ispconfig3-website-git

This plugin creates a bare git repository for the web directory to allow clients to change their websites using only git.

Installation

To install, simply copy the website_git.inc.php to /usr/local/ispconfig/server/plugins-available/ and symlink it to the plugins-enabled directory. Or just copy/paste the commands below, you will need root or sudo to run them.

git clone https://github.com/rynoxx/ispconfig3-website-git
ln -s `pwd`/ispconfig3-website-git/website_git.inc.php /usr/local/ispconfig/server/plugins-available/
ln -s /usr/local/ispconfig/server/plugins-available/website_git.inc.php /usr/local/ispconfig/server/plugins-enabled/

To update, simply cd into the isp-config3-website-git repository you've cloned and git pull.

If you want to allow ISPConfig shell users to log in using passwords, while keeping other users with the settings defined in /etc/ssh/sshd_config add this to the bottom of the /etc/ssh/sshd_config file:

# Allow ISPConfig shell users to login using password
Match Group client*,!root,!sudo
	PasswordAuthentication yes

This ensures that ssh users in groups beginning with client (clientX being the default group for ISPConfig) are allowed to login using password, while making sure that the setting doesn't override your other settings for users in the root and sudo groups.
And don't forget to restart the SSHD service (service sshd restart) after saving the file.
More thorough information about configuring Match in sshd_config available here and here.

Usage

1. Create a site in ISPConfig and create a shell user attached to it.

2. Clone the repository on whichever computer you want to work on the website files on.
   The git repository is located at <username>@<hostname>:/website.git or <username>@<hostname>:~/../../website.git.
   The latter is needed when using NONE as the chroot environment (or the absolute path).
   The hostname can be either the hostname of the ISPConfig server or any other hostname pointing towards it. e.g. git clone [email protected]:/website.git.

   I recommend using a specific name when you clone the repository, e.g. git clone [email protected]:/website.git example.com would clone it into the example.com directory rather than a directory called website

3. Edit the files, and create a new commit and simply push them using git push. Do note that ONLY the master branch gets updated on the server, pushing other branches does nothing.

4. That's it! Go to the website and view the new changes you've made 🎉
   And don't forget to git pull if you're working on the same website from multiple devices.

Commit "local" changes on the server

To commit changes made locally on the server (i.e. config changes or plugin updates made by the installed software, such as WordPress) run the following command:

cd ~ && git --git-dir=/website.git --work-tree=/web add /web/. && git --git-dir=/website.git --work-tree=/web commit -a -m "File changes after web update"

The above command assumes Jailkit as the chroot environment. If NONE is used, replace all path names with the absolute path (just like in the usage example).

Breakdown of the command:

cd ~ &&
# Change directory to home directory, this will be the directory above /web

git --git-dir=/website.git --work-tree=/web add /web/. &&
# Add all files in the /web/ directory to the list of files to be committed. (files in .gitignore will not be added)  
# --git-dir sets the directory which contains all the git-data (not the actual website files)  
# --work-tree sets the "root directory" of the git repository, i.e the website files  

git --git-dir=/website.git --work-tree=/web commit -a -m "File changes after web update"
# Commit the files added above

Thanks to @eric-cs for submitting the how-to for committing local changes