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sr #104924: Arch repository for the ArX project

Submitter:  None
Submitted:  Sat 10 Dec 2005 12:00:17 AM UTC
   
 
Category:  Arch Repositories Priority:  5 - Normal
Severity:  1 - Wish Status:  Done
Privacy:  Public Assigned to:  mjflick
Originator Email:  -email is unavailable- Operating System:  None
Open/Closed:  Closed
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Wed 11 Jan 2006 09:17:14 AM UTC, comment #12: 

Hi,

First, there's no plan to support Bazaar.

Supporting another SCM means more than patching sftp, it means making sure all other third-party tools, such as web repository browsers, PQMs, etc., also works.

Likewise, if a client-server protocol is used in GNU Arch in the future, we won't be able to enforce its use until all Arch variants also use it.

We won't make those efforts for anything else than GNU Arch for the time being, be it ArX or Bazaar or any other GNU Arch-based SCM.

We do plan to provide an experimental area for other SCMs that will come with fewer warranties, especially it's long-term availability, but we also have other tasks to perform, so we can't work on that right now.

If people want to get free, volunteer-provided ArX services, then Savannah is not the place to look for, indeed, though we never stated otherwise.

Of course, if people decide to be unhelping and use the Arch area for other goals than the ones we planned, and this becomes a burden for us at a point in the future, then we'll have to close those areas. Somebody used the Arch area as webpage and download area. That's not it's designed for, it breaks the different assumptions we can have on the repository when adding third-party tools, it also involves a different kind of load on the Arch server, so we cannot accept that.

Thanks for your understanding and all the best for your project.

Sylvain Beucler <Beuc>
Wed 11 Jan 2006 12:05:15 AM UTC, comment #11: 

Since I have not received any other responses, I take this as the final word.  I do not understand why you have decided to be so unhelpful.  You could give me an sftp account and any revisions I create would still be essentially preserved.  To preserve everything, I have even supplied a one-line patch that you have decided not to apply.  The stated reasoning

  if I accept the patch for ArX I open the door to having
  to support all other Arch variants.

makes no sense.  There are only three Arch variants (tla, baz, and arx), and you already support two of them.

In view of this hostile position, I am forced to tell my users that if they want ArX repositories on savannah, then they must apply for GNU Arch repositories and not tell savannah that they are using it for ArX.  It is unfortunate that you have decided to be obstructionist, but I find that there is no other way to proceed.

Walter Landry <landry>
Sun 01 Jan 2006 05:48:51 PM UTC, comment #10: 

We haven't implemented the "experimental" repositories yet.
Currently we don't provide 'sftp' access, only GNU Arch access btw :)

Sylvain Beucler <Beuc>
Sat 31 Dec 2005 09:36:03 PM UTC, comment #9: 


> After some serious thought and consideration, I think
> it's best to keep arch.gnu.org meant for only GNU Arch.
> I don't have any qualms against ArX, but if I accept the
> patch for ArX I open the door to having to support all
> other Arch variants.


Does this mean that I can still get sftp space in an unsupported/ directory, or are you barring me from sftp access completely?

Walter Landry <landry>
Thu 29 Dec 2005 10:02:31 PM UTC, comment #8: 

Yes, your patch would work without any conflicts; however it won't be applied.

After some serious thought and consideration, I think it's best to keep arch.gnu.org meant for only GNU Arch.  I don't have any qualms against ArX, but if I accept the patch for ArX I open the door to having to support all other Arch variants.

I just want to keep things simple for now.

Michael J. Flickinger <mjflick>
Tue 13 Dec 2005 09:48:46 PM UTC, comment #7: 

Michael posted the patches, and I have had a look at them.  If I understand the patches correctly, they only chmod files that end in ".gz", "checksum", and "log".  It so happens that, in ArX, all of the revision files end in .gz, and the log is just "log".  ArX uses a different file name for the checksum: "sha256".  ArX also has signatures of the checksum and log, and those always end in ".sig".

In summary, I think that ArX would work today with the setup you have.  To ensure that ArX checksums and signatures are not modified by project memebers, you only have to change line 60 of seal-archive-1.c from

    if (regex_match("\\.gz$|checksum$|log$", argv[1]))

    if (regex_match("\\.gz$|checksum$|sha256$|log$|\\.sig$", argv[1]))

I do not think that these names will conflict with anything that Arch uses.

