From: Junio C Hamano Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:38:53 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH] git-shell needs $(COMPAT_OBJS) Message-ID: <7vprp82nb6.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: Johannes Schindelin writes: > On Sun, 20 Jul 2008, Junio C Hamano wrote: > >> Why do we care about the size of git-shell so much in the first place >> anyway to begin with? > > It was not me who proposed it, but I guess it was for auditing purposes: > git-shell is often the only point of entry for certain untrusted ssh > users, and the less code is linked, the less code has to be analyzed for > reachability (and then for security holes). That's a rather misguided approach, isn't it? After all, the work requested by the end user will be handled by code in the main git executable by spawning a subprocess, and you are auditing the codepath that leads to the spawning anyway.