building packages with git+ssh

[Chaitan Rogers]

Hi,

We are trying to build code that is stored in a internal repository that is only accessible via git+ssh. This failed because openssh isn't included in the set of inputs that are available to the cloning process. After speaking to "rekado" and others on IRC, I forked git-download.scm and modified it to include ssh. This meant that git was able to invoke ssh successfully but the process subsequently failed due to failed host key verification. Perhaps with some hacking we may be able to convince ssh to ignore the host key but we'll probably have more problems with keys / secrets etc that aren't in the jail.

I also tried to get the package source into the jail by building with --with-source. This almost worked but I noticed that the flag seems to apply to the package being built but not any of its dependencies - i.e providing it multiple times for dependent packages had no effect. 

Has anybody managed to clone code from a secure repo over ssh? I think this would be a very useful feature especially in corporate environments. What's the best way forward from here?

Cheers,

Chaitan