Re: [RFC PATCH 0/2] Add named reference to latest push cert

From: Shikher Verma <root@shikherverma.com>
Date: Sep 7, 2017, 07:08 UTC
Message-ID: <20170907070827.sysqmszdwduruwis@weakknees.security.iitk.ac.in>
In-Reply-To: <20170906093913.21485-1-root@shikherverma.com>

Hey everyone,

I felt like I should introduce myself since this is my first patch on the git mailing list (or any mailing list actually) :D

I am Shikher[1], currently in my 4th year undergrad at IIT Kanpur. This summer I was lucky enough to intern at NYU Secure Systems Lab[2] mentored by Santiago. We looked into how signed pushes work and how we can use them to increase the security of git. We encountered a strange error in tests which resulted in a patch[3] and I wrote a python script to verify push certificates[4]. I was pretty surprised to not find any push certificate on the remote repo after I did a signed push, hence this RFC.

Anyway this is my first time trying to contribute to a large OSS so forgive me if I make any noob mistakes.

Thanks Shikher Verma

[1]http://shikherverma.com/ [2]https://ssl.engineering.nyu.edu/ [3]https://public-inbox.org/git/20170707220159.12752-1-santiago@nyu.edu/ [4]https://gist.github.com/ShikherVerma/9204060b545c00597e7ad9b694cfeb9c

On Wed, Sep 06, 2017 at 03:09:11PM +0530, Shikher Verma wrote:

Show 29 quoted lines

> Currently, git only stores push certificates if there is a receive hook 
> present. This may violate the principle of least surprise (e.g., I 
> pushed with --signed, and I don't see anything in upstream). 
> Additionally, push certificates could be more versatile if they are not 
> tightly bound to git hooks. Finally, it would be useful to verify the 
> signed pushes at later points of time with ease.
> 
> A named ref is added for ease of access/tooling around push 
> certificates. If the last push was signed, ref/PUSH_CERT stores the 
> ref of the latest push cert otherwise it is empty.
>  
> Sending patches as RFC since the documentation would have to be 
> updated and git gc might have to be patched to not garbage collect 
> the latest push certificate.
> 
> This patch applies on master (3ec7d702a) 
> 
> Shikher Verma (2):
>   Always write push cert to disk
>   Store latest push cert ref in PUSH_CERT
> 
>  builtin/receive-pack.c | 25 ++++++++++++++++++++-----
>  path.c                 |  1 +
>  path.h                 |  1 +
>  3 files changed, 22 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
> 
> -- 
> 2.14.1
>