Thanks. Now that I know it is a rolling timeout, I was able to narrow my search for anything that might be causing the timer to extend. There is a git helper program I use that has a background refresh that I think I must leave open overnight sometimes. I think this was causing my timeout to be extended. I disabled the background refresh task and the timeout seems to be expiring like I expect now. --John On Fri, Feb 19, 2021 at 12:04 PM Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On Fri, Feb 19, 2021 at 10:46:48AM -0500, John Ratliff wrote: > > > I have configured my git to cache my credentials for 12 hours using > > this section in my .gitconfig > > > > [credential "https://mygithub.example.edu";] > > username = myuser > > helper = cache --timeout 43200 > > > > However, the credentials don’t always seem to expire after 12 hours. > > Sometimes I come back the next morning and the credentials still work. > > This is generally after leaving at 5:00 PM and coming back in the next > > day at 9:00 AM, well past the 12 hour timeout. > > > > Is there any way to see the current timeout value? Is it a rolling > > timeout (i.e. any git action resets the timeout)? > > It's the "rolling" thing, though the source is a bit subtle. The > credential-cache helper sets an absolute expiration when the value is > stored, and it doesn't update it on a "get" request. > > However, Git's interaction with the helpers is generally: > > - when we need a credential ask for one > > - when a credential is rejected by a server, tell helpers to erase it > > - when a credential is accepted by a server, tell helpers to store it > > And it's that last one that provides the rolling timeout, because we do > it even if the credential came from a helper in the first place! > > I actually wrote a patch long ago to switch this behavior: > > https://lore.kernel.org/git/20120407033417.GA13914@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ > > But it turned out some people actually rely on it. :) > > There's some discussion in that thread about paths forward, and I think > I even played around with it back then. But then it sat on my todo list, > and now it has been 9 years, so I don't remember if there were good > reasons not to push it forward, or if I simply never got around to it (I > suspect the latter; nobody had a pressing use case that was solved by > avoiding the rolling timeouts, it just seemed to me to be a bit less > surprising). I'd be happy if somebody wanted to revisit the topic. > > (To your other question, "is there a way to see the timeout value", the > answer is "not really, without running it under gdb". I wouldn't be > opposed to adding more diagnostic output to the daemon. But you can also > see some of what's going on by setting GIT_TRACE=1 in the environment, > which will show the extra "store" operation being done by Git). > > -Peff
