git-remote-s3

This library enables to use Amazon S3 as a git remote and LFS server.

It provides an implementation of a git remote helper to use S3 as a serverless Git server.

It also provide an implementation of the git-lfs custom transfer to enable pushing LFS managed files to the same S3 bucket used as remote.

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Prerequisites
• Security
  • Data encryption
  • Access control
• Use S3 remotes
  • Create a new repo
  • Clone a repo
  • Branches, etc.
  • Using S3 remotes for submodules
• Repo as S3 Source for AWS CodePipeline
  • Archive file location
  • Example AWS CodePipeline source action config
• LFS
  • Creating the repo and pushing
  • Clone the repo
• Notes about specific behaviors of Amazon S3 remotes
  • Arbitrary Amazon S3 URIs
  • Concurrent writes
• Manage the Amazon S3 remote
  • Delete branches
  • Protected branches
• Under the hood
  • How S3 remote work
  • How LFS work
  • Debugging
• Credits

Installation

git-remote-s3 is a Python script and works with any Python version >= 3.9.

Run:

pip install git-remote-s3

Prerequisites

Before you can use git-remote-s3, you must:

• Complete initial configuration:

  • Creating an AWS account
  • Configuring an IAM user or role

• Create an AWS S3 bucket (or have one already) in your AWS account.

• Attach a minimal policy to that user/role that allows the to the S3 bucket:

  {
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
      {
        "Sid": "S3ObjectAccess",
        "Effect": "Allow",
        "Action": ["s3:PutObject", "s3:GetObject", "s3:DeleteObject"],
        "Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::<BUCKET>/*"]
      },
      {
        "Sid": "S3ListAccess",
        "Effect": "Allow",
        "Action": ["s3:ListBucket"],
        "Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::<BUCKET>"]
      }
    ]
  }

• Optional (but recommended) - use SSE-KMS Bucket keys to encrypt the content of the bucket, ensure the user/role create previously has the permission to access and use the key.

{
  "Sid": "KMSAccess",
  "Effect": "Allow",
  "Action": ["kms:Decrypt", "kms:GenerateDataKey"],
  "Resource": ["arn:aws:kms:<REGION>:<ACCOUNT>:key/<KEY_ID>"]
}

• Install Python and its package manager, pip, if they are not already installed. To download and install the latest version of Python, visit the Python website.
• Install Git on your Linux, macOS, Windows, or Unix computer.
• Install the latest version of the AWS CLI on your Linux, macOS, Windows, or Unix computer. You can find instructions here.

Security

Data encryption

All data is encrypted at rest and in transit by default. To add an additional layer of security you can use customer managed KMS keys to encrypt the data at rest on the S3 bucket. We recommend to use Bucket keys to minimize the KMS costs.

Access control

Access control to the remote is ensured via IAM permissions, and can be controlled at:

• bucket level
• prefix level (you can use prefixes to store multiple repos in the same S3 bucket thus minimizing the setup effort)
• KMS key level

If you store multiple repos in a single bucket but would like to separate permissions to access each repo, you can do so by modifying the resource definitions for the object related action to specify the repo prefix and by adding a condition to the ListBucket action to restrict the operation to matching prefixes (and by consequence the corresponding repo) :

      {
        "Sid": "S3ObjectAccess",
        "Effect": "Allow",
        "Action": [
          "s3:PutObject",
          "s3:GetObject",
          "s3:DeleteObject"
        ],
        "Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::<BUCKET>/<REPO>/*"]
      },
      {
        "Sid": "S3ListObjects",
        "Effect": "Allow",
        "Action": [
          "s3:ListBucket",
        ],
        "Condition": {
          "StringEquals": {
            "s3:prefix": "<REPO>"
          }
        },
        "Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::<BUCKET>"]
      },

Using the condition key restricts the access operation to the content of the specific repo in the bucket.

Use S3 remotes

Create a new repo

S3 remotes are identified by the prefix s3:// and at the bare minimum specify the name of the bucket. You can also provide a key prefix as in s3://my-git-bucket/my-repo and a profile s3://my-profile@my-git-bucket/myrepo.

mkdir my-repo
cd my-repo
git init
git remote add origin s3://my-git-bucket/my-repo

You can then add a file, commit and push the changes to the remote:

echo "Hello" > hello.txt
git add -A
git commit -a -m "hello"
git push --set-upstream origin main

The remote HEAD is set to track the branch that has been pushed first to the remote repo. To change the remote HEAD branch, delete the HEAD object s3://<bucket>/<prefix>/HEAD and then run git-remote-s3 doctor s3://<bucket>/<prefix>.

When you use s3+zip:// instead of s3://, an additional zip archive named repo.zip is uploaded next to the sha.bundle file. This is for example useful if you want to use the Repo as a S3 Source for AWS CodePipeline, which expects a .zip file. The path on S3 when you push to the main branch is for example refs/heads/main/repo.zip. See How S3 remote work for more details about the bundle file.

