Re: [PATCH v2 0/2] setup.c: make bare repo discovery optional

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: May 16, 2022, 16:40 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqy1z12zxr.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <pull.1261.v2.git.git.1652485058.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>

"Glen Choo via GitGitGadget" <gitgitgadget@gmail.com> writes:

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>  * die()-ing is necessary if we're trying to flip the default value of
>    discovery.bare. We'd expect many bare repo users to be broken, and it's
>    more helpful to fail loudly than to silently ignore the bare repo.
>
>    But in the long term, long after we've flipped the default and users know
>    that they need to opt into bare repo discovery, would it be a better UX
>    to just silently ignore the bare repo?

Would a middle-ground of giving a warning() message help? Can it be loud and annoying enough to knudge the users to adjust without breaking the functionality?

The longer-term default should be "cwd is allowed, but we do not bother going up from object/04 subdirectory of a bare repository", not "bare repositories should not be usable at all without GIT_DIR".

>      +    Add a config variable, `discovery.bare`, that tells Git whether or not
>      +    it should work with the bare repository it has discovered i.e. Git will
>      +    die() if it discovers a bare repository, but it is not allowed by

Missing comma before "i.e."

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>      ++discovery.bare::
>      ++	Specifies what kinds of directories Git can recognize as a bare
>      ++	repository when looking for the repository (aka repository
>       +	discovery). This has no effect if repository discovery is not
>       +	performed e.g. the path to the repository is set via `--git-dir`
>       +	(see linkgit:git[1]).
>       ++
>       +This config setting is only respected when specified in a system or global
>       +config, not when it is specified in a repository config or via the command
>      ++line option `-c discovery.bare=<value>`.

;-)

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>      +++
>      ++The currently supported values are `always` (Git always recognizes bare
>      ++repositories) and `never` (Git never recognizes bare repositories).
>      ++This defaults to `always`, but this default is likely to change.
>      +++
>      ++If your workflow does not rely on bare repositories, it is recommended that
>      ++you set this value to `never`. This makes repository discovery easier to
>      ++reason about and prevents certain types of security and non-security
>      ++problems, such as:

Hopefully "git fetch" over ssh:// and file:/// would run the other side with GIT_DIR explicitly set? As long as this recommendation does not break these use cases, I think we are OK, but I do not yet find these "problems, such as..." so convincing.