Re: [RFC] Deal with HTTP 401 by requesting credentials.

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Jun 5, 2012, 16:23 UTC
Message-ID: <20120605162309.GA20915@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <7vtxyv2cft.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Fri, Jun 01, 2012 at 10:01:58AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 17 quoted lines

> >> Request credentials from the user if none are already defined when a
> >> HTTP 401 is received on a restricted repository.  Then, resubmit the
> >> request and return the final result.
> >> 
> >> This allows all webdav transactions to obtain credentials without having
> >> to individually handle the case in each request.  Having push working
> >> with HTTP auth is needed for a use case I have where storing the
> >> credentials in .netrc or using SSH keys is inappropriate.
> >
> > We already do this at a higher level in http_request, which in turns
> > calls into finish_active_slot. So if we were going to go this route,
> > wouldn't we also want to remove the 401 handling in http_request?
> 
> Wouldn't the higher levels know a lot more about the context this
> request was made, though?  What problem does the patch try to solve?
> Some higher level callers missing the "if we got 401, then reset and
> retry" logic?  Wouldn't it be saner to fix the breakage there?

I don't know that the higher level really has much more context; the URL is really the only context we use. I think the problem is adequately solved in http_request; it is simply that the http-push code paths do not use it. The patch solves that by pushing it to a lower level.

-Peff