Re: Git credential-cache manager is not treating `path=` correctly

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Aug 23, 2023, 19:22 UTC
Message-ID: <20230823192207.GC2355007@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <CAA9rTuccfyXO66YApDfss6JM9+JuUzZxDiYyfG_qShfehyAEsQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Aug 23, 2023 at 06:23:36PM +0200, Gabriel Nützi wrote:

Show 24 quoted lines

> # Add 3 credentials, 2 specifics with `path=`
> # 1 with general host.
> {
>     echo "protocol=https"
>     echo "host=www.server.com"
>     echo "path=repos/1.git"
>     echo "username=banana"
>     echo "password=banana1"
> } | git credential approve
> 
> {
>     echo "protocol=https"
>     echo "host=www.server.com"
>     echo "path=repos/2.git"
>     echo "username=banana"
>     echo "password=banana2"
> } | git credential approve
> 
> {
>     echo "protocol=https"
>     echo "host=www.server.com"
>     echo "username=banana"
>     echo "password=general"
> } | git credential approve

I don't think we ever planned around this kind of "sometimes paths are important, and sometimes not", and I'm not surprised it doesn't work.

The "useHTTPPath" flag is only read by the by the main Git side, and just tells it whether to pass a "path" entry. On the helper side, any omitted entry ("path" in the final case) means "match anything".

So that final command translates (from the helper's view) to "store this, and delete any other credentials we have stored for https://banana@www.server.com".

It might be possible to change the handling on the helper side to distinguish between entries with no path and entries with a path, and consider them separately. I don't know what gotchas we might see in that case, though. I suspect at least in credential-store's on-disk format, there is not really room to distinguish the empty-string path from "no path given".

If you set credential.useHTTPPaths (so that it is applied consistently), I think path-matching should work. But then you'd have to independently store credentials for each path that could match the "generic" case.

As a workaround, you could use two different stores/caches. Something like:

  [credential]
  # store most stuff here
  helper = store

  [credential "https://www.server.com/repos/1.git"]
  # turn off the main helper, and use a path-specific file instead
  helper =
  helper = store --file=$HOME/.git-credentials-path
  useHttpPath = true

-Peff