Anonymous
Mon 12 Dec 2005 11:36:17 PM UTC, comment #6: 


> It is ok for project members to modify history.


That assumes the change is noticeable.
There is also the fact that we, platform admins, do not want source code to disappear (eg, in the even a project goes proprietary..) :)

> I am willing to help out. It would be helpful if I could
> look at your sftp server hacks.


I'll let Michael answer, though he told me he needs to be 200% confident about security before to release the patch :)

Sylvain Beucler <Beuc>
Mon 12 Dec 2005 12:33:23 AM UTC, comment #5: 


> The main issue with providing vanilla sFTP access, is that
> any project member can modify your project history. That's
> why we provide partial sftp access.


It is ok for project members to modify history.  There is even a command in ArX for that.  It doesn't modify what is on my hard drive, and is easy enough to fix.  That is a large part of the point of distributed version control systems.  If a project member continues to cause problems, then I eject them from the project.

> I see that ArX is a fork from larch and not tla; how much
> compatible are the archive formats?


Not at all.

> The problem with supporting a GNU Arch variant is that
> there's no reason, then, we do not support the others. For
> example, in the event we provide ArchZoom, we'd have to
> replace tla by baz to support baz-style archives. It's
> also possible we have to tweak sftp some more to support
> the Arch variants.
>
> That's why, afaimc, I'd rather stick with GNU Arch v1.x.
> While, possibly, provide an experimental, distinct area
> for other SCMs, provided we have the manpower for it
> (that's the benefit of sticking with a stable release:
> updates are rare and benign :))


I am willing to help out.  It would be helpful if I could look at your sftp server hacks.

Walter Landry <landry>
Sun 11 Dec 2005 06:14:35 PM UTC, comment #4: 

The main issue with providing vanilla sFTP access, is that any project member can modify your project history. That's why we provide partial sftp access.

I see that ArX is a fork from larch and not tla; how much compatible are the archive formats?

The problem with supporting a GNU Arch variant is that there's no reason, then, we do not support the others. For example, in the event we provide ArchZoom, we'd have to replace tla by baz to support baz-style archives. It's also possible we have to tweak sftp some more to support the Arch variants.

That's why, afaimc, I'd rather stick with GNU Arch v1.x. While, possibly, provide an experimental, distinct area for other SCMs, provided we have the manpower for it (that's the benefit of sticking with a stable release: updates are rare and benign :))

mjflick, what's your point on this?

Sylvain Beucler <Beuc>
Sun 11 Dec 2005 03:20:31 PM UTC, comment #3: 

The server requirements for ArX are the same as Arch (ArX is a fork of Arch). All I need is a place to write files with sftp and read then anonymously (for example, http).  I do not need to run ArX on the server.  I understand that there are some arch-specific sftp server hacks to make all this happen.  Is there a place where I can look at them?  The regular expressions may need a little tweaking, but that should be all.

Walter Landry <landry>
Sun 11 Dec 2005 08:56:52 AM UTC, comment #2: 

A few $2c suggestions:
- Put this kind of archives outside of the /archive namespace
- Maybe use 'experimental' instead of 'unsupported'
- Use a different subsystem, so we can play with different sftp patches without putting the Arch archives in danger
- Use the same IP but different ports
- Add a 'non warranty' statement ;)

I think we could allow things like darcs or git in such an environment; we would just need to use another ssh server + port for each sftp-based scm.

Sylvain Beucler <Beuc>
Sun 11 Dec 2005 06:14:48 AM UTC, comment #1: 

Currently, we do not support anything other than Arch.

However, I would be interested in working with you to provide this service over sftp experimentally, if possible.

Perhaps we could use another path like /archives/unsupported/ for now?

Michael J. Flickinger <mjflick>
Sat 10 Dec 2005 12:00:17 AM UTC, original submission:  

I would like to have an arch repository set up for ArX.  I will actually be using ArX repositories, but it should work fine.  So please do not enable emails on commits.

Also, is the public name for the repository

  http://arch.sv.gnu.org/archives/$project

Thank you

Anonymous

 

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Follow 4 latest changes.

Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
2005-12-29 mjflick StatusNone Done
    Open/ClosedOpen Closed
2005-12-11 mjflick Assigned toNone mjflick
2005-12-10 None Carbon-Copy- Added wlandry --AT-- ucsd --DOT-- edu

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