GIT: How to protect the branch from being removed by other developers?

Question

After the first release of our product, we will be switching to a different branches for the main development and feature development. Is there a way to create a branch in such a way, so that we can protect it from being removed (accidentally or on purpose) unless you're a specific user (based on role or username)?

I tried to create a sample git repository in our local gitlab machine, then protected one of the branches from the option on the website, but then I was able to remove it with git push origin :branch_name. Thanks in advance!

Will the solution work on github.com?

Answer 1

There are many ways to tackle this:

1. Make another repo that's a sand box, and give readonly access to the master one. If they delete by accident they can get the branch from the master repo. This assumes you are only using github for your repos aside the local dev repos.
2. Setup hooks in the repository that don't allow branches to be deleted unless you are a specific user. You can't do that on github as they won't allow arbitrary code to be executed on their servers. If you get a local repo instead, you can do this.
3. Setup a local gitolite install to manage branches with permissions.

Answer 2

You can use branch permissions on the server by adding a pre-receive hook that protects your repository and add something like this to your config file in your bare repository:

[hooks]
        allowedtomerge = user1,user2,user3
        protectedbranches = master