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P4 Server Administration Documentation | 2025.1

# Perforce TeamHub SSH

## Prerequisites

The target repo must NOT already exist in P4 Server.

The source repo must not be empty.

Use a bot account instead of personal credentials to store the SSH public key required for the GitConnector. (The `helix-user` mentioned below).

The two options are:

- Use a regular bot, and give it access to relevant projects and repositories on the team view
- Use a company admin bot account, which has access to every repository inside the company

For more information, see Bots & programmatic repository access in the Perforce TeamHub Documentation.

## Configuration steps

1. On the Git Connector server, log in as the `root` user.

2. Create a `.ssh` directory:

   `mkdir /var/www/.ssh`

3. Assign the owner of the directory to be the `web-service-user`:

   `chown web-service-user:gconn-auth /var/www/.ssh`

   where the web-service-user is either www-data for Ubuntu or apache for CentOS.

4. Switch user from `root` to the `web-service-user`:

   Ubuntu | CentOS
   --- | ---
   `su -s /bin/bash - www-data` | `su -s /bin/bash - apache`

   and generate the public and private SSH keys for the Git Connector instance:

   `ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C web-service-user@gitConnector.com`

   where the web-service-user is either www-data for Ubuntu or apache for CentOS.

   then follow the prompts.

5. Locate the public key:

   `/var/www/.ssh/id_rsa.pub`

6. Copy this public key to the Perforce TeamHub server and add `/var/www/.ssh/id_rsa.pub` to the bot account (helix-user) that performs clone and fetch for mirroring.
7. Configure the webhook for mirroring:

1. Set the environment variable `GCONN_CONFIG` to the absolute path to the `gconn.conf` file:

   `export GCONN_CONFIG=/opt/perforce/git-connector/gconn.conf`

2. Add the web hook:

   `gconn --mirrorhooks add graphDepotName/repoName git@HelixTeamHubServer/companyName/projects/projectName/repositories/gitrepoName`

   where access-token:secret represents your personal access token for GitHub or GitLab.

8. Copy the URL from your project's SSH drop-down box.

9. Save the secret token that the `--mirrorhooks` command generates.

The secret token is also included in the repo spec on the P4 Server. To write the repo spec to standard output, run

p4 repo -o {//graphDepotName/repoName}

## Mirror a repo over SSH

1. Select Hooks, Add Hook, and select a repository from the drop-down.

2. Select service WebHook from the drop-down
3. Check the triggers that you want to launch a mirroring action
4. Under Hook attributes:
   1. Paste the URL of the Git Connector into the URL text box: `https://GitConnector.com/mirrorhooks`
   2. Select content-type of json (application/json) from the drop-down.
   3. Paste the mirrorhook secret token in the Secret text box.
   4. Check the Insecure ssl checkbox because no certificate is associated with the webhook.

5. Click Save hook.

6. Validate that mirroring is in place by running the following command on the Git Connector:

       gconn --mirrorhooks list

   This displays the repositories that are mirrored and the Git Host. For example:

       gconn --mirrorhooks list
       //hth/repoName <<< http://HelixTeamHub.com/hth/projects/projectName/repositories/git/repoName.git ...
       //hth/repoName2 <<< http://HelixTeamHub.com/hth/projects/projectName/repositories/git/repoName2.git ... Not mirrored by this Gconn instance ( no mirror config )

## Troubleshooting

If there are any issues, review the following files, or send them to Perforce Technical Support:

Perforce TeamHub log at /var/log/hth/resque/current

and from the Git Connector:

    /opt/perforce/git-connector/repos/graphDepot/repoName.git/push_log

    /opt/perforce/git-connector/repos/graphDepot/repoName.git/fetch_log

    /opt/perforce/git-connector/repos/graphDepot/repoName.git/.mirror.log

    /opt/perforce/git-connector/gconn.conf

    /opt/perforce/git-connector/logs/gconn.log

    /opt/perforce/git-connector/logs/p4gc.log

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