Mark Mielke <mark_at_mark.mielke.cc> wrote on 01/05/2012 12:36:10 PM:
> On 01/05/2012 12:34 PM, Branko Čibej wrote:
> > On 05.01.2012 18:25, Mark Mielke wrote:
> >> On 01/05/2012 12:04 PM, Branko Čibej wrote:
> >>> Ha, but svn:author currently fills that role. So why add another
> >>> property?
> >> If svn:author is defined as the primary key and also the
> >> authentication key, it does seem simpler and more compatible with
> >> existing tool assumptions and existing documentation.
> > svn:author is basically "the username". Of course, many installations,
> > especially those that use client certificates, will put other things
> > there; an example I've ofthen seen is CN (Email), which usually is not
> > what you'd really want since neither is unique or persistent.
>
> Yep. Microsoft AD likes to use user's name in the DN (Distinguished
> Name), or at least that is how many people seem to configure it. Yuck.
> In any case, I would say it's the responsibility of the organization to
> decide what their unique identifier is. If they choose a bad one -
> that's on them. :-)
>
> For many systems, username is pretty good.
Coming late to the discussion, but assuming you are using apache,
one could use an existing (or custom) auth module in apache
to mangle/rewrite/map the provided user id that subversion
uses to something that may be more useful. Subversion will
then happily store whatever is provided in the author field.
This would purely be a server side configuration. Some auth
modules already do some manipulation to what the user provides,
such as removing the windows domain info or everything
after @.
I'd actually hate to be capturing additional information such
as email address for a specific user since that could change
and is just duplicating what is already available via other
means. If and when I want/need that info I'd much prefer to
look it up in a directory to get the current value instead of
relying on something attached to an old transaction.
As mentioned, choosing that unique key is important, and
in an enterprise it is essential to ensure all tools
are sharing that same identifier...
Kevin R.
Received on 2012-01-05 21:04:13 CET