Re: Cloning from sites with 404 overridden

"Marco Costalba" [off-list ref] writes:

Perhaps I am proposing a total idiocy, I don't know git-fetch
internals, but wouldn't be better to avoid trying to download a non
existing object? So to fix the problem at the origin?

I don't know if it is possible to list contents before try to download
so to avoid asking for a non existing object.

There is no way for the downloader to know if the upstream
repository has packed which object.  What is happening is that
the commit walker asks for loose object first because it does
not know.  Upon getting a "no such file" (or in the case of
misconfigured HTTP server that does not say 404, "corrupt
object"), it then checks if the object appears in the pack by
downloading the pack index.  It can tell what objects are in the
packs by looking at the pack index and downloads the pack that
contains needed object.