[RFC PATCH v2 02/13] bundle-uri docs: add design notes

From

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>

Date

Mar 11, 2022, 16:24 UTC

Message-ID

<RFC-patch-v2-02.13-84c4036a510-20220311T155841Z-avarab@gmail.com>

In-Reply-To

<RFC-cover-v2-00.13-00000000000-20220311T155841Z-avarab@gmail.com>

Signed-off-by: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
---
 Documentation/technical/bundle-uri.txt  | 119 ++++++++++++++++++++++++
 Documentation/technical/protocol-v2.txt |   5 +
 2 files changed, 124 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 Documentation/technical/bundle-uri.txt

diff --git a/Documentation/technical/bundle-uri.txt b/Documentation/technical/bundle-uri.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..5ae9a15eafe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/technical/bundle-uri.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,119 @@
+Bundle URI Design Notes
+=======================
+
+Protocol
+--------
+
+See `bundle-uri` in the link:protocol-v2.html[protocol-v2]
+documentation for a discussion of the bundle-uri command, and the
+expectations of clients and servers.
+
+This document is a a more general discussion of how the `bundle-uri`
+command fits in with the rest of the git ecosystem, its design goals
+and non-goals, comparison to alternatives etc.
+
+Comparison with Packfile URIs
+-----------------------------
+
+There is a similar "Packfile URIs" facility, see the
+link:packfile-uri.html[packfile-uri] documentation for details.
+
+The Packfile URIs facility requires a much closer cooperation between
+CDN and server than the bundle URI facility.
+
+I.e. the server MUST know what objects exist in the packfile URI it's
+pointing to, as well as its pack checksum. Failure to do so will not
+only result in a client error (the packfile hash won't match), but
+even if it got past that would likely result in a corrupt repository
+with tips pointing to unreachable objects.
+
+By comparison the bundle URIs are meant to be a "dumb" solution
+friendly to e.g. having a weekly cronjob take a snapshot of a git
+repository, that snapshot being uploaded to a network of FTP mirrors
+(which may be inconsistent or out of date).
+
+The server does not need to know what state the side-channel download
+is at, because the client will first validate it, and then optionally
+negotiate with the server using what it discovers there.
+
+Using the local `transfer.injectBundleURI` configuration variable (see
+linkgit:git-config[1]) the `bundle-uri` mechanism doesn't even need
+the server to support it.
+
+Security
+--------
+
+The omission of something equivalent to the packfile <OID> in the
+Packfile URIs protocol is intentional, as having it would require
+closer server and CDN cooperation than some server operators are
+comfortable with.
+
+Furthermore, it is not needed for security. The server doesn't need to
+trust its CDN. If the server were to attempt to send harmful content
+to the client, the result would not validate against the server's
+provided ref tips gotten from ls-refs.
+
+The lack of a such a hash does leave room open to a malicious CDN
+operation to be annoying however. E.g. they could inject irrelevant
+objects into the bundles, which would enlarge the downloaded
+repository until a "gc" would eventually throw them away.
+
+In practice the lack of a hash is considered to be a non-issue. Anyone
+concerned about such security problems between their server and their
+CDN is going to be pointing to a "https" URL under their control. For
+a client the "threat" is the same as without bundle-uri, i.e. a server
+is free to be annoying today and send you garbage in the PACK that you
+won't need.
+
+Security issues peculiar to bundle-uri
+--------------------------------------
+
+Both packfile-uri and bundle-uri use the `fetch.uriProtocols`
+configuration variable (see linkgit:git-config[1]) to configure which
+protocols they support.
+
+By default this is set to "http,https" for both, but bundle-uri
+supports adding "file" to that list. The server can thus point to
+"file://" URIs it expects the client to have access to.
+
+This is primarily intended for use with the `transfer.injectBundleURI`
+mechanism, but can also be useful e.g. in a centralized environment
+where a server might point to a "file:///mnt/bundles/big-repo.bdl" it
+knows to be mounted on the local machine (e.g. a racked server),
+points to it in its "bundle-uri" response.
+
+The client can then add "file" to the `fetch.uriProtocols` list to
+obey such responses. That does mean that a malicious server can point
+to any arbitrary file on the local machine. The threat of this is
+considered minimal, since anyone adding `file` to `fetch.uriProtocols`
+likely knows what they're doing and controls both ands, and the worst
+they can do is make a curl(1) pipe garbage into "index-pack" (which
+will likely promptly die on the non-PACK-file).
+
+Security comparison with packfile-uri
+-------------------------------------
+
+The initial implementation of packfile-uri needed special adjusting to
+run "git fsck" on incoming .gitmodules files, this was to deal with a
+general security issue in git, See CVE-2018-17456.
+
+The current packfile-uri mechanism requires special handling around
+"fsck" to do such cross-PACK fsck's, this is because it first indexes
+the "incremental" PACK, and then any PACK(s) provided via
+packfile-uri, before finally doing a full connectivity check.
+
+This is effect doing the fsck one might do via "clone" and "fetch" in
+reverse, or the equivalent of starting with the incremental "fetch",
+followed by the "clone".
+
+Since the packfile-uri mechanism can result in the .gitmodules blob
+referenced by such a "fetch" to be in the pack for the "clone" the
+fetch-pack process needs to keep state between the indexing of
+multiple packs, to remember to fsck the blob (via the "clone") later
+after seeing it in a tree (from the "fetch).
+
+There are no known security issues with the way packfile-uri does
+this, but since bundle-uri effectively emulates what a which doesn't
+support either "bundle-uri" or "packfile-uri" would do on clone/fetch,
+any future security issues peculiar to the packfile-uri approach are
+unlikely to be shared by it.
diff --git a/Documentation/technical/protocol-v2.txt b/Documentation/technical/protocol-v2.txt
index 3ea96add398..3a51492049f 100644
--- a/Documentation/technical/protocol-v2.txt
+++ b/Documentation/technical/protocol-v2.txt
@@ -775,3 +775,8 @@ A client receiving such a a response MAY assume that they can skip
 retrieving the header from a bundle at the indicated URI, and thus
 save themselves and the server(s) the request(s) needed to inspect the
 headers of that bundle or bundles.
+
+bundle-uri SEE ALSO
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+See the link:bundle-uri.html[Bundle URI Design Notes] for more.

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