Re: Stop a git commit by a specific author using pre-commit hook

> Neal Kreitzinger<nkreitzinger@gmail.com>  writes:
>
>> On 3/8/2012 7:15 PM, Adrian Cornish wrote:
>>> My plan is to use git to keep track of changes in /etc but when
>>> committing I want to have the person making the change specify
>>> themselves as author by adding the --author option on the commandline.
>>> So I would like to stop accidental commits as root.
>> ...
>> We use whoami in our pre-commit hook to see who the user is that is
>> doing the commit.  I think you could also use GIT_COMMITTER_NAME or
>> linux $USER environment variables.  Either way, the --author seems
>> like an unnecessary and unreliable way to get the username.
>> ...  If people can su to root
>> then $USER will not work because it will still be set to their
>> original user name (before they did su to root).  Therefore, "whoami"
>> seems like your best solution.
> When people want to raise a red flag against a commit made by root,
> they are coming from two different schools.
>
> One is "do not run 'git' or any development tool for that matter
> while being root". It is a good discipline to follow in general to
> limit what you do with escalated privilege to the minimum.
>
> The other is "record who actually did the work, not 'root' that
> people cannot later track down who it actually was".  People from
> this school do not mind running development tools as root.
>
> And your advice is a good one for the former, but not very relevant
> for the latter.
>
> And I think Adrian is asking for the latter.
>