Clone a repo

To clone the repo to another folder just use the normal git syntax using the s3 URI as remote:

git clone s3://my-git-bucket/my-repo my-repo-clone

Branches, etc.

Creating branches and pushing them works as normal:

cd my-repo
git checkout -b new_branch
touch new_file.txt
git add -A
git commit -a -m "new file"
git push origin new_branch

All git operations that do not rely on communication with the server should work as usual (eg git merge)

Using S3 remotes for submodules

If you have a repo that uses submodules also hosted on S3, you need to run the following command:

git config protocol.s3.allow always

Or, to enable globally:

git config --global protocol.s3.allow always

Repo as S3 Source for AWS CodePipeline

AWS CodePipeline offers an Amazon S3 source action as location for your source code and application files. But this requires to upload the source files as a single ZIP file. As briefly mentioned in Create a new repo, git-remote-s3 can create and upload zip archives. When you use s3+zip as URI Scheme when you add the remote, git-remote-s3 will automatically upload an archive that can be used by AWS CodePipeline.

Archive file location

Let's assume your bucket name is my-git-bucket and the repo is called my-repo. Run git remote add origin s3+zip://my-git-bucket/my-repo to use it as remote. When you now commit your changes and push to the remote, an additional repo.zip file will be uploaded to the bucket. For example, if you push to the main branch (git push origin main), the file is available under s3://my-git-bucket/my-repo/refs/heads/main/repo.zip. When you push to a branch called fix_a_bug it's available under s3://my-git-bucket/my-repo/refs/heads/fix_a_bug/repo.zip. And if you create and push a tag called v1.0 it will be s3://my-git-bucket/my-repo/refs/tags/v1.0/repo.zip.

Example AWS CodePipeline source action config

Your AWS CodePipeline Action configuration to trigger when you update your main branch:

• Action Provider: Amazon S3
• Bucket: my-git-bucket
• S3 object key: my-repo/refs/heads/main/repo.zip
• Change detection options: AWS CodePipeline

Visit Tutorial: Create a simple pipeline (S3 bucket) to learn more about a S3 bucket as source action.

LFS

To use LFS you need to first install git-lfs. You can refer to the official documentation on how to do this on your system.

Next, you need enable the S3 integration by running the following command in the repo folder:

git-lfs-s3 install

which is a short cut for:

git config --add lfs.customtransfer.git-lfs-s3.path git-lfs-s3
git config --add lfs.standalonetransferagent git-lfs-s3

Creating the repo and pushing

Let's assume we want to store TIFF file in LFS.

mkdir lfs-repo
cd lfs-repo
git init
git lfs install
git-lfs-s3 install
git lfs track "*.tiff"
git add .gitattributes
<put file.tiff in the repo>
git add file.tiff
git commit -a -m "my first tiff file"
git remote add origin s3://my-git-bucket/lfs-repo
git push --set-upstream origin main

Clone the repo

When cloning a repo using the S3 remote for LFS, git-lfs can't know how to fetch the files since we have yet to add the configuration.

It involves 2 extra steps.

% git clone s3://my-git-bucket/lfs-repo lfs-repo-clone
Error downloading object: file.tiff (54238cf): Smudge error: Error downloading file.tiff (54238cfaaaa42dda05da0e12bf8ee3156763fa35296085ccdef63b13a87837c5): batch request: ssh: Could not resolve hostname s3: Name or service not known: exit status 255
...

To fix:

cd lfs-repo-clone
git-lfs-s3 install
git reset --hard main

Notes about specific behaviors of Amazon S3 remotes

Arbitrary Amazon S3 URIs

An Amazon S3 URI for a valid bucket and an arbitrary prefix which does not contain the right structure under it, is considered valid.

git ls-remote returns an empty list and git clone clones an empty repository for which the S3 URI is set as remote origin.

% git clone s3://my-git-bucket/this-is-a-new-repo
Cloning into 'this-is-a-new-repo'...
warning: You appear to have cloned an empty repository.
% cd this-is-a-new-repo
% git remote -v
origin  s3://my-git-bucket/this-is-a-new-repo (fetch)
origin  s3://my-git-bucket/this-is-a-new-repo (push)

Tip: This behavior can be used to quickly create a new git repo.

git-remote-s3 implements per-reference locking to prevent concurrent write conflicts when multiple clients push to the same branch simultaneously.

When pushing to a remote reference, git-remote-s3 uses S3 conditional writes to acquire an exclusive lock for that specific reference:

1. Lock acquisition: A lock file is created at <prefix>/<ref>/LOCK#.lock using S3's IfNoneMatch="*" condition, ensuring only one client can acquire the lock at a time
2. Push execution: While holding the lock, the client safely uploads the new bundle and cleans up the previous one
3. Lock release: The lock is automatically released after the push completes

Concurrent push behavior

If multiple clients attempt to push to the same reference simultaneously:

• Only one client will successfully acquire the lock and proceed with the push
• Other clients will receive a clear error message indicating lock acquisition failed
• The failed clients can retry their push after the lock is released

Example error message when lock acquisition fails:

error refs/heads/main "failed to acquire ref lock at my-repo/refs/heads/main/LOCK#.lock. 
Another client may be pushing. If this persists beyond 60s, 
run git-remote-s3 doctor --lock-ttl 60 to inspect and optionally clear stale locks."

