Difficulty Accessing Private GitHub Repo with IDF Component Manager in CI Pipeline (RDT-637)

[hayschan]

Hello,

I'm encountering an issue with espressif/esp-idf-ci-action@v1 while trying to build a project in my CI pipeline. The project uses the IDF Component Manager to fetch a component from a private GitHub repository.

Despite several attempts, I'm unable to grant access to the private repository for the IDF Component Manager running on GitHub. I've tried methods similar to those discussed in this forum post, including using ssh-agent and configuring known_hosts, but to no avail.

Could you please clarify:

1. Is espressif/esp-idf-ci-action designed to support accessing private repositories through the IDF Component Manager using idf_component.yml?

   ## IDF Component Manager Manifest File
   dependencies:
     espressif/button: "^2.5.0"
     ## Required IDF version
     idf:
       version: ">=4.1.0"
   
     # For components in git repository:
     esp_arithmetic:
       path: "./component_add"
       version: "*"
       git: "git@github.com:kaspernyhus/multi_component_test.git"

2. If supported, could you provide guidance or examples on how to configure this correctly?

[kumekay]

Hello @hayschan and thank you for raising the topic.

Access to private repositories wasn't in our scope yet. At the same time, we can make it work.

The flow is different for SSH based repository access and over HTTPS. Is it crucial for you to use SSH access, or can you switch to HTTPS?

In this case, we can support passing of arbitrary environment variables, that can be used for authentication.

[hayschan]

As long as the IDF component manager can access private GitHub Repo, I am fine with any solution, both ssh or https.

Another workaround might be having private component on the ESP registry. These component can be grabbed from the ESP registry, but not available to public unless the user have a special authentication. The authentication can be password, or a pair of private and public key.

[kumekay]

@hayschan I apologize, didn't notice your response.

To access a private repo through HTTPs you can use environment variables in the manifest for credentials https://docs.espressif.com/projects/idf-component-manager/en/latest/reference/manifest_file.html#environment-variables-in-manifest

And #43 adds a way to pass custom arguments, including environment variables.