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‎Toronto Polyhack notes.md

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# PolyHack Toronto
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### Pain
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I had a problem. `https://` consistently broke for me when I tried to push. This is most likely because I had 2FA enabled, didn't have the key stored in my osx-credentials, and [wasn't using a token](http://olivierlacan.com/posts/why-is-git-https-not-working-on-github/), but I didn't know that yet.
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All of this could have been avoided if I had just figured this out earlier.
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### My solution
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Switching the git protocol to `ssh://` solved the problem for me, but I didn't want to do that manually, each time. I work with more git repositories than most people I know, as I do documentation work fairly often. At current count, I have 367 repositories in my `src` folder, and around a thousand repositories on GitHub. Not doing that manually.
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### Protocols out there
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What kind of protocols are there? https://gist.github.com/grawity/4392747
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#### git
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- Does not add security beyond what Git itself provides. The server is not verified.
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- You cannot push over it.
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#### https
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- HTTPS will always verify the server automatically, using certificate authorities (generally secure).
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- Uses password authentication for pushing, and still allows anonymous pull.
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- Downside: You have to enter your GitHub password every time you push. Git can remember passwords for a few minutes, but you need to be careful when storing the password permanently – since it can be used to change anything in your GitHub account.
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- If you have two-factor authentication enabled, you will have to use a personal access token instead of your regular password.
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- HTTPS works practically everywhere, even in places which block SSH and plain-Git protocols. In some cases, it can even be a little faster than SSH, especially over high-latency connections.
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#### http
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- Doesn't work with GitHub anymore, but is offered by some other Git hosts.
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- Works practically everywhere, like HTTPS.
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- But does not provide any security – the connection is plain-text.
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#### ssh
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Uses public-key authentication. You have to generate a keypair (or "public key"), then add it to your GitHub account.
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Using keys is more secure than passwords, since you can add many to the same account (for example, a key for every computer you use GitHub from). The private keys on your computer can be protected with passphrases.
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On the other hand, since you do not use the password, GitHub does not require two-factor auth codes either – so whoever obtains your private key can push to your repositories without needing the code generator device.
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However, the keys only allow pushing/pulling, but not editing account details. If you lose the private key (or if it gets stolen), you can just remove it from your GitHub account.
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A minor downside is that authentication is needed for all connections, so you always need a GitHub account – even to pull or clone.
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You also need to carefully verify the server's fingerprint when connecting for the first time. Many people skip that and just type "yes", which is insecure.
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Uses port 9418 for it's daemon. Can be blocked for Corporate stuff.
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(Note: This description is about GitHub. On personal servers, SSH can use passwords, anonymous access, or various other mechanisms.)
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#### /
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- Clone from /srv/git/project.git
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- This is often used if everyone on your team has access to a shared filesystem such as an NFS mount, or in the less likely case that everyone logs in to the same computer.
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- Git tries to use hardlinks or directly copy the files it needs
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- Everyone who has access can manipulate date, uses same file access as server
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- Not necessarily faster
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#### file://
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- Same as above, but git uses the same transfer processes it does for across a network
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### Setting these globally
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You can clone everything over git://, but tell Git to push over HTTPS.
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```
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[url "https://github.com/"]
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pushInsteadOf = git://github.com/
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```
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Run this in `~/.config/git/config` or `.gitconfig`.
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### Setting locally
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```
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[remote "origin"]
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url = git://RichardLitt/git-remote-to-ssh.git
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pushUrl = ssh://RichardLitt/git-remote-to-ssh.git
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```
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### What does GitHub allow?
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From [`hosted-git-info`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/hosted-git-info):
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```
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github: {
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// First two are insecure and generally shouldn't be used any more, but
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// they are still supported.
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'protocols': [ 'git', 'http', 'git+ssh', 'git+https', 'ssh', 'https' ],
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'domain': 'github.com',
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'treepath': 'tree',
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'filetemplate': 'https://{auth@}raw.githubusercontent.com/{user}/{project}/{committish}/{path}',
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'bugstemplate': 'https://{domain}/{user}/{project}/issues',
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'gittemplate': 'git://{auth@}{domain}/{user}/{project}.git{#committish}',
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'tarballtemplate': 'https://{domain}/{user}/{project}/archive/{committish}.tar.gz'
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}
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```
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### So, back to https
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I want to change all of my repository remotes from `https` to `ssh`.
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```
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🐕 git remote -v
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origin https://github.com/RichardLitt/git-remote-to-ssh.git (fetch)
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origin https://github.com/RichardLitt/git-remote-to-ssh.git (push)
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```
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To
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```
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🐕 git remote -v
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origin [email protected]:RichardLitt/git-remote-to-ssh.git (fetch)
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origin [email protected]:RichardLitt/git-remote-to-ssh.git (push)
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```
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### Shell script
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I found a handy shell script online. Let's look at it.
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```sh
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git checkout 79c4b111ad4d372f08a60e1fa97399e885753b95
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```
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### Atwood's Law
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> Any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript.
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### Exec all the bash
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My first thought was using `exec()`, which can be pretty evil. I decided to use [`execa()`](https://github.com/sindresorhus/execa). So, let's do a simple port.
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```js
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execa(`git remote -v | grep -m1 '^${remote}' | sed -Ene's#.*(https://[^[:space:]]*).*#\1#p'`)
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.then((res) => console.log(res))
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.catch((err) => console.log('Screw you everything is broken'))
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```
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Of course, I got this:
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```
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SyntaxError: Octal escape sequences are not allowed in strict mode.
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```
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At this point, on my third refactor, I wondered - well, you know, there's probably a better parsing library out there for git, and I probably don't need to use `exec`, or `grep`. It's a silly thing to do.
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### Parsing gitconfig
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I spent a while doing fs.readFileSync, before I decided this was stupid.
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```js
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const parse = require('parse-git-config')
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var config = parse.sync();
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```
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Let's go and livecode.
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### Voila
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The thing is done! It works. It also:
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- Transforms any git url to ssh, not just https
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- Works for any valid git url
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- Is way easier for me to debug
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### Publish
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And that's it. I now have the thing I wanted, and I've learned a ton along the way. Hooray!
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### Irony
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I renamed the GitHub repo from `github-origin-https-to-ssh` to `git-remote-to-ssh`, and then manually edited my .gitconfig file to reflect the change. Did I accomplish anything? I've no idea.
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