Re: RFC v3: Another proposed hash function transition plan

Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] writes:

Jonathan Nieder [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

Treating generation numbers as derived data (as in Jeff King's
preferred design, if I have understood his replies correctly) would
also be possible but it does not interact well with shallow clone or
narrow clone.

Just like we have skewed committer timestamps, there is no reason to
believe that generation numbers embedded in objects are trustable,
and there is no way for narrow clients to even verify their correctness.

So I agree with Peff that having generation numbers in object is
pointless; I agree any other derivables like corresponding sha-1
name is also pointless to have.

This is a tangent, but it may be fine for a shallow clone to treat
the cut-off points in the history as if they are root commits and
compute generation numbers locally, just like everybody else does.
As generation numbers won't have to be global (because we will not
be embedding them in objects), nobody gets hurt if they do not match
across repositories---just like often-mentioned rename detection
cache, it can be kept as a mere local performance aid and does not
have to participate in the object model.

quoted

All that said, for simplicity I still lean against including
generation numbers as part of a hash function transition.

Good.

In the proposed transition plan, the treatment of various signatures
(deliberately) makes the conversion not quite roundtrip.

When existing SHA-1 history in individual clones are converted to
NewHash, we obviously cannot re-sign the corresponding NewHash
contents with the same PGP key, so these converted objects will
carry only signature on SHA-1 contents.  They can still be validated
when they are exported back to SHA-1 world via the fetch/push
protocol, and can be validated locally by converting them back to
SHA-1 contents and then passing the result to gpgv.

The plan also states, if I remember what I read correctly, that
newly created and signed objects (this includes signed commits and
signed tags; mergetags merely carry over what the tag object that
was merged was signed with, so we do not have to worry about them
unless the resulting commit that has mergetag is signed itself, but
that is already covered by how we handle signed commits) would be
signed both for NewHash contents and its corresponding SHA-1
contents (after internally convering it to SHA-1 contents).  That
would allow us to strip the signature over NewHash contents and
derive the SHA-1 contents to be shown to the outside world while
migration is going on and I'd imagine it would be a good practice;
it would allow us to sign something that allows everybody to verify,
when some participants of the project are not yet NewHash capable.

But the signing over SHA-1 contents has to stop at some point, when
everybody's Git becomes completely unaware of SHA-1.  We may want to
have a guideline in the transition plan to (1) encourage signing for
both for quite some time, and (2) the criteria for us to decide when
to stop.

Thanks.

Junio C Hamano wrote:

In the proposed transition plan, the treatment of various signatures
(deliberately) makes the conversion not quite roundtrip.

That's not precisely true.  Details below.

When existing SHA-1 history in individual clones are converted to
NewHash, we obviously cannot re-sign the corresponding NewHash
contents with the same PGP key, so these converted objects will
carry only signature on SHA-1 contents.  They can still be validated
when they are exported back to SHA-1 world via the fetch/push
protocol, and can be validated locally by converting them back to
SHA-1 contents and then passing the result to gpgv.

Correct.

The plan also states, if I remember what I read correctly, that
newly created and signed objects (this includes signed commits and
signed tags; mergetags merely carry over what the tag object that
was merged was signed with, so we do not have to worry about them
unless the resulting commit that has mergetag is signed itself, but
that is already covered by how we handle signed commits) would be
signed both for NewHash contents and its corresponding SHA-1
contents (after internally convering it to SHA-1 contents).

Also correct.

would allow us to strip the signature over NewHash contents and
derive the SHA-1 contents to be shown to the outside world while
migration is going on and I'd imagine it would be a good practice;
it would allow us to sign something that allows everybody to verify,
when some participants of the project are not yet NewHash capable.

The NewHash-based signature is included in the SHA-1 content as well,
for the sake of round-tripping.  It is not stripped out.

But the signing over SHA-1 contents has to stop at some point, when
everybody's Git becomes completely unaware of SHA-1.  We may want to
have a guideline in the transition plan to (1) encourage signing for
both for quite some time, and (2) the criteria for us to decide when
to stop.

Yes, spelling out a rough schedule is a good idea.  I'll add that.

A version of Git that is aware of NewHash should be able to verify
NewHash signatures even for users that are using SHA-1 locally for the
sake of faster fetches and pushes to SHA-1 based peers.

In addition to a new enough Git, this requires the translation table
to translate to NewHash to be present.

So the criterion (2) is largely based on how up-to-date the Git used
by users wanting to verify signatures is and whether they are willing
to tolerate the performance implications of having a translation
table.  My hope is that when communicating with peers using the same
hash function, the translation table will not add too much performance
overhead.

Thank you,
Jonathan