`cargo login` + libsecret provider ⇒ hangs

[liskin]

Problem

I'm trying to cargo login to a custom registry and store the token in the GNOME keyring via the libsecret provider, but it just gets stuck forever.

Steps

1. configure cargo to use the libsecret provider:

   ~/.cargo/config.toml:

   [registry]
   global-credential-providers = ["cargo:token", "cargo:libsecret"]
   

2. CARGO_REGISTRIES_TEST1_INDEX=sparse+https://charts.jfrog.io/artifactory/api/cargo/xxx/index/ cargo login --registry test1
   (this is some fairly random URL that happens to trigger the issue but it's not our private jfrog instance obviously)

3. reply whatever (e.g. "x") to the "please paste the token for test1 below" prompt

Now cargo gets stuck after printing the following errors:

(process:19648): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 15:31:30.977: cannot register existing type 'SecretService'
(process:19648): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 15:31:30.977: cannot add private field to invalid (non-instantiatable) type '<invalid>'
(process:19648): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 15:31:30.977: g_type_add_interface_static: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed
(process:19648): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 15:31:30.977: g_type_add_interface_static: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed
(process:19648): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 15:31:30.977: cannot register existing type 'SecretBackend'
(process:19648): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 15:31:30.977: g_type_interface_add_prerequisite: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INTERFACE (interface_type)' failed
(process:19648): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 15:31:30.977: g_type_interface_add_prerequisite: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INTERFACE (interface_type)' failed
(process:19648): GLib-CRITICAL **: 15:31:30.977: g_once_init_leave_pointer: assertion 'result != 0' failed
(process:19648): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 15:31:30.977: g_type_add_interface_static: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_INSTANTIATABLE (instance_type)' failed

Possible Solution(s)

I believe this is because the libsecret-1.so.0 library gets loaded and unloaded multiple times (once for the lookup, another time for the store):

cargo/credential/cargo-credential-libsecret/src/lib.rs

Line 122 in c8d15a3

lib = Library::new("libsecret-1.so.0").context(

but this isn't supported: https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-list/2017-February/msg00006.html

Using something like LazyLock to load the library should resolve the issue.

There's a workaround — LD_PRELOAD can be used to prevent the dynamic library from getting unloaded:
LD_PRELOAD=/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libsecret-1.so.0 cargo login --registry

Notes

I think this only gets stuck on arm64. I've seen the glib errors on x86_64 as well but it didn't get stuck. gdb tells me it's stuck in some futex/condition variable, but I don't think it's especially relevant as the root cause is (imo) well understood.

Version

cargo 1.87.0 (99624be96 2025-05-06)
release: 1.87.0
commit-hash: 99624be96e9d213b0e9b1e36451271f24e4a41d8
commit-date: 2025-05-06
host: aarch64-unknown-linux-gnu
libgit2: 1.9.0 (sys:0.20.0 vendored)
libcurl: 8.12.1-DEV (sys:0.4.80+curl-8.12.1 vendored ssl:OpenSSL/3.4.1)
ssl: OpenSSL 3.4.1 11 Feb 2025
os: Debian 13.0.0 (trixie) [64-bit]

[epage]

FYI #15295 is looking at adding relevant caching

[liskin]

FYI #15295 is looking at adding relevant caching

Oh, right. I searched issues but not PRs. Sorry!