Lock timeout and cleanup

• Lock TTL: Locks automatically expire after 60 seconds by default (configurable via GIT_REMOTE_S3_LOCK_TTL environment variable)
• Stale lock detection: If a lock becomes stale (older than the TTL), it can be automatically replaced during lock acquisition
• Manual cleanup: Use git-remote-s3 doctor <s3-uri> --lock-ttl <seconds> to inspect and optionally clean up stale locks

This locking mechanism eliminates the race conditions that could previously result in multiple bundles per reference, ensuring consistent repository state across concurrent operations.

Concurrent writes

Due to the distributed nature of git, there might be cases (albeit rare) where 2 or more git push are executed at the same time by different user with their own modification of the same branch. git-remote-s3 implements per-reference locking to prevent concurrent write conflicts in those cases.

Per-reference locking

The git command executes the push in 4 steps:

1. first it checks if the remote reference is the correct ancestor for the commit being pushed
2. if that is correct it invokes the git-remote-s3 command then attempts acquire a lock by creating the lock object <prefix>/<ref>/LOCK#.lock using S3 conditional writes.
3. while holding the lock, git-remote-s3 safely writes the bundle to the S3 bucket at the refs/heads/<branch> path
4. git-remote-s3 deletes the lock object after the push succeeds, thereby releasing the lock for that ref

Clients that fail to acquire the lock will fail with the following error and can try to push again.

error refs/heads/main "failed to acquire ref lock at my-repo/refs/heads/main/LOCK#.lock. 
Another client may be pushing. If this persists beyond 60s, 
run git-remote-s3 doctor --lock-ttl 60 to inspect and optionally clear stale locks."

The per-reference locks automatically expire after 60 seconds by default. This TTL is configurable via GIT_REMOTE_S3_LOCK_TTL environment variable If for some reason a reference's lock becomes stale, git-remote-s3 automatically clears it when executing a git push. If you repeatedly run into lock acquisition failures or otherwise want to manually clean up stale locks, run git-remote-s3 doctor <s3-uri> --lock-ttl <seconds> to inspect and optionally remove those stale locks.

Multiple branch heads

In the (rare) case where multiple git push commands are simultaneously executed with one or more clients running an outdated version of git-remote-s3 without locking proection, then it is possible that that multiple bundles will be written to S3 for the same branch head. All subsequent git push commands will fail with the following error:

error: dst refspec refs/heads/<branch>> matches more than one
error: failed to push some refs to 's3://<bucket>/<prefix>'

To fix this issue, run the git-remote-s3 doctor <s3-uri> command. By default it will create a new branch for every bundle that should not be retained. The user can then checkout the branch locally and merge it to the original branch. If you want instead to remove the bundle, specify --delete-bundle.

Manage the Amazon S3 remote

Delete branches

To remove remote branches that are not used anymore you can use the git-s3 delete-branch <s3uri> -b <branch_name> command. This command deletes the bundle object(s) from Amazon S3 under the branch path.

Protected branches

To protect/unprotect a branch run git s3 protect <remote> <branch-name> respectively git s3 unprotect <remote> <branch-name>.

Under the hood

How S3 remote work

Bundles are stored in the S3 bucket as <prefix>/<ref>/<sha>.bundle.

When listing remote ref (eg explicitly via git ls-remote) we list all the keys present under the given <prefix>.

When pushing a new ref (eg a commit), we get the sha of the ref, we bundle the ref via git bundle create <sha>.bundle <ref> and store it to S3 according the schema above.

If the push is successful, the code removes the previous bundle associated to the ref.

If two user concurrently push a commit based on the same current branch head to the remote both bundles would be written to the repo and the current bundle removed. No data is lost, but no further push will be possible until all bundles but one are removed. For this you can use the git s3 doctor <remote> command.

How LFS work

The LFS integration stores the file in the bucket defined by the remote URI, under a key <prefix>/lfs/<oid>, where oid is the unique identifier assigned by git-lfs to the file.

If an object with the same key already exists, git-lfs-s3 does not upload it again.

Debugging

Use --verbose flag or set transfer.verbosity=2 to print debug information when performing git operations:

git -c transfer.verbosity=2 push origin main

For early errors (like credential issues), use the environment variable:

GIT_REMOTE_S3_VERBOSE=1 git push origin main

Logs will be put to stderr.

For LFS operations you can enable and disable debug logging via git-lfs-s3 enable-debug and git-lfs-s3 disable-debug respectively. Logs are put in .git/lfs/tmp/git-lfs-s3.log in the repo.

Credits

The git S3 integration was inspired by the work of Bryan Gahagan on git-remote-s3.

The LFS implementation benefitted from lfs-s3 by @nicolas-graves. If you do not need to use the git-remote-s3 transport you should use that project.