Trying to make gert:::git_submodule_update with custom gitlab instance

[pokyah]

Hi,

context
For my company, I need to automate some git workflows where we need to manage git submodules. This has to be done from within a wider R project and using HTTP only (SSH is not implemented and the IT department is not ready to make it work due to reverse proxy complications...).

objective
Create a git repo, add a submodule with the content of its nested submodules (see reprex here below)

problem
My problem is that I encounter en error while using gert::git_submodule_update if interacting with my company's gitlab instance :

Error in libgit2::git_submodule_update : 
  request failed with status code: 401

• This error does not arrise if executing git submodule update --init from git bash

• I don't encounter any error while using other gert functions that require auth like gert::git_clone or gert::git_pull for example. The error is only relative to gert::git_submodule_update

• If trying to do the same operation with a github hosted dummy example, everything works fine with HTTP (see reprex here below).

Please also note that calling a system or sys::exec_wait or system2 function and passing it the args to build git submodule update --init command is not considered as a solution as the R script might be called by some user from within KNIME (an opensource ETL tool) with which, I had no success to make a system call to execute a git submodule update --init command working (which might be a clue for some credentials problems?).

reprex
The script here below should :

• create an empty git repo,
• add the repo https://github.com/pokyah/test_gert_submodule_l1 that contains a submodule test_gert_submodule_l2 as a subrepo
• and pull the content of the nested submodule test_gert_submodule_l2

If everything works fine there should be a goodbye.R file into the nested test_gert_submodule_l2 folder

subfix = floor(as.numeric(Sys.time()))
test_dir = paste0("test_gert", subfix)

desktop = paste0("C:/users/", Sys.getenv("USERNAME"), "/Desktop/")
test_dir = paste0(desktop, test_dir)
dir.create(test_dir)

github_url = "https://github.com/pokyah/test_gert_submodule_l1"
gitlab_be_url = "https://git.environnement.brussels/evaluation-ace/ben-factory/tools/suites/csv-suite"
ref_github = "main"
ref_belb = "master"

gert::git_init(path = test_dir)

gert::git_submodule_add(
  url = github_url,
  path = paste0("components/", basename(github_url)),
  ref = ref_github,
  repo = test_dir)

submodule = gert::git_submodule_list(
  repo = paste0(test_dir))

gert::git_submodule_init(
  submodule = submodule$path,
  repo = test_dir,
  overwrite = T)

submodule_submodule = gert::git_submodule_list(
  repo = paste0(test_dir, "/", submodule$path))

gert::git_submodule_init(
  submodule = submodule_submodule$path,
  repo = paste0(test_dir, "/", submodule$path),
  overwrite = T)

gert:::git_submodule_update(
  submodule = submodule_submodule$path,
  repo = paste0(test_dir, "/", submodule$path))

question

Do you have any idea of what could explain why gert:::git_submodule_update does not work with a specific gitlab instance?
In https://github.com/r-lib/gert/blob/main/R/submodules.R you mention in the function comment :

# I find this confusing, also doesn't support auth.
# Better use git_submodule_fetch()

What does it really mean ?
If we could get more information about this problem, this could help us automate our git workflows within our R project and maybe help us understand my git submodule update --init command called from a system call within KNIME does not work neither.

session info

R version 4.1.3 (2022-03-10)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
Running under: Windows 10 x64 (build 18363)

Matrix products: default

locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=French_Belgium.1252  LC_CTYPE=French_Belgium.1252   
[3] LC_MONETARY=French_Belgium.1252 LC_NUMERIC=C                   
[5] LC_TIME=French_Belgium.1252    

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

other attached packages:
[1] benFactoR_0.1.5

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] gert_1.6.0        here_1.0.1        tidyr_1.2.0       arpr_0.1.2       
 [5] prettyunits_1.1.1 ps_1.6.0          assertthat_0.2.1  rprojroot_2.0.3  
 [9] digest_0.6.29     utf8_1.2.2        R6_2.5.1          sys_3.4          
[13] evaluate_0.15     httr_1.4.2        pillar_1.7.0      rlang_1.0.2      
[17] curl_4.3.2        rstudioapi_0.13   callr_3.7.0       rmarkdown_2.13   
[21] desc_1.4.1        devtools_2.4.3    webshot_0.5.2     stringr_1.4.0    
[25] compiler_4.1.3    xfun_0.30         pkgconfig_2.0.3   askpass_1.1      
[29] base64enc_0.1-3   pkgbuild_1.3.1    Rserve_1.8-10     htmltools_0.5.2  
[33] openssl_2.0.0     tidyselect_1.1.2  tibble_3.1.6      roxygen2_7.1.2   
[37] gitlabr_2.0.0     fansi_1.0.3       crayon_1.5.1      dplyr_1.0.8      
[41] withr_2.5.0       brio_1.1.3        jsonlite_1.8.0    lifecycle_1.0.1  
[45] DBI_1.1.2         git2r_0.30.1      magrittr_2.0.3    credentials_1.3.2
[49] cli_3.2.0         stringi_1.7.6     cachem_1.0.6      renv_0.15.4      
[53] fs_1.5.2          remotes_2.4.2     testthat_3.1.3    xml2_1.3.3       
[57] ellipsis_0.3.2    generics_0.1.2    vctrs_0.4.0       tools_4.1.3      
[61] glue_1.6.2        purrr_0.3.4       processx_3.5.3    pkgload_1.2.4    
[65] fastmap_1.1.0     yaml_2.3.5        sessioninfo_1.2.2 memoise_2.0.1    
[69] knitr_1.38        usethis_2.1.5    

Many thanks for your support.

Best regards