Re: [RFC][PATCH] Allow transfer of any valid sha1

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Date: May 25, 2006, 17:28 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0605251024320.5623@g5.osdl.org>
In-Reply-To: <m1lksqdook.fsf@ebiederm.dsl.xmission.com>

On Thu, 25 May 2006, Eric W. Biederman wrote:

> 
> My basic argument is that starting a pull with a commit that is not a
> reference is no worse than staring a pull from a broken repository.  The
> same checks that protects us should work in either case.

I think Junio reacted to the subject line, which was somewhat badly phrased. You're not looking to transfer random objects, you're looking to _start_ a branch at any arbitrary known point.

However, Junio's point is probably that the "any valid SHA1" might actually point to a broken tree, even if it exists on the server.

Of course, in that case hopefully git-rev-list exits with an error, and the server doesn't generate any pack at all rather than generating a broken one.

However, there's a (questionable) security issue: what if the server doesn't _want_ to expose certain branches? Arguably, if you know the top SHA1, you likely know all that it contains, but it may be a valid argument to say that if the SHA1 isn't an exported branch, you shouldn't necessarily be able to follow it.

		Linus