When using https or other authentication solutions such as single signon etc., the web server provides the authenticated user name in the REMOTE_USER environment variable when running a cgi script.

I would be really nice if fossil cgi could take advantage of this.

If REMOTE_USER is set to an existing fossil user name then that user is automatically logged in.
If REMOTE_USER is set to a user name that is not present in the fossil user table, then the anonymous user is automatically logged in.

This would be a really handy way to integrate fossil with preexisting authentication solutions.

Some support seen for this on the mailing list:


  "Nothing to contribute other than to say, yeah, that would be pretty cool."

NOTE: Supporting REMOTE_USER only makes sense when running in "fossil cgi" mode.