xiaoyvr / paket.credentialprovider.gen2support

Paket.CredentialProvider.Gen2Support

The Problem

There are 2 different NuGet credential providers; Gen 1, and Gen2.

Gen 1

This was the first effort by the NuGet team to introduce credential providers. The interface is simple, they print some JSON to stdout with a status code. The NuGet team overlooked .NET Core support, because the discovery process assumed they would be named CredentialProvider.*.exe.

Paket added Gen 1 provider support, and in addition supported .NET Core by changing the discovery process to include CredentialProvider.*.dll, running those under .NET Core. With that said, there are no credential providers I am aware of that adopt this mechanism.

Gen 2

The NuGet team realised they needed .NET Core support, and cross-plat support. At the same time, they wanted to tackle NuGets plugin architecture, plugin trust and more. The result was a more complex system, where there is a JSON protocol over stdin/stdout with handshakes and all sorts.

Paket has yet to adopt Gen 2 credential providers.

Providers and Support

Provider	Gen	Windows Support	macOS Support	ADO Distributed*	NuGet Client Support	Paket Support
CredentialProvider.VSS	Gen 1	✔️	❌	❌	Going soon	✔️
CredentialProvider.Microsoft	Gen 2	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	❌
CredentialProvider.Gen2Support	Gen 1	✔️	✔️	❌	Going soon	✔️

• ADO Distributed means that it is what is shown on the Artifacts page under "Connect to feed..." dialog.

This Provider

This package acts as a shim by implementing a Gen 1 provider, that talks to Gen 2 providers. It has knowledge of the Azure Artifacts Credential Provider so that under non-Windows it can ask you to run the appropriate command to authenticate.

This shim solves the problem of adopting Gen 2 pacakges with Paket while the eco-systems align.

Installation

Be sure to have installed the Azure Artifacts Credential Provider, under $HOME/.nuget/plugins.

Windows

• Ensure the following directory exists %HOME%\AppData\Local\NuGet\CredentialProviders\Paket.CredentialProvider.Gen2Support, creating any missing directories as necessary.
• Download the latest CredentialProvider.Gen2Support.zip from the releases tab and unzip the contents of into it.

macOS

• Create a folder named CredentialProviders under: $HOME/.local/share/NuGet
• Download the latest CredentialProvider.Gen2Support.zip from the releases tab and unzip the contents of into it.