Re: [PATCH] Revert "retry request without query when info/refs?query fails"

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Sep 20, 2012, 16:24 UTC
Message-ID: <20120920162456.GA25418@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <7vlig5cilt.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 11:29:34PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 17 quoted lines

> "Shawn O. Pearce" <spearce@spearce.org> writes:
> 
> > This reverts commit 703e6e76a14825e5b0c960d525f34e607154b4f7.
> >
> > Retrying without the query parameter was added as a workaround
> > for a single broken HTTP server at git.debian.org[1]. The server
> > was misconfigured to route every request with a query parameter
> > into gitweb.cgi. Admins fixed the server's configuration within
> > 16 hours of the bug report to the Git mailing list, but we still
> > patched Git with this fallback and have been paying for it since.
> 
> As the consequence of the above, the only two things we know about
> the servers in the wild are (1) a misconfiguration that requires
> this retry was once made, so it is not very unlikely others did the
> same misconfiguration, and (2) those unknown number of servers have
> been happily serving the current clients because the workaround
> patch have been hiding the misconfiguration ever since.

The misconfiguration was pretty wild in this case. I'd be much more worried about stupidly non-compliant servers that will not serve "foo/bar" when asked for "foo/bar?key=value".

Show 5 quoted lines

> But as long as the failure diagnosis from updated clients that
> revert this workaround is sufficient to allow such misconfigured
> servers, I think it is OK.  We might see a large number of small
> people having to run around and fix the configuration as a fallout,
> though.

I think Shawn's revert is the right thing to do. But it is not complete without the manual workaround. I'm putting that patch together now and should have it out in a few minutes.

Show 8 quoted lines

> > Most Git hosting services configure the smart HTTP protocol and the
> > retry logic confuses users when there is a transient HTTP error as
> > Git dropped the real error from the smart HTTP request. Removing the
> > retry makes root causes easier to identify.
> 
> Does that hold true also for dumb only small people installations?
> They are the ones that need more help than the large installations
> staffed sufficiently and run smart http gateway.

For the most part, yes. They will get a useful error out of the smart request if there is a transient error, the repo does not exist, etc. The real fallout is the people who are hitting a broken or misconfigured server and may get a confusing error code (in the one case we know about, it was a 404, but it really could be anything, depending on the exact nature of the misconfiguration).

-Peff