Management
The Manage page in Git Winch is designed for repository owners to create and manage repositories at GitLab, GitHub, or Gitea directly from within Git Winch, without leaving the application. This page is usually not for regular office workers but rather for those who handle repository setup, access permissions, and security. (But see the note at the end)
From the Manage page, owners can:
- Connect to your Git hosting service by providing a Personal Access Token (PAT) with permissions to create repositories, webhooks, and deploy keys.
- View and manage existing repositories in your account, refresh the list to stay updated, and create new repositories directly from Git Winch.
- Generate SSH keys for yourself and for Git Winch members. These keys enable secure access and collaboration on the repositories.
- Add or remove Git Winch members to repositories you own. Git Winch will create deploy keys in the Git hosting service to grant members access. While creating such a key, it will first ask if you want to add the member who is allowed to push into the repository, or disallow that member. The latter is useful to add members who will never be able to delete/modify anything in the repository. For e.g. in an architects office, the site-engineer is allowed to pull drawings from the “Good For Construction (GFC)” repository and is not allowed to push there. Once a keys are created for a person, the .priv file must be given to that person (via email/Whatsapp/etc) and that person must keep that file in the “members” folder present inside the application folder of that person's Git Winch installation.
- Copy the clone URL of any repository, which members will use in the Work tab to start working with the repository and send that URL to those members.
- Save session logs of Git Winch members working in your repositories (only visible to owners). These logs are deleted from the server after collection.
Important:
- You must have an account at GitLab, GitHub, or Gitea to use this page.
- Make sure your `config.txt` and `.ini` files in Git Winch are configured properly to connect to your desired Git hosting system.
Note:
Instead of repository owners generating key files and sending private keys to members, Git Winch members can generate their own SSH key pairs from this page and send only the public key (`.pub` file) to the owner. The owner; in turn, will have to save that file in the members folder of the application folder of his/her own Git Winch installation. This copying has to be done BEFORE the said person actually becomes a member of the repository.
Thus, even the owner does not come to know the private key of the member. This ensures better security and trust as the member is very sure that the owner is not going to attribute the work the member did to someone else.
In this management page, ONLY key generation can be done by regular members (i.e. those who are not owners)