Some of your users may have a legitimate need to log on to the server as the hosting user and use a shell command line. If this is required for just one or two users, the simplest way to deal with this is to have them use two different keys—one for Gitolite access and one for shell access. The second key would be installed manually in the authorized keys file on the server, and would not have the command
and other options that Gitolite keys have.
Tip
Non-Gitolite keys must be added right at the start of the authorized keys file, or at least before the marker line that says # gitolite start
. Keys added in between Gitolite's start and end marker lines will be deleted the next time the gitolite-admin
repository is pushed.
However, this requires careful handling of the second key on both the server side, as well as the client side. Some users may not be interested in learning how to handle multiple keys on their side, and how to present the correct key for each access...