On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 4:27 PM, Rob van Oostrum <rva...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 7, 2010 at 12:03 PM, Daniel Danger Bentley < > dtbent...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> I'm working on a system to interact with subversion automatically. Some of >> the repositories in question work over https, and this requires >> authentication for certain actions. >> >> I would love to separate authentication from action. Is there a way to >> perform an authenticated no-op (which would fail if not authenticated)? If >> this did exist, then I could first try this, and perform the hairier actions >> only once I'm sure I'm authenticated. >> >> The best we've been able to come up with at work so far is to do a propset >> on a revision property. >> >> Thanks, >> -Dan Bentley >> > > You are confusing authentication with authorization. Authentication = "user > is who they say they are". Authorization = "user has permission to do X" > (user may or may not be authenticated), which can (and often does) depend on > both authz configuration and repository hooks. > > Authentication can be covered simply by disallowing any non-authenticated > write access. Predicting authorization is more complicated unless you can > safely "if test X works, real operation Y should also work". > > If all you really need is in fact an authenticated no-op, you should be > able to run any read operation, which - if you are disallowing anonymous > access entirely - will only work when already authenticated. > > We don't disallow anonymous access entirely. Anonymous read access is often allowed. In this case, I control the client software but not the server. So I would like to test if things work on the client so I can fail early. So there is no dry run mode I could try an operation through? If only writes require authorization, then there is no no-visible-impact way to test authentication? Thanks much, -Dan > Cheers > Rob > -- "My youngest daughter is 13 months old, and in her limited vocabulary alongside essentials like 'mom-mom', 'da-da', and 'meow' she knows to say 'zhooom' and wave her arm around when she wants me to get a lightsaber down off a shelf for her to play with. As far as I'm concerned that's Parent of the Year Award material right there." - Aurich Lawson
