Hosting multiple repositories, each with differing access control

Question

We will need to host a series of Mercurial repositories. For security, we will use SSL encryption in Apache and htpasswd access (required). I tested out a single repository and used hgwebdir.cgi and used the hgweb.config to define the repository path and the allow_push and deny_push directives, but this test setup has only lead to more questions/problems:

I don't see any way to make a different allow/deny push group for each separate repository? ore importantly, I see no method to allow_pull deny_pull — which is quite important as each repository has a different set of users who should be allowed to read or write. We'd like to keep one htpasswd file for all users.

Answer 1

I think what you are likely missing is that it is perfectly allowable to create a .hg/hgrc file inside each repository, and those files can contain allow_push and allow_read entries.

Answer 2

Mercurial-server is a great way to host many Mercurial repos with different access requirements per repos.

If you decide this is not for you then you should take a look at the ACL extension to Mercurial.

Answer 3

I think the best way to allow_pull or deny_pull is to set up httpd authentication using the htpasswd file. You could use any of the mod_auth mechanisms here to allow each user to pull or push.

You might also look into using the SSH transport for hosting as that will give you a finer grained control over access, at the cost of a slightly more complicated setup.

More info can be found in the Mercurial wiki.