1 HEAD

EXAMPLE: SSH DEPLOY TRICKS

       For your information, you can create a deploy key for each repository with following steps:

         1. Create a SSH key pair inside the .git directory of the repository.

            cd .git
            # RSA key pair
            ssh-keygen -f ./id_rsa -t rsa -b 4096 -N ""
            # or ED25519 key pair
            ssh-keygen -f ./id_ed25519 -t ed25519 -N ""

              1. Update .git/config like this:

                 [core]
                 # ...
                 # RSA key pair
                 sshCommand = ssh -i .git/id_rsa
                 # or ED25519 key pair
                 sshCommand = ssh -i .git/id_ed25519

         2. Add public key (id_rsa.pub or id_ed25519.pub) to the repository's deploy keys.

HISTORY

       October 2025, Originally compiled by Keyu Tao (taoky@ustclug.org)

git-keeper                                       September 2025                                    git-keeper(1)