Open a file directly from a GitLab private repository

Question

I have a private repository on a GitLab server and using the SSH I can pull a project using git clone.

But I want to run a script on linux command line directly from the server (more specific, a Drupal / Drush .make file)

I tried to run it using the raw file:

drush make http://server.com/user/project/raw/master/file.make

(for the convenience of non Drupal users let’s say)

curl http://server.com/user/project/raw/master/file.make

Without success. Of course, it returns me the login page.

Is it possible?

Answer 1

With Chris's valuable help, here is how you can run a script (drupal .make file in my case) from a GitLab server. (Probably it works for GitHub but I didn't test it. Maybe the syntax will be a bit different). (Of course this works for any type of script)

It can be done using the authentication tokens. Here is the documentation of the GitLab's API and here is the GitHub's API

For convenient I will use the https://gitlab.com as the example server.

• Go to https://gitlab.com/profile/account and find your "Private token"

• Then print the list of the projects and find the id of your project you are looking for

  curl https://gitlab.com/api/v3/projects?private_token=<your_private_token>

  or go there with your browser (a json viewer will help a lot)

• Then print the list of the files that are on this project and find the id of your file you are looking for

  curl https://gitlab.com/api/v3/projects/<project_id>/repository/tree?private_token=<your_private_token>

• Finally get / run the file!

  curl https://gitlab.com/api/v3/projects/<project_id>/repository/raw_blobs/<file_id>?private_token=<your_private_token>

In case you want to run the script (drupal .make)

drush make https://gitlab.com/api/v3/projects/<project_id>/repository/raw_blobs/<file_id>?private_token=<your_private_token> <drupal_folder>

(If you are here looking for a workflow to integrate GitLab with Aegir .make platforms without using tokens (maybe SSH?) please make a thread and paste here the link.)

EDIT

You can get the file without the project_id by using the encoded project name. For example the my-user-name/my-project will become: my-user-name%2Fmy-project

Answer 2

Update 2018-12-25:

as long as you're not downloading huge files, this should work:

curl -s -H "Private-Token: <token>" "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/<urlencode("gitlab_username/project_name")>/repository/files/<path/to/file>/raw?ref=<branch_name>"

, a real example, downloading the file /README.md from the private repository https://gitlab.com/divinity76/Yur17, where the web download url is https://gitlab.com/divinity76/Yur17/raw/master/README.md?inline=false, is:

curl -s -H "Private-Token: afF2s1xgk6xcwXHy3J4C" "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/divinity76%2Fyur17/repository/files/README%2Emd/raw?ref=master"

take special note of how the gitlab_username/repo_name was url-encoded, eg / became %2F (you can check how your username & repo name is as url-encoded by opening your browser javascript terminal and write encodeURIComponent("your_username/repo_name"); in the terminal and press enter.)

thanks to Jonathan Hall @ gitlab at mg.gitlab.com, and https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/api/repository_files.html , and tvl for helping reach a solution.

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Update 2018-12-11: this method no longer works, now it just serves the login page, with a message saying need to log in to continue, even using HTTP 200 OK (shame on them), will update if i find out why ( @XavierStuvw claims it's security concerns related)

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i found a much easier way to do it than @tvl 's answer,

first create an access token with API access here: https://gitlab.com/profile/personal_access_tokens , then do:

wget --header 'PRIVATE-TOKEN: <token>' 'https://gitlab.com/<username>/<repo>/raw/master/path/to/file.ext'

i found the solution here.