Re: do without .netrc

From: Jürgen Mangler <juergen.mangler@univie.ac.at>
Date: Aug 6, 2008, 11:28 UTC
Message-ID: <48998AC7.20204@univie.ac.at>
In-Reply-To: <20080806085025.GU32057@genesis.frugalware.org>

Miklos Vajna wrote:

Show 6 quoted lines

> On Wed, Aug 06, 2008 at 01:00:54AM +0200, Jürgen Mangler <juergen.mangler@univie.ac.at> wrote:
>> it is working without a:b@ part, but ~/.netrc instead
>>
>> :-(, is it possible without .netrc
> 
> I thought questions have question marks. ;-)

Explanation 1: I wrote it to IRC and then thought maybe crossposting to the list would be no bad idea. On IRC i was not using question marks, mail was just copying the lines, forgot to add question marks.

Explanation 2: its not questions but accusations! *fg*

> Anyway, what is the advantage of not using a ~/.netrc?

It's mentioned on several occations that it is not necessary (e.g. http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/howto/setup-git-server-over-http.txt)

The advantages for me would be:

a) I have multiple different passwords on the same server for different directories, it's not possible to put this to a netrc (AS FAR AS I KNOW). So i have to edit the netrc for every push, clone, ... -> very inconvenient b) secondly (maybe not a super valid argument for you): netrc is not considered to be the most secure thing, isn't it? Our network is invaded every year "tested" by thousands of computer science students, so i always try to have as few plain-text passwords as possible lying around (one never knows - yes netrc has 0600).

i'd also prefer not to use the user:pass@server schema, but to be asked, to not show pass in the history and config file in .git although even user:pass@server would be an advantage because it solves a).

Jürgen