This section will give you an overview of how ssheepdog works. You should understand this model before you use this application in a production environment.
There are three main models:
The User model represents a member of your team. It’s a real person who can log into the application. This uses the built-in Django User model along with a custom UserProfile class. The User has the ability to access and edit their own account. They are required to specify their public ssh key once their account is created.
The Machine model represents a server. A Machine will typically have an IP address or a hostname. You can specify a client for each machine, if it’s active, etc.
Each Machine will have one or more Logins associated with it. A Login is the unix username that you log in as on the Machine. Each Login knows what Users can log in with that account.
Once the application is deployed, you will be able to specify which physical Users can log into what Machines via what Logins. Once your changes are made, you will start the syncing process.
The basic idea behind synchronization is to update the authorized_keys file for each login on the remote server. This file is based on the list of authorized Users for a given Login. Furthermore, the ssheepdog application itself uses an ssh key pair to log into each machine. The application’s ssh key is renewed each time a sync is run.