Arch Linux

smoak

Member

Registered: 2010-01-05

Posts: 7

Updating author in commit history

I have an aur package I have maintained over the years. I have since legally changed my name; however, there are commits referring to an author that frankly doesn't exist anymore (and personally I'd rather not have references to).

I tried to change the name and email address recorded in existing commits using githubs handy guide: https://help.github.com/en/github/using … uthor-info

It seems though that when I go to push the corrected commits to the aur it's getting rejected:

$ git push --force --tags origin 'refs/heads/*'
Enumerating objects: 29, done.
Counting objects: 100% (29/29), done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads
Compressing objects: 100% (28/28), done.
Writing objects: 100% (29/29), 4.35 KiB | 1.09 MiB/s, done.
Total 29 (delta 12), reused 0 (delta 0), pack-reused 0
remote: Checking connectivity: 29, done.
remote: error: denying non-fast-forward (you should pull first)
remote: error: hook declined to update refs/heads/master
To ssh://aur.archlinux.org/mopidy-musicbox.git
! [remote rejected] master -> master (hook declined)
error: failed to push some refs to 'ssh://aur@aur.archlinux.org/mopidy-musicbox.git'

What are my options here? Is there some sort of admin I can get to update that information for me? I don't see a way to completely delete the package, so I'd rather not disown it since the history will still be there.

WorMzy

Forum Moderator

From: Scotland

Registered: 2010-06-16

Posts: 11,836

Website

Re: Updating author in commit history

You would be better off asking this question on the aur-general mailing list, or on IRC (#archlinux-aur on Freenode). I vaguely remember some aur-general topics about users accidentally committing and pushing commits that contained their real names (which they wanted to hide) and having that information changed, around the time the AUR4 was launched.

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Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 11,540

Re: Updating author in commit history

Doxing yourself is one thing, but I doubt anyone will rewrite the entire history for this.

eschwartz

Fellow

Registered: 2014-08-08

Posts: 4,097

Re: Updating author in commit history

While it's possible for an admin to rewrite history for someone, history rewriting  causes the same problems history rewriting *always* causes -- even though the admin can vet the rewrite to prevent it from deleting previous versions of the package, that's only one type of potential problem. It's generally only done in cases such as accidentally misconfigured git clients leaking sensitive information (corporate, rather than private, email addresses, is a topic that comes to mind).

Why isn't it enough to just change future versions of the package to use a different git ident?

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Managing AUR repos The Right Way -- aurpublish (now a standalone tool)