Re: [PATCH] http(s): automatically try NTLM authentication first

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 22, 2017, 21:57 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqwpchanxz.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <20170222213542.opunuepfmj557zyr@sigill.intra.peff.net>

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

Show 10 quoted lines

> On Wed, Feb 22, 2017 at 01:25:11PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> 
>> Thanks for your thoughts.  I'd think that we should take this change
>> and leave the optimization for later, then.  It's not like the
>> change of the default is making the normal situation any worse, it
>> seems.
>
> I'm not excited that it will start making known bogus-username requests
> by default to servers which do not even support Negotiate. I guess that
> is really the server-operators problem, but it feels pretty hacky.

I guess that's another valid concern. The servers used to be able to say "Ah, this repository needs auth and this request does not, so reject it without asking the auth-db". Now it must say "Ah, this repository needs auth and this request does have one, but it is empty so let's not even bother the auth-db" in order to reject a useless "empty-auth" request with the same efficiency.

After the first request without auth (that fails), do we learn anything useful from the server side (like "it knows Negotiate") that we can use to flip the "empty-auth" bit to give a better default to people from both worlds, I wonder...?