CODEWITHSUNDEEP
gitgithubcollaborationreadonlypublic-key
Jeroen Ooms
Jeroen Ooms

Reputation: 32978

Github: readonly access to a private repo

I am developing some private projects on Github, and I would like to add nightly cronjobs to my deployments servers to pull the latest version from github. I am currently doing this by generating keypairs on every deployment server and adding the public key to the github project as 'Deployment key'.

However, I recently found out that these deployment keys actually do have write access to the project. Hence, every of the server administrators could potentially start editing. Furthermore I can add every deployment key to only one repository, whereas I would like to be able to deploy multiple repositories on one and the same deployment server.

Is there a way to provide read-only access for private repositories to selected users on Github?

Upvotes: 170

Views: 113346

Answers (5)

Contango
Contango

Reputation: 80282

Answer for GitHub on 2023-12-26:

git clone https://myusername:[email protected]/myusername/myproject.git

Where:

  • myusername is your GitHub username
  • myproject is the Git project name.
  • github_pat_11AAJ3xxxxx is the access token.

To generate the access token:

  • In GitHub, click on profile picture (top right) then [ Settings > Developer Settings > Personal Access Tokens > Fine Grained Tokens ].
  • Then click on Generate New Token, select Only select repositories and choose the private repositories you want to grant read-only access to.
  • Under Repository permissions, ensure Read access to "actions, administration, code, codespaces, and metadata".
  • Copy the resultant token to the clipboard.

Upvotes: 5

guizo
guizo

Reputation: 3095

I know that the questions is about github but maybe for some readers it would be nice to know that this is possible in gitlab and for free. Check https://gitlab.com/help/user/permissions. I spend some time using github without fully serving my purposes. If I knew then I would have started this particular project with gitlab.

Upvotes: 5

pmdj
pmdj

Reputation: 23438

I have it on good authority that the (relatively new) "Organizations" feature allows you to add people with read-only access to a private repository.

Upvotes: 78

chainwork
chainwork

Reputation: 2886

For Organizations: I suggest creating a new team specifically for the user. This team can then grant read-only access to the repositories you specify. I hope this helps!

Upvotes: 3

Adam Reis
Adam Reis

Reputation: 4473

For anyone else finding this question, know that nowadays you can in fact create read-only deploy keys:

https://github.com/blog/2024-read-only-deploy-keys

You can still create deploy keys with write access, but have to explicitly grant that permission when adding the key.

Upvotes: 54

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