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Joey Hess 2021-04-19 13:58:43 -04:00
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54
doc/todo/hiding_a_repository.mdwn
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@ -8,15 +8,6 @@ publish them.
There could be a git config to hide the current repository.
(There could also be per-remote git configs, but it seems likely that,
if location tracking and other data is not stored for a remote, it will be
hard to do much useful with that remote. For example, git-annex get from
that remote would not work. (Without setting annex-speculate-present.) Also
some remotes depend on state being stored, like chunking data, encryption,
etc. So setting up networks of repos that know about one-another but are
hidden from the wider world would need some kind of public/private
git-annex branch separation (see alternative section below).)
## location tracking effects
The main logs this would affect are for location tracking.
@ -154,4 +145,49 @@ all reads followed by writes do go via Annex.Branch.change, so Annex.Branch.get
can just concacenate the two without worrying about it leaking back out in a
later write.
## networks of hidden repos
There are a lot of complications involving using hidden repos as remotes.
It may be best to not support doing it at all. Some of the complications
are discussed below.
If location tracking and other data is not stored for a hidden remote, it
will be hