Re: [PATCH v2 3/3] *: avoid "whitelist"

From: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 15, 2022, 11:19 UTC
Message-ID: <220715.86k08ezkbl.gmgdl@evledraar.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <0d862cbbebe1a9f47f72255217faf734b1db4055.1657852722.git.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>

On Fri, Jul 15 2022, Derrick Stolee via GitGitGadget wrote:

Show 12 quoted lines

> From: Derrick Stolee <derrickstolee@github.com>
> [...]
> -	logerror("'%s': not in whitelist", path);
> +	logerror("'%s': not in directory list", path);
>  	return NULL;		/* Fallthrough. Deny by default */
>  }
>  	if (strict_paths && (!ok_paths || !*ok_paths))
> -		die("option --strict-paths requires a whitelist");
> +		die("option --strict-paths requires a directory list");
>  
>  	if (base_path && !is_directory(base_path))
>  		die("base-path '%s' does not exist or is not a directory",

The former here is worse than before, which relates to the latter.

Put yourself in the shoes of a user who gets this error message. You then do "man git-daemon", search for "whitelist", and the only thing you'll find are references to --strict-paths and --interpolated-path, which puts you on the right path.

IOW I don't care about the term "whitelist" here, I care that it it has (goes and counts...) 5 occurances in the manpage, directorty has 16.

And SYNOPSIS of "git-daemon" says "...[<directory...]", so that hypothehtical user is probably wondering e.g. if the directory they provided on argv is bad. It's not just 5 v.s. 16, it's that we've introduced jargon we only used for that feature, but now we use a vague general term.

So we need to tell the user *what directory*. That's obviously easy, we should refer back to the option that brought us here.

So per [1] I really welcome any improvements to the docs, but I was also expecting to find various issues related to the origin of this series blindly replacing things :( Please look a bit more at the bigger picture beyond the specific hunks being changed, I might have missed some similar issues on this read-through...

1. https://lore.kernel.org/git/220715.86sfn2zlkm.gmgdl@evledraar.gmail.com/