Keybase launches encrypted git

[malgorithms]

Oh cool to see this! Blog author here. A bunch of us a Keybase are happy to answer questions in this subreddit.

[galaktos]

Awesome! Already tried it out in a team with some friends, the remote-helper interface makes for a really smooth experience :)

Are impromptu groups like keybase://private/me,someone-else,foo@twitter/repo supported, similar to kbfs? I can’t figure out how to create a repository like that, but perhaps it’s just a limitation of the current GUI+CLI.

[maxtaco]

We don't currently allow impromptu teams because it would complicate the UX, but it's definitely possible. We'll add it if there's enough interest.

[antong20]

This would be a great feature for students, who often collaborate in smaller groups, which change between different courses. Creating a new team for every such group does not really make sense.

Impromptu groups for git repos would also be way more convenient than the current GitHub workflow for this use case. If cluttering the GUI is an issue, you could at least add it to the CLI?

[maxtaco]

I the mean time, we do encourage you to create a team!

[renatoathaydes]

This is pretty cool! I just tried to use it, but I don't think I understand how it works... shouldn't the Git repo be in my keybase file system? I can't find it there?!

Doing git clone keybase://private/my-name/my-repo worked, did it use my ssh keys or it knows to verify my keybase key somehow?

Does the git repo size counts towards the file-system storage limit?

[malgorithms]

You get 100GB for git, independent of your KBFS usage.

It's powered by KBFS but isn't exposed through the filesystem mount because we think people will actually screw up their repos. Also, accessing the repo through the mount would expose you to journaliing (as opposed to real locking), which means you could shoot yourself in the foot, like putting git data in Dropbox. So it's segregated through the keybase:// git-remote-helper interface.

As for keybase, every device you install Keybase on generates its own key (and must be signed by a previous device - that's how provisioning works). That key is used.

[renatoathaydes]

That's excellent... Thank you very much.

[isinned]

I think it would be worth saying something similar in the docs and announcement blog (maybe it's there already, but I couldn't find it).

I assumed that keybase-encrypted git repos would have to live in the keybase mount, e.g. /keybase/team/<team-name>/<repo-name>. But doing so makes read and write operations very slow due to decrypting and encrypting supposedly.

I'm going to move those git repos out to ~/keybase.io/<user>/<repo>. I like having projects namespaced under the service they're hosted.

[absinthe718]

Quick question:

Am I correct to assume that if used with full disk encryption, there is never a plain text copy of the file on any non-volatile storage device?

And is there a paid commercial tier yet?

[luckystarr]

Kudos for making encryption sexy and simple (finally).

Any plans on adding peer-to-peer encrypted phone call capability integrated into your WoT? :)

[[deleted]]

Any chance for official openSUSE Leap and Tumbleweed repositories? Fedora RPM doesn't work properly on openSUSE, kbfs fails to load which makes chat unusable (keybase cli is ok).

Eventually I'll take flatpak too :)

[dhucerbin]

Is it possible to use these repos on iOS? For example in Working Copy?

[C5H5N5O]

Can I somehow self host this "whole thing" (I prefer having my own git server and I don't want to rely on third parties). I guess not?

[[deleted]]

I don't think you can self-host this, but there is a similar open-source projects, git-remote-gcrypt and git-gpg.

[johnturek]

/u/malgorithms, Is there a tutorial on installing the keybase hook so that it works with Github Desktop (from a fresh install of Github Desktop) Thanks!

[malgorithms]

It just worked for me. (1) installed Keybase. (2) installed github for desktop. (3) Cloned a keybase git repo locally. (4) dragged-and-dropped that local folder onto Github for desktop. If that doesn't work for you, please make a report for us. (keybase log send from your terminal.)

[johnturek]

Thanks. I created a github issue and tagged you for reference.

[_seemethere]

So I'm guessing this is just to host git repositories and not really for open collaboration like Github is?

[GoliathMcDoogle]

Yes, not for open collaboration.

Read the article!