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[PATCH] http(s): automatically try NTLM authentication first

From
David Turner <dturner@twosigma.com>
Date
Feb 22, 2017, 17:39 UTC
Message-ID
<20170222173936.25016-1-dturner@twosigma.com>
From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>

It is common in corporate setups to have permissions managed via a domain account. That means that the user does not really have to log in when accessing a central repository via https://, but that the login credentials are used to authenticate with that repository.

The common way to do that used to require empty credentials, i.e. hitting Enter twice when being asked for user name and password, or by using the very funny notation https://:@server/repository

A recent commit (5275c3081c (http: http.emptyauth should allow empty (not just NULL) usernames, 2016-10-04)) broke that usage, though, all of a sudden requiring users to set http.emptyAuth = true.

Which brings us to the bigger question why http.emptyAuth defaults to false, to begin with.

It would be one thing if cURL would not let the user specify credentials interactively after attempting NTLM authentication (i.e. login credentials), but that is not the case.

It would be another thing if attempting NTLM authentication was not usually what users need to do when trying to authenticate via https://. But that is also not the case.

So let's just go ahead and change the default, and unbreak the NTLM authentication. As a bonus, this also makes the "you need to hit Enter twice" (which is hard to explain: why enter empty credentials when you want to authenticate with your login credentials?) and the ":@" hack (which is also pretty, pretty hard to explain to users) obsolete.

This fixes https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/issues/987
Signed-off-by: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Signed-off-by: David Turner <dturner@twosigma.com>
---
This has been in git for Windows for a few months (without the
config.txt change).  We've also been using it internally.  So I think
it's time to merge back to upstream git.
 Documentation/config.txt | 3 ++-
 http.c                   | 2 +-
 2 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/Documentation/config.txt b/Documentation/config.txt
index fc5a28a320..b0da64ed33 100644
--- a/Documentation/config.txt
+++ b/Documentation/config.txt
@@ -1742,7 +1742,8 @@ http.emptyAuth::
 	Attempt authentication without seeking a username or password.  This
 	can be used to attempt GSS-Negotiate authentication without specifying
 	a username in the URL, as libcurl normally requires a username for
-	authentication.
+	authentication.  Default is true, since if this fails, git will fall
+	back to asking the user for their username/password.
 
 http.delegation::
 	Control GSSAPI credential delegation. The delegation is disabled
diff --git a/http.c b/http.c
index 90a1c0f113..943e630ea6 100644
--- a/http.c
+++ b/http.c
@@ -109,7 +109,7 @@ static int curl_save_cookies;
 struct credential http_auth = CREDENTIAL_INIT;
 static int http_proactive_auth;
 static const char *user_agent;
-static int curl_empty_auth;
+static int curl_empty_auth = 1;
 
 enum http_follow_config http_follow_config = HTTP_FOLLOW_INITIAL;
 
-- 
2.11.GIT
Next: Junio C Hamano
Message 1 of 38 in “http(s): automatically try NTLM authentication first”
  1. http(s): automatically try NTLM authentication firstDavid Turner, Feb 22, 2017
  2. Junio C HamanoFeb 22, 2017
  3. David TurnerFeb 22, 2017
  4. Junio C HamanoFeb 22, 2017
  5. Jeff KingFeb 22, 2017
  6. Johannes SchindelinFeb 23, 2017
  7. Junio C HamanoFeb 23, 2017
  8. Jeff KingFeb 23, 2017
  9. Junio C HamanoFeb 23, 2017
  10. Jeff KingFeb 23, 2017
  11. Johannes SchindelinFeb 25, 2017
  12. brian m. carlsonFeb 22, 2017
  13. Jeff KingFeb 22, 2017
  14. Junio C HamanoFeb 23, 2017
  15. Junio C HamanoFeb 23, 2017
  16. Jeff KingFeb 23, 2017
  17. David TurnerFeb 23, 2017
  18. brian m. carlsonFeb 23, 2017
  19. Mantas MikulėnasFeb 23, 2017
  20. Jeff KingFeb 22, 2017
  21. Junio C HamanoFeb 22, 2017
  22. Jeff KingFeb 22, 2017
  23. Junio C HamanoFeb 22, 2017
  24. Jeff KingFeb 22, 2017
  25. Junio C HamanoFeb 22, 2017
  26. Jeff KingFeb 22, 2017
  27. 2/2 http: add an "auto" mode for http.emptyauthJeff King, Feb 22, 2017
  28. David TurnerFeb 23, 2017
  29. Jeff KingFeb 23, 2017
  30. David TurnerFeb 23, 2017
  31. Jeff KingFeb 23, 2017
  32. David TurnerFeb 23, 2017
  33. Johannes SchindelinFeb 25, 2017
  34. Jeff KingFeb 25, 2017
  35. http: add an "auto" mode for http.emptyauthJeff King, Feb 25, 2017
  36. Junio C HamanoFeb 27, 2017
  37. Johannes SchindelinFeb 28, 2017
  38. 1/2 http: restrict auth methods to what the server advertisesJeff King, Feb 22, 2017

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