Re: How to force git to use authentication as author

> On Thu, 2011-07-14 at 16:45 +0530, J. Bakshi wrote:
>> On Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:00:02 +0200
>> Carlos Martín Nieto <cmn@elego.de> wrote:
>>
>> > On Thu, 2011-07-14 at 16:18 +0530, J. Bakshi wrote:
>> > > On Thu, 14 Jul 2011 12:38:59 +0200
>> > > Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 12:36, J. Bakshi <joydeep@infoservices.in>
>> > > wrote:
>> > > >
>> > > > > How can I force git to use the username as define
>> > > at /home/git/PASSWD as the author name for git commit ?
>> > > >
>> > > > Edit the global bashrc to have:
>> > > >
>> > > >     export GIT_AUTHOR_NAME=$(cat ~/PASSWD)
>> > > >
>> > > > ?
>> > >
>> > > Thanks.
>> > >
>> > > [1] will it work with file generated by htpasswd ? as that file is
>> > > actually created by same (/home/git/PASSWD)
>> >
>> > Not directly, if it only has one line, then $(cat ~/PASSWD | cut -d ':'
>> > -f 1) should work, but I haven't tested it.
>> >
>> > >
>> > > [2] And the commit is over http, So is it effective to set the value
>> > > by .bashrc ?
>> >
>> > You are misunderstanding either how git works or the nomenclature. The
>> > commits all happen locally and need no authentication whatsoever (and
>> > usually you're expected to use a real name and email address). When you
>> > need to authenticate is when yuou push your changes somewhere (a central
>> > repo, for example). This is where the ~/.netrc file comes into play, as
>> > I mentioned in the reply to your other mail.
>> >
>> Exactly, when we need to push we are asked about authentication. I
>> like to configure the central git server in a way so that the
>> user-name as in authentication, be set as author name by the git
>> server itself. actually it is how I configured svn server over http.
>> So comparing to that I am trying to achieve the same. Say your
>> user-name is there at htpasswd file as Carlos, so when you
>> authenticate by Carlos to push , the author-name will automatically
>> become as Carlos. No way to customize that with specific username.
>> That's the idea.
>
> That's not how it works. It may even be possible to rewrite the commits
> in the post-receive hook in a way that most stuff doesn't break
> horribly, this would be rewriting history behind the users' backs, and
> that only brings problems.

> The way to set the author name and mail in a standard way, be it
> user-wide or per-repo. You can write up some simple instructions on how
> to do it.
>
>    git config user.name "Max Smith"
>    git config user.mail max.smith@example.com
>
> and if the config should be valid for every repo, use --global flag.
> There is more information in the manual page.
>
> You could then add a check in the post-receive hook to reject pushes
> with invalid author names, if you feel it's worth it.
>

> Taking a step back, why is this even an issue, though? If you don't
> trust your developers to set their name and email correctly, why do you
> trust them to write code? If it's company policy for people to be
> referred to by their usernames rather than their given names, why not
> tell them to set it to that[0]? It seems like you are trying to solve a
> social issue with a technological measure that works at a different
> level.