debian-mirror-gitlab/doc/development/gitlab_shell/gitlab_sshd.md

stage	group	info
Create	Source Code	To determine the technical writer assigned to the Stage/Group associated with this page, see https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/ux/technical-writing/#assignments

gitlab-sshd in GitLab Shell

gitlab-sshd is a binary in gitlab-shell which runs as a persistent SSH daemon. It is intended to replace OpenSSH on GitLab SaaS, and eventually other cloud-native environments. Instead of running an sshd process, we run a gitlab-sshd process that does the same job, in a more focused manner:

sequenceDiagram
    participant Git on client
    participant GitLab SSHD
    participant Rails
    participant Gitaly
    participant Git on server

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