Re: Question re. git remote repository

8 messages, 2 authors, 2016-06-15 · open the first message on its own page

Re: Question re. git remote repository

From: Matt Seitz (matseitz) <hidden>
Date: 2016-06-15 22:55:48

"David Lang" [off-list ref] wrote in message news:[off-list ref]...
But if you try to have one filesystem, with multiple people running git on their 
machines against that shared filesystem, I would expect you to have all sorts of 
problems.
What leads you to think you will have problems?

Why would there be more of a problem on a network file system as opposed to local file system that can be accessed by multiple users?

Linus seemed to think it should work:

http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/122670

And "git init" specifically has a "shared" option:

--shared[=(false|true|umask|group|all|world|everybody|0xxx)] 
Specify that the git repository is to be shared amongst several users. This allows users belonging to the same group to push into that repository. When specified, the config variable "core.sharedRepository" is set so that files and directories under $GIT_DIR are created with the requested permissions. When not specified, git will use permissions reported by umask(2). 

Re: Question re. git remote repository

From: David Lang <hidden>
Date: 2016-06-15 22:55:48

On Wed, 16 Jan 2013, Matt Seitz (matseitz) wrote:
"David Lang" [off-list ref] wrote in message news:[off-list ref]...
quoted
But if you try to have one filesystem, with multiple people running git on their
machines against that shared filesystem, I would expect you to have all sorts of
problems.
What leads you to think you will have problems?

Why would there be more of a problem on a network file system as opposed to 
local file system that can be accessed by multiple users?
There are safety checks and synchronization primitives that work between 
mulitiple users on one machine (where you can see what other processes are 
running for example) that don't work with separate machines using a filesystem
Linus seemed to think it should work:

http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/122670
well, he knows git better than I do, but using git over NFS/CIFS is not the same 
as saying that you have multiple users on different systems making changes.

In the link you point at, he says that you can have problems with some types of 
actions. He points out things like git prune, but I would also say that there 
are probably race conditions if you have two git processes that try to change 
the HEAD to different things at the same time.
And "git init" specifically has a "shared" option:

--shared[=(false|true|umask|group|all|world|everybody|0xxx)]

Specify that the git repository is to be shared amongst several users. This 
allows users belonging to the same group to push into that repository. When 
specified, the config variable "core.sharedRepository" is set so that files 
and directories under $GIT_DIR are created with the requested permissions. 
When not specified, git will use permissions reported by umask(2).
I think this is dealing with multiple users _reading_ a repository, not making 
updates to it at the same time.

David Lang

RE: Question re. git remote repository

From: Matt Seitz (matseitz) <hidden>
Date: 2016-06-15 22:55:48

From: David Lang [mailto:david@lang.hm]

On Wed, 16 Jan 2013, Matt Seitz (matseitz) wrote:
quoted
Linus seemed to think it should work:

http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/122670
In the link you point at, he says that you can have problems with some
types of
actions. He points out things like git prune, 
Linus wrote:

You do need to be a bit careful if you do maintenance operations 
concurrently (I would suggest avoiding doing concurrent "git gc --prune", 
for example), but any normal git workflow should be fine.
but I would also say that there
are probably race conditions if you have two git processes that try to
change the HEAD to different things at the same time.
What makes you think there are race conditions?

Linus wrote:

And git doesn't have "proper locking", because it doesn't need it for 
database ops: git objects are stable. For refs, git should be using the 
proper NFS-safe "create and atomic rename" ops.
quoted
And "git init" specifically has a "shared" option:

--shared[=(false|true|umask|group|all|world|everybody|0xxx)]
I think this is dealing with multiple users _reading_ a repository, not
making
updates to it at the same time.
The description of "shared" says "This allows users belonging to the same group to push into that repository."  The "push" command is about making updates.

RE: Question re. git remote repository

From: David Lang <hidden>
Date: 2016-06-15 22:55:48

On Thu, 17 Jan 2013, Matt Seitz (matseitz) wrote:
quoted
From: David Lang [mailto:david@lang.hm]

On Wed, 16 Jan 2013, Matt Seitz (matseitz) wrote:
quoted
Linus seemed to think it should work:

http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/122670
In the link you point at, he says that you can have problems with some
types of
actions. He points out things like git prune,
Linus wrote:

You do need to be a bit careful if you do maintenance operations
concurrently (I would suggest avoiding doing concurrent "git gc --prune",
for example), but any normal git workflow should be fine.
quoted
but I would also say that there
are probably race conditions if you have two git processes that try to
change the HEAD to different things at the same time.
What makes you think there are race conditions?

Linus wrote:

And git doesn't have "proper locking", because it doesn't need it for
database ops: git objects are stable. For refs, git should be using the
proper NFS-safe "create and atomic rename" ops.
As Linus points out, objects are stable, so when you create objects you don't 
have to worry about locking, if two things write an object at the same time, the 
same contents are being written so races don't matter.

However, if you have two people doing a commit or merge, you will get different 
results based on the order they are happening in. This seems to be exactly the 
type of thing that falls into the 'maintinance operations' category.

Linus says that git does not have "proper locking", so think about it, what do 
you think will happen if person A does git add a/b; git commit and person B does 
git add c/d; git commit?

Since the tree will look different depending on what order these four commands 
execute in, the resulting HEAD could have multiple different values depending on 
the order. The individual commits may even be different.

