RE: [PATCH v2 6/6] version: introduce osversion.command config for os-version output

From

rsbecker@nexbridge.com <rsbecker@nexbridge.com>

Date

Jan 17, 2025, 22:49 UTC

Message-ID

<00bc01db6932$1eed21a0$5cc764e0$@nexbridge.com>

In-Reply-To

<xmqqwmethxyq.fsf@gitster.g>

On January 17, 2025 5:34 PM, Junio C Hamano wrote:

>Usman Akinyemi <usmanakinyemi202@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Let's introduce a new configuration option, `osversion.command`, to
>> handle the string exchange between servers and clients. This option
>> allows customization of the exchanged string by leveraging the output
>> of the specified command. This customization might be especially
>> useful on some quite uncommon platforms like NonStop where interesting
>> OS information is available from other means than uname(2).
>
>After reading the above rationale, I doubt the usefulness of this feature

even more.

>
>Shouldn't that kind of anomalies be handled by compat/ layer to make their
>uname(2) emulated, or allow get_uname_info() to be customized at compile

time

>by platform implementations, to yield more useful pieces of information

instead?

>
>That way, we do not need to add another mechanism that lets people spawn an
>arbitrary command while Git is running, we do not need to worry about

security

>implications, and we do not need to worry about people abusing the facility

to

>throw totally random and useless garbage information at the other end to

make

>their stats useless.
>
>I'll skip the overly wide documentation changes.
>
>> diff --git a/Documentation/config/transfer.txt
>> b/Documentation/config/transfer.txt
>> ...
>> diff --git a/Documentation/gitprotocol-v2.txt
>> b/Documentation/gitprotocol-v2.txt
>> ...
>
>> +test_expect_success 'test capability advertisement with

osVersion.command

>config set' '
>> +	test_config osVersion.command "uname -srvm" &&
>
>If osversion.command configuration variable turns out to be acceptable

addition, I

>do not think we want to use "uname -srvm" as its value for its test.  Do

you know

>for sure how portable srvm is?
>
>If you use something like "printf ' \001a\011b\015\012c '", you do not even

have

>to worry about how portable srvm is and on top, you can test your

unprintable-

>redacting logic in the code.
>
>But all of that may be moot, if we take the "fewer customization at

runtime"

>approach.