[PATCH v2 3/7] remote-curl: rediscover repository when fetching refs

From: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
Date: Dec 12, 2023, 07:00 UTC
Message-ID: <374a1c514bcb6de4e1cfd7a3a664c014807598a2.1702361370.git.ps@pks.im>
In-Reply-To: <cover.1702361370.git.ps@pks.im>

The reftable format encodes the hash function used by the repository inside of its tables. The reftable backend thus needs to be initialized with the correct hash function right from the start, or otherwise we may end up writing tables with the wrong hash function. But git-clone(1) initializes the reference database before learning about the hash function used by the remote repository, which has never been a problem with the reffiles backend.

To fix this, we'll have to change git-clone(1) to be more careful and only create the reference backend once it learned about the remote hash function. This creates a problem for git-remote-curl(1), which will then be spawned at a time where the repository is not yet fully-initialized. Consequentially, git-remote-curl(1) will fail to detect the repository, which eventually causes it to error out once it is asked to fetch remote objects.

We can address this issue by trying to re-discover the Git repository in case none was detected at startup time. With this change, the clone will look as following:

  1. git-clone(1) sets up the initial repository, excluding the
     reference database.

  2. git-clone(1) spawns git-remote-curl(1), which will be unable to
     detect the repository due to a missing "HEAD".

  3. git-clone(1) asks git-remote-curl(1) to list remote references.
     This works just fine as this step does not require a local
     repository

  4. git-clone(1) creates the reference database as it has now learned
     about the hash function.

  5. git-clone(1) asks git-remote-curl(1) to fetch the remote packfile.
     The latter notices that it doesn't have a repository available, but
     it now knows to try and re-discover it.

If the re-discovery succeeds in the last step we can continue with the clone.

Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
---
 remote-curl.c | 7 +++++--
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/remote-curl.c b/remote-curl.c
index ef05752ca5..fc29757b65 100644
--- a/remote-curl.c
+++ b/remote-curl.c
@@ -1564,8 +1564,11 @@ int cmd_main(int argc, const char **argv)
 		if (buf.len == 0)
 			break;
 		if (starts_with(buf.buf, "fetch ")) {
-			if (nongit)
-				die(_("remote-curl: fetch attempted without a local repo"));
+			if (nongit) {
+				setup_git_directory_gently(&nongit);
+				if (nongit)
+					die(_("remote-curl: fetch attempted without a local repo"));
+			}
 			parse_fetch(&buf);
 
 		} else if (!strcmp(buf.buf, "list") || starts_with(buf.buf, "list ")) {

-- 
2.43.GIT