Routing Git over SSH requests

This document outlines the design goals and architecture of Routing Git over SSH.

Overview

When a Git operation (git pull/clone/fetch, git push, git archive) is performed via SSH, GitLab Shell processes the request, authorizes the request against GitLab Rails, and performs a gRPC request to Gitaly for bidirectional data exchange between Git and the user:

Example: Git pull

sequenceDiagram
    participant Git on client
    participant GitLab Shell
    participant Rails
    participant Gitaly

    Note left of Git on client: git clone/fetch
    Git on client->>+GitLab Shell: ssh git-upload-pack ...
    GitLab Shell->>+Rails: GET /internal/api/authorized_keys?key=AAAA...
    Note right of Rails: Lookup key ID
    Rails-->>-GitLab Shell: 200 OK, command="gitlab-shell upload-pack key_id=1"
    GitLab Shell->>+Rails: POST /internal/api/allowed{action=upload_pack,key_id=1,project=<project>...}
    Note right of Rails: Auth check
    Rails-->>-GitLab Shell: 200 OK, { gitaly: ... }
    GitLab Shell->>+Gitaly: SSHService.SSHUploadPack gRPC request
    Note over Git on client,Gitaly: Bidirectional communication between Git client and Gitaly
    Gitaly -->>-GitLab Shell: SSHService.SSHUploadPack gRPC response
    GitLab Shell-->>-Git on client: ssh git-upload-pack response

Gitaly servers must not be exposed to the public internet, as Gitaly network traffic is unencrypted by default. This restriction makes it challenging to redirect Git over SSH requests to other instances.

Geo: Git push over SSH to secondary nodes

When git push is performed to a secondary node, the request must be rerouted to the primary node. Because Gitaly servers of the primary node are not exposed, we need to access the public endpoints (Git over SSH, Git over HTTP(S)) in order to redirect the request. As a result, we opted to proxy the Git over SSH request to Git over HTTP(S), translate the Git HTTP(S) response to the one compatible with SSH protocol, and return it to the user. The final implementation has the following flow:

sequenceDiagram
    participant C as Git on client
    participant S as GitLab Shell
    participant I as Workhorse & Rails
    participant P as Workhorse & Rails

    Note left of C: git push
    Note over S,I: Secondary site
    Note over P: Primary site
    C->>+S: ssh git receive-pack request
    S->>I: SSH key validation (api/v4/internal/authorized_keys?key=..)
    I-->>S: HTTP/1.1 300 (custom action status) with {endpoint, msg, primary_repo, authorization headers}
    S->>P: POST $PRIMARY/foo/bar.git/info/refs/?service=git-receive-pack
    P-->>S: HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    P-->>S: <response>
    S-->>C: return Git response from primary
    C-->>S: stream Git data to push
    S->>P: POST $PRIMARY/foo/bar.git/git-receive-pack
    P-->>S: HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    P-->>S: <response>
    S-->>-C: gitlab-shell receive-pack response

The solution is good for covering the general case. However, the subtle differences between SSH and HTTP(S) Git protocols cause issues in edge-case scenarios and make the solution unreliable and vulnerable to Git upgrades.

Cells: Route SSH requests to the right cell

With the development of Cells Architecture and introduction of its Routing Service, a similar challenge is encountered. When an SSH request is performed, it must be routed to the cell that contains the data related to this request.

This is another reason to find a sustainable solution for routing SSH requests.

Goals

• Find a sustainable solution that reliably covers general cases and edge cases.
• General enough to cover Geo and Cells scenarios and can be used for other similar cases.

Proposal

We cannot access Gitaly gRPC directly, but we can expose the gRPC data via an HTTP Workhorse endpoint. Since gRPC is a bidirectional protocol, Workhorse must support bidirectional streaming via HTTP for this endpoint.

• This approach doesn’t require Git protocol translation which makes it more reliable.
• The exposed Gitaly RPCs are secured by Workhorse and additional authorization checks.

