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Re: REMOTE_USER value propagation through http push

From
Aaxel.ml@laposte.net <axel.ml@laposte.net>
Date
Apr 13, 2011, 13:39 UTC
Message-ID
<22124707.170284.1302701972329.JavaMail.www@wwinf8403>
In-Reply-To
<m3oc4a2tzf.fsf@localhost.localdomain>
> Could you explain in more detail _what_ behavior would you like to
> see? Gitweb does display author and comitter (though in 'log' and
> 'shortlog' only author is visible).
> 
I understand well your explanations about git mechanisms.

Though git is decentralized, we still use a "central" repository on which gitweb is installed, mainly for pratical reasons (you may tell "then you don't need git!" :) ) because not only developers browse the commits history. At this moment we use HTTP authentication more for tracing purposes (knowing who pushed data to the repo) than for allowing or not push access.

If i m not wrong, the AUTHOR field displayed in gitweb comes from the git client configuration ($GIT_AUTHOR_NAME).
I would go further : HTTP authentication (for in-house organisation of course, not internet-wide access) usefulness is unclear since the credentials do not pop up anywhere in git repository. We have to trust the client-side configuration. The way to know who pushed something is to browse Apache access.log and cross the date/time with the git log.
What I d like to see is that the push authentication credentials overwrite an eventually defined author name at the client side in order to be displayed while browsing git log.
Even better, in the case of LDAP authentication (I m not sure if it would be possible for htaccess authentication), email and fullname could be extracted from LDAP directory, stored in environment variables by Apache, and given to git-http-backend (as is the REMOTE_USER variable).
Though I dont know if this request is relevant, I guess that if git-http-backend was looking for GIT_AUTHOR_NAME & GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL environment variables that Apache could have defined, it could replace the client-side values defined. (Note that I absolutly don't know if it would be technically possible to overwrite those variables or even if their values are in the push payload).

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Message 5 of 8 in “REMOTE_USER value propagation through http push”
  1. AxelApr 13, 2011
  2. Jakub NarebskiApr 13, 2011
  3. axel.ml@laposte.netApr 13, 2011
  4. Jakub NarebskiApr 13, 2011
  5. axel.ml@laposte.netApr 13, 2011
  6. Jakub NarebskiApr 13, 2011
  7. axel.ml@laposte.netApr 13, 2011
  8. Jakub NarebskiApr 13, 2011

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