Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 8/8] tests: mark tests broken under GIT_TEST_PROTOCOL_VERSION=2

From: Jonathan Nieder <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2018 16:02:27 -0800

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 17 2018, Jonathan Nieder wrote:

>> This would make per-branch ACLs (as implemented both by Gerrit and
>> gitolite) an essentially useless feature, so please no.
>
> Doesn't Gerrit always use JGit?
>
> The discussion upthread is about what we should do about git.git's
> version of this feature since we document it doesn't do its job from a
> security / ACL standpoint, but that doesn't preclude other server
> implementations from having a working version of this.
>
> But if gitolite is relying on this to hide refs, and if our security
> docs are to be believed, then it's just providing security through
> obscurity.

Yes, Gerrit uses JGit.  JGit shares configuration with Git, so if we
make that configuration in Git warn "This is just a placebo", then
people will naturally assume that it's just a placebo in JGit, too.

More importantly, if Git upstream stops caring about this use case,
then the protocol and other features can evolve in directions that
make it even harder to support.  I am willing to take on some of the
burden of keeping it working, even when I do not run any servers that
use plain Git (I do interact with many).

> Like you I'm curious about a POC. The patch I submitted in
> <[email-masked]> takes the "SECURITY" docs at
> face value.

One of the difficulties that security engineers have to deal with is
living without absolutes.  In other words, their experience is
constant risk/benefit tradeoffs: if you want 0% risk, then don't use a
computer. ;-)

If someone has thoughts on what would lead people to be comfortable
with removing the SECURITY notice, then I'm happy to listen.  As
already mentioned, I am strongly against abandoning this use case.

Jonathan