Cells

For Cells architecture, GitLab Shell acts as a router and communicates with Global Service to re-route the request to the correct cell.

sequenceDiagram
    participant C as Git on client
    participant S as GitLab Shell (Global)
    participant GS as Global Service
    participant WR as Workhorse & Rails (Local)
    participant G as Gitaly (Local)

    Note left of C: git clone/fetch
    C->>+S: ssh git-upload-pack ...
    S->>+GS: Classify gRPC request to get the cell info
    GS-->>-S: ClassifyResponse{CellInfo{Address: <cell-address>, ...}}
    S->>+WR: GET /internal/api/authorized_keys?key=AAAA...
    Note right of WR: Lookup key ID
    WR-->>-S: 200 OK, command="gitlab-shell upload-pack key_id=1"
    S->>+GS: Classify gRPC request to get the cell info
    GS-->>-S: ClassifyResponse{CellInfo{Address: <cell-address>, ...}}
    S->>+WR: POST <cell-address>/internal/api/allowed{action=upload_pack,key_id=1,project=<project>...}
    Note right of WR: Auth check
    WR-->>-S: 200 OK, { project_url_prefix: <project-url>, authorization_token: ... }
    S->>+WR: <project-url>/ssh-upload-pack request
    WR->>+G: SSHService.SSHUploadPack gRPC request
    Note over C,G: Bidirectional communication between Git client and Gitaly
    G-->>-WR: SSHService.SSHUploadPack gRPC response
    WR-->>-S: <project-url>/ssh-upload-pack response
    S-->>-C: ssh git-upload-pack response

Geo

For Geo architecture, secondary GitLab Shell communicates with secondary Rails in order to re-route the request to the primary.

sequenceDiagram
    participant C as Git on client
    participant S as GitLab Shell
    participant I as Workhorse & Rails
    participant P as Workhorse & Rails

    Note left of C: git push
    Note over S,I: Secondary site
    Note over P: Primary site
    C->>+S: ssh git receive-pack request
    S->>I: SSH key validation (api/v4/internal/authorized_keys?key=..)
    I-->>S: HTTP/1.1 300 (custom action status) with {endpoint, msg, primary_repo, authorization headers}
    S->>+P: POST $PRIMARY/<project-url>/ssh-upload-pack request
    P-->>S: HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    Note over C,P: Bidirectional communication between Git client and Gitaly
    P-->>S: <response>
    S-->>-C: gitlab-shell receive-pack response

Proof of concept

The following MRs introduce minimal changes to demonstrate how git clone works when implemented using the described architecture. The main purpose is to verify that GitLab Shell can establish bidirectional communication with Workhorse via HTTP:

• Create a Workhorse HTTP endpoint that exposes a Gitaly RPC for Git clone via SSH.
• Perform a request to this endpoint from GitLab Shell and send the response to the user.

Authentication

Currently, Geo generates a token that is used for the access to the primary node:

• GitLab Rails returns this token in /allowed response.
• The token is sent within Git over HTTP(S) request to the primary node.
• The primary node recognizes the token and authorizes the request.

A similar approach can be applied to the proposed solution:

• GitLab Rails returns a token in /allowed response.
• The token is sent in a header to ssh- HTTP endpoint of Workhorse.
• Workhorse propagates the token to GitLab Rails that recognizes it and authorizes the request.

The mentioned PoC provides an example of how the approach can be implemented:

• GitLab Shell sends to Rails a JWT token that was generated using the shared secret between Shell and Rails.
• GitLab Rails sends this token back in git_rpc_auth_header field that can be also used for Geo secret.
• GitLab Shell propagates this token to Workhorse -> GitLab Rails.
• GitLab Rails recognizes this token again and authorizes the request.

The JWT generation requires knowledge of the shared secret, so a user cannot usually generate or intercept this token.

Bidirectional streaming

Git protocol implies bidirectional communication between a Git server and Git client. HTTP/1.1 doesn’t support bidirectional streaming by default, so we should either:

• Experiment with bidirectional streaming for HTTP/1.1. The PoC has a working version by using EnableFullDuplex option for a Go server.
• Upgrade the connection and switch the protocols.
• Support HTTP/2 protocol at Workhorse.

The most feasible option from infrastructure perspective must be chosen.

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