Re: [PATCH 2/2] reftable/stack: accept insecure random bytes
- From
Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
- Date
- Jan 8, 2025, 15:39 UTC
- Message-ID
- <xmqqr05dnwli.fsf@gitster.g>
- In-Reply-To
- <Z34gfa-_dSbWD19h@pks.im>
Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> writes:
Show 14 quoted lines
>> It may still make sense to drop the first hunk, and consider how to >> proceed when you further want to reduce the unnecessary dependencies >> for external users of the reftable library, though. Are there >> correctness implications if git_rand() in format_name() yields non >> random results (like, always using "rnd = 0" instead of calling >> git_rand())? I seriously hope not. And if there is no correctness >> implications, perhaps we can replace it with rand() or even constant >> "0"? > > No, there aren't any implications on correctness in that case. Sure, the > randomized delays not being randomized can lead to more contention. But > even when the randomized suffix for tables is deterministic we wouldn't > have an issue as the files are still distinguished by their update > indices.
OK, so they both can be turned into a simple rand() that is expected to work more reliably especially on more exotic systems (meaning: the ability the system providers can test their rand() is much better than our ability to test our git_rand() there)? It would help us solve the immediate issue reported, while removing one git specific function from the reftable library?
Thanks.