Re: regression: "96b9e0e3 config: treat user and xdg config permission problems as errors" busted git-daemon

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Apr 12, 2013, 04:11 UTC
Message-ID: <7vvc7sfkwn.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <20130412005748.GA17116@odin.tremily.us>

"W. Trevor King" <wking@tremily.us> writes:

Show 14 quoted lines

> On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 06:23:01PM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
> ...
>> I think the point is that it could add
>> 
>>   ...and I was looking in /root, because that is where your HOME points.
>>   Shouldn't you be able to read your own HOME directory?
>> 
>> which should make it painfully obvious to the user what is going on.
>
> That's more or less what I had in mind.
> ... However, this is a lot of hand holding to be
> printed along side the error message… Since git-daemon (or gitweb) is
> the most likely place for this problem to crop up, maybe a note in its
> (their) man pages would be a good idea?

The --user option to git-daemon would be a good place to do that, I think. Depending on what other "setuid to less privileged before running" programs do (I do not know offhand), we can say something like this perhaps?

    --user::
	... current description ...
    +
    (Like|Unlike) many programs that let you run programs as
    specified user, the daemon does not reset environment variables
    such as $HOME when it runs git programs like upload-pack and
    receive-pack. Set and export HOME to point at the home directory
    of the user you specify with this option before you start the
    daemon, and make sure the Git configuration files in that
    directory is readable by that user.

If we have to say "Unlike" above, then we probably should bite the bullet and use Peff's patch, perhaps with an addition to the manual page, perhaps like this.

    --user::
	... current description ...
    +
    Like many programs that let you run programs as specified user,
    the daemon resets $HOME environment variable to that of the user
    you specify with this option when it runs git programs like
    upload-pack and receive-pack.  Make sure that the Git
    configuration files in that directory is readable by that user.