David Lang
quoted
quoted
And "git init" specifically has a "shared" option:

--shared[=(false|true|umask|group|all|world|everybody|0xxx)]
I think this is dealing with multiple users _reading_ a repository, not
making
updates to it at the same time.
The description of "shared" says "This allows users belonging to the same 
group to push into that repository."  The "push" command is about making 
updates.

RE: Question re. git remote repository

From: Matt Seitz (matseitz) <hidden>
Date: 2016-06-15 22:55:48

From: David Lang [mailto:david@lang.hm]

Linus says that git does not have "proper locking", so think about it,
what do
you think will happen if person A does git add a/b; git commit and person
B does
git add c/d; git commit?
Sorry, I wasn't clear. My assumption is that a shared repository on a network file system will either be: 

1. a bare repository that is normally accessed only by "git push" and "git pull" (or "git fetch"), the central repository model.

2. a repository where only one user does "git add" and "git commit", while other users will do "git pull", the peer-to-peer model (you pull changes from me, I pull changes from you).

RE: Question re. git remote repository

From: David Lang <hidden>
Date: 2016-06-15 22:55:48

On Thu, 17 Jan 2013, Matt Seitz (matseitz) wrote:
quoted
From: David Lang [mailto:david@lang.hm]

Linus says that git does not have "proper locking", so think about it,
what do
you think will happen if person A does git add a/b; git commit and person
B does
git add c/d; git commit?
Sorry, I wasn't clear. My assumption is that a shared repository on a network file system will either be:

1. a bare repository that is normally accessed only by "git push" and "git pull" (or "git fetch"), the central repository model.
pulling from it would not be a problem, I could see issues with multiple pushes 
taking place (the underlying repository would not get corrupted, but you will 
very quickly hit conflicts where the push is not a fast forward and you need to 
merge, not just push)
2. a repository where only one user does "git add" and "git commit", while 
other users will do "git pull", the peer-to-peer model (you pull changes from 
me, I pull changes from you).
At this point only one system is writing to the repository and it doesn't matter 
that it's on network storage vs local storage.

pulling from a shared repository is probably safe, but I wouldn't bet against 
there being any conditions where a pull at the same time someone is doing an 
update being able to cause problems.

The normal thing is to do the pulls through git-daemon, and that does make sure 
that what you are pulling is consistant.

David Lang

RE: Question re. git remote repository

From: Matt Seitz (matseitz) <hidden>
Date: 2016-06-15 22:55:48

From: David Lang [mailto:david@lang.hm]

On Thu, 17 Jan 2013, Matt Seitz (matseitz) wrote:
quoted
1. a bare repository that is normally accessed only by "git push" and
"git pull" (or "git fetch"), the central repository model.
pulling from it would not be a problem, I could see issues with multiple
pushes taking place (the underlying repository would not get corrupted, but you
will very quickly hit conflicts where the push is not a fast forward and you
need to merge, not just push)
How is that different on a network file system, as opposed to using http, ssh, or git-daemon?  Don't you get a "not a fast-forward" error, regardless of the protocol?
quoted
2. a repository where only one user does "git add" and "git commit",
while
quoted
other users will do "git pull", the peer-to-peer model (you pull changes
from
quoted
me, I pull changes from you).

pulling from a shared repository is probably safe, but I wouldn't bet
against
there being any conditions where a pull at the same time someone is doing
an
update being able to cause problems.
Why do you think there would be a problem?
The normal thing is to do the pulls through git-daemon, and that does make
sure
that what you are pulling is consistant.
What does "git pull" via git-daemon do to ensure consistency that is different from "git pull" on a network file system?

RE: Question re. git remote repository

From: David Lang <hidden>
Date: 2016-06-15 22:55:48

On Thu, 17 Jan 2013, Matt Seitz (matseitz) wrote:
quoted
From: David Lang [mailto:david@lang.hm]

On Thu, 17 Jan 2013, Matt Seitz (matseitz) wrote:
quoted
1. a bare repository that is normally accessed only by "git push" and
"git pull" (or "git fetch"), the central repository model.
pulling from it would not be a problem, I could see issues with multiple
pushes taking place (the underlying repository would not get corrupted, but you
will very quickly hit conflicts where the push is not a fast forward and you
need to merge, not just push)
How is that different on a network file system, as opposed to using http, ssh, or git-daemon?  Don't you get a "not a fast-forward" error, regardless of the protocol?
true.
quoted
quoted
2. a repository where only one user does "git add" and "git commit",
while
quoted
other users will do "git pull", the peer-to-peer model (you pull changes
from
quoted
me, I pull changes from you).

pulling from a shared repository is probably safe, but I wouldn't bet
against
there being any conditions where a pull at the same time someone is doing
an
update being able to cause problems.
Why do you think there would be a problem?
quoted
The normal thing is to do the pulls through git-daemon, and that does make
sure
that what you are pulling is consistant.
What does "git pull" via git-daemon do to ensure consistency that is different from "git pull" on a network file system?
git pull via the daemon looks at what tree items you have on each end, and then 
it sends you the items needed to make you match the server. If there are partial 
updates on the server (due to some update in process) the daemon should not see 
that, but if you are grabbing the files directly, I would be less confident that 
you are always safe.

you may _be_ safe, and if others who really know the internals speak up, take 
their word on it. But, absent assurances that we know that everything is done in 
the right order in the face of a networked filesystem (which may break 
visibility of changes due to caching), I would not trust such raw access for 
updates at all, and only somewhat trust it for read-only use.

David Lang
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