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wietherlast Friday at 9:12 PM1 replyview on HN

I don't understand the purpose of this parameter value?

I have `REQUIRE_SIGNIN_VIEW=true` and I see nothing but my own traffic on Gitea's logs.

Is it because I'm using a subdomain that doesn't imply there's a Gitea instance behind?


Replies

mappulast Saturday at 12:34 AM

Crawlers will find everything on the internet eventually regardless of subdomain (e.g. from crt.sh logs, or Google finds them from 8.8.8.8 queries).

REQUIRE_SIGNIN_VIEW=true means signin is required for all pages - that's great and definitely stops AI bots. The signin page is very cheap for Gitea to render. However, it is a barrier for the regular human visitors to your site.

'expensive' is a middle-ground that lets normal visitors browse and explore repos, view README, and download release binaries. Signin is only required for "expensive" pageloads, such as viewing file content at specific commits git history.