From 223988808971eb5429efd914e9e88855ea0b0e01 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Matthieu Moy Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2012 22:17:42 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] api-credentials.txt: show the big picture first The API documentation targets two kinds of developers: those using the C API, and those writing remote-helpers. The document was not clear about which part was useful to which category, and for example, the C API could be mistakenly thought as an API for writting remote helpers. Based-on-patch-by: Jeff King Signed-off-by: Matthieu Moy Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano --- Documentation/technical/api-credentials.txt | 50 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++-- 1 file changed, 47 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/technical/api-credentials.txt b/Documentation/technical/api-credentials.txt index 21ca6a2553..fb6db22a46 100644 --- a/Documentation/technical/api-credentials.txt +++ b/Documentation/technical/api-credentials.txt @@ -6,8 +6,52 @@ password credentials from the user (even though credentials in the wider world can take many forms, in this document the word "credential" always refers to a username and password pair). +This document describes two interfaces: the C API that the credential +subsystem provides to the rest of git, and the protocol that git uses to +communicate with system-specific "credential helpers". If you are +writing git code that wants to look up or prompt for credentials, see +the section "C API" below. If you want to write your own helper, see +the section on "Credential Helpers" below. + +Typical setup +------------- + +------------ ++-----------------------+ +| git code (C) |--- to server requiring ---> +| | authentication +|.......................| +| C credential API |--- prompt ---> User ++-----------------------+ + ^ | + | pipe | + | v ++-----------------------+ +| git credential helper | ++-----------------------+ +------------ + +The git code (typically a remote-helper) will call the C API to obtain +credential data like a login/password pair (credential_fill). The +API will itself call a remote helper (e.g. "git credential-cache" or +"git credential-store") that may retrieve credential data from a +store. If the credential helper cannot find the information, the C API +will prompt the user. Then, the caller of the API takes care of +contacting the server, and does the actual authentication. + +C API +----- + +The credential C API is meant to be called by git code which needs to +acquire or store a credential. It is centered around an object +representing a single credential and provides three basic operations: +fill (acquire credentials by calling helpers and/or prompting the user), +approve (mark a credential as successfully used so that it can be stored +for later use), and reject (mark a credential as unsuccessful so that it +can be erased from any persistent storage). + Data Structures ---------------- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ `struct credential`:: @@ -28,7 +72,7 @@ This struct should always be initialized with `CREDENTIAL_INIT` or Functions ---------- +~~~~~~~~~ `credential_init`:: @@ -72,7 +116,7 @@ Functions Parse a URL into broken-down credential fields. Example -------- +~~~~~~~ The example below shows how the functions of the credential API could be used to login to a fictitious "foo" service on a remote host: -- 2.11.4.GIT