Git submodules with usernames in the URL

tillmann.crueger@telekom.de· Feb 14, 2012, 13:26 UTC · lore

Hi,

I already had a look at the mailinglist archive, but I could not find any mention of this problem. There is a posting on Stackoverflow.com about this (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7714326/git-submodule-url-not-including-username) with a workaround, but it would nice to have an official position.

Here is the problem:

When I am using git-submodule over an authorized https it is convenient to be able to specify the username directly in the url in the form https://user@domain.com/path/to/repo. So I am able to do a

> git submodule add https://user@domain.com/path/to/repo

Howver if I do this, the username becomes baked into the URL of the submodule, so other people working with the repository will not be able to use the submodule and have to change the URL first.

Is there an actual rationale for including the username in the URL in this case, or is this just because it is simpler than removing it?

One thing I noticed, is that automatically removing it would basically eliminate the convinience for the person who has been using that URL in the first place. If the username was removed every update would have to query the username again. Also having a username in the repo could be correct, in case this isn't a real user, but a role for using that repository.

Still I feel that having a username within a repository is hardly ever what someone wants and most often a mistake. For now I will try to educate everybody about this and fix all repositories where this goes wrong, but a better solution would be nice to have.

Thanks for your time,
  Till

Michael Schubert· Feb 14, 2012, 14:55 UTC · re: tillmann.crueger@telekom.de · lore

Re: Git submodules with usernames in the URL

On 02/14/2012 02:26 PM, Tillmann.Crueger@telekom.de wrote:

Show 27 quoted lines

> I already had a look at the mailinglist archive, but I could not find
> any mention of this problem. There is a posting on Stackoverflow.com
> about this
> (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7714326/git-submodule-url-not-including-username)
> with a workaround, but it would nice to have an official position.
> 
> Here is the problem:
> 
> When I am using git-submodule over an authorized https it is
> convenient to be able to specify the username directly in the url in
> the form https://user@domain.com/path/to/repo. So I am able to do a
> 
>> git submodule add https://user@domain.com/path/to/repo
> 
> Howver if I do this, the username becomes baked into the URL of the
> submodule, so other people working with the repository will not be
> able to use the submodule and have to change the URL first.
> 
> Is there an actual rationale for including the username in the URL in
> this case, or is this just because it is simpler than removing it?
> 
> One thing I noticed, is that automatically removing it would
> basically eliminate the convinience for the person who has been using
> that URL in the first place. If the username was removed every update
> would have to query the username again. Also having a username in the
> repo could be correct, in case this isn't a real user, but a role for
> using that repository.

* If the submodule repository is accessible without authentication, no
  user specific URL should go into the repository.

* If the submodule repository is not accessible without authentication,
  the user specific URL should not go into the repository either,
  because of the problem you just described. (Sure, you could add a
  "git submodule user", but..)

> Still I feel that having a username within a repository is hardly
> ever what someone wants and most often a mistake. For now I will try
> to educate everybody about this and fix all repositories where this
> goes wrong, but a better solution would be nice to have.

Git >= v1.7.9 comes with a credentials API and some helpers; see

	commit abca927dbef2c310056b8a1a8be5561212b3243a

and following or the available documentation for credentials, e.g.:

https://raw.github.com/gitster/git/master/Documentation/git-credential-store.txt

In contrib, there's a helper for the OS X keychain:

https://github.com/gitster/git/tree/master/contrib/credential

If that's no option, you would have to go with netrc / url config approach.

HTH.