github-hosted-pypi

Make all your private packages accessible in one place
with this github-hosted PyPi index

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Description • Try it ! • Get Started • Modify indexed packages • FAQ • A word about supply chain attacks • Contribute • References

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Features

• Github-hosted
• 🚀 Template ready to deploy
• 🔆 Easy to use through Github Actions
• 🚨 Secure : Warns you if your package is vulnerable to supply chain attacks

Description

This repository is a Github page used as a PyPi index, conform to PEP503.

You can use it to group all your packages in one place, and access it easily through pip, almost like any other package publicly available !

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While the PyPi index is public, private packages indexed here are kept private : you will need Github authentication to be able to retrieve it.

Try it !

Visit astariul.github.io/github-hosted-pypi/ and try to install packages indexed there !

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Try to install the package public-hello :

pip install public-hello --extra-index-url https://astariul.github.io/github-hosted-pypi/

It will also install the package mydependency, automatically !

Try it with :

from public_hello import hi
print(hi())

You can also install a specific version :

pip install public-hello==0.1 --extra-index-url https://astariul.github.io/github-hosted-pypi/

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Now try to install the package private-hello :

pip install private-hello --extra-index-url https://astariul.github.io/github-hosted-pypi/

It will not work, because it's private and only me can access it !

Get started

• Use this template and create your own repository :

• Go to Settings of your repository, and enable Github Page
• Customize index.html and pkg_template.html to your liking
• You're ready to go ! Visit <user>.github.io/<repo_name> to see your PyPi index

Modify indexed packages

Now that your PyPi index is setup, you can register / update / delete packages indexed.
Github actions are setup to do it automatically for you.

You just have to :

• Go to the Actions tab of your repository
• Click the right workflow (register / update / delete) and trigger it manually
• Fill the form and start the workflow
• Wait a bit
• Check the new PR opened (ensure the code added correspond to what you want)
• Merge the PR

FAQ

Q. Is it secure ?

As you may know, pip can install Github-hosted package if given in the form pip install git+<repo_link>. This PyPi index is just an index of links to other Github repository.

Github pages are public, so this PyPi index is public. But it just contain links to other Github repositories, no code is hosted on this PyPi index !

If the repository hosting code is private, you will need to authenticate with Github to be able to clone it, effectively making it private.

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If you wonder more specifically about supply chain attacks, check the section about it !

Q. What happen behind the scenes ?

When running pip install <package_name> --extra-index-url https://astariul.github.io/github-hosted-pypi/, the following happen :

1. pip will look at https://pypi.org/, the default, public index, trying to find a package with the specified name.
2. If it can't find, it will look at https://astariul.github.io/github-hosted-pypi/.
3. If the package is found there, the link of the package is returned to pip (git+<repo_link>@<tag>).
4. From this link, pip understand it's a Github repository and will clone the repository (at the specific tag) locally.
5. From the cloned repository, pip install the package.
6. pip install any missing dependency with the same steps.

Authentication happen at step 4, when cloning the repository.

Q. What are the best practices for using this PyPi index ?

The single best practice is using Github releases. This allow your package to have a version referred by a specific tag.
To do this :

• Push your code in a repository.
• Create a new Github release. Ensure you follow semantic versioning. It will create a tag.
• Ensure you can install the package with pip install git+<repo_link>@<tag>
• When putting the package on this index, put the full link (git+<repo_link>@<tag>).

Q. What if the name of my package is already taken by a package in the public index ?

You can just specify a different name for your indexed package. Just give it a different name in the form when registering it.

For example if you have a private package named tensorflow, when you register it in this index, you can name it my_cool_tensorflow, so there is no name-collision with the public package tensorflow.
Then you can install it with pip install my_cool_tensorflow --extra-index-url https://astariul.github.io/github-hosted-pypi/.

Then from python, you can just do :

import tensorflow

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But be careful about this ! While it's possible to handle it like this, it's always better to have a unique name for your package, to avoid confusion but also for security !

Q. How to download private package from Docker ?

Building a Docker image is not interactive, so there is no prompt to type username and password.
Instead, you should put your Github credentials in a .netrc file, so pip can authenticate when cloning from Github.
To do this securely on Docker, you should use Docker secrets. Here is a quick tutorial on how to do :

Step 1 : Save your credentials in a secret file. Follow this example :

machine github.com
	login <gh_user>
	password <gh_pass>

⚠️ Syntax is important : ensure you're using tabulation, and the line endings are \n.
So careful if you're using a IDE that replace tabs by spaces or if you're on Windows (where line endings are \r\n) !

Let's name this file gh_auth.txt.

Step 2 : Create your Docker file. In the docker file you should mount the secret file in .netrc, and run the command where you need authentication. For example :

# syntax=docker/dockerfile:experimental
FROM python:3

RUN --mount=type=secret,id=gh_auth,dst=/root/.netrc pip install <package_name> --extra-index-url https://astariul.github.io/github-hosted-pypi/

Step 3 : Build your Docker image, specifying the location of the secret created in step 1 :

sudo DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 docker build --secret id=gh_auth,src=./gh_auth.txt .

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If you have any questions or ideas to improve this FAQ, please open a PR / blank issue !

A word about supply chain attacks

As you saw earlier, this github-hosted PyPi index rely on the pip feature --extra-index-url. Because of how this feature works, it is vulnerable to supply chain attacks.

For example, let's say you have a package named fbi_package version 2.8.3 hosted on your private PyPi index.

An attacker could create a malicious package with the same name and a higher version (for example 99.0.0).
When you run pip install fbi_package --extra-index-url my_pypi_index.com, under the hood pip will download the latest version of the package, which is the malicious package !

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While this repository makes it very convenient to have your own PyPi index, be aware that the page is public, therefore anyone can see which package name you're using and create a malicious package with this same name...

That's why we included automated checks into this private PyPi index. Whenever you access the page of your package, PyPi API is called, and if a package with the same name and a higher version is found, the install command is replaced with a warning.

You can see a demo of such warning at https://astariul.github.io/github-hosted-pypi/transformers/.

If you see this warning, don't install the package ! Instead, change the name of your package or upgrade the version above its public counterpart.

Be careful out there !

Contribute

Issues and PR are welcome !

If you come across anything weird / that can be improved, please get in touch !

References

This is greatly inspired from this repository.
It's just a glorified version, with cleaner pages and github actions for easily adding, updating and removing packages from your index.

Also check the blogpost of the original author !

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Icon used in the page was made by Freepik from Flaticon