Git shell not enabled?

Question

I'm trying to install git server. When I set default shell for my git user to /usr/bin/git-shell I get an error upon login as git.

fatal: Interactive git shell is not enabled.
hint: ~/git-shell-commands should exist and have read and execute access.

Ssh key based access work, permissions are set correctly.

Google search does not show anything regarding this error.

I also used this method in past installations and no such error was shown. Also I looked at working server if it has some extra files or config but no such thing.

System spec:

• Gentoo linux (latest)
• Git 1.7.5.3

/etc/passwd line:

git:x:1002:1004::/home/git:/usr/bin/git-shell

Answer 1

If you look at the code which triggers that error message (which seems to have been different in older versions of Git):

if (access(COMMAND_DIR, R_OK | X_OK) == -1) {
  die("Interactive git shell is not enabled.\n"
     "hint: ~/" COMMAND_DIR " should exist "
     "and have read and execute access."); 

this should be a right issue on the git-shell directory.

The user must have read and execute permissions to the directory in order to execute the programs in it.

Answer 2

I found this after doing locate git-shell-commands

cat /usr/share/doc/git-1.7.4.4/contrib/git-shell-commands/README

Sample programs callable through git-shell. Place a directory named 'git-shell-commands' in the home directory of a user whose shell is git-shell. Then anyone logging in as that user will be able to run executables in the 'git-shell-commands' directory.

Provided commands:

help: Prints out the names of available commands. When run interactively, git-shell will automatically run 'help' on startup, provided it exists.

list: Displays any bare repository whose name ends with ".git" under user's home directory. No other git repositories are visible, although they might be clonable through git-shell. 'list' is designed to minimize the number of calls to git that must be made in finding available repositories; if your setup has additional repositories that should be user-discoverable, you may wish to modify 'list' accordingly.

So I

[root@svn ~]# cp /usr/share/doc/git-1.7.4.4/contrib/git-shell-commands /home/git -R
[root@svn ~]# chown git:developers /home/git/git-shell-commands/ -R
[root@svn ~]# chmod +x /home/git/git-shell-commands/help
[root@svn ~]# chmod +x /home/git/git-shell-commands/list
[root@svn ~]# exit
[me@svn ~]$ su git
Password: 
Run 'help' for help, or 'exit' to leave.  Available commands:
list
git> help
Run 'help' for help, or 'exit' to leave.  Available commands:
list
git> list
git> exit

Now I don't see what good help and list are, but the login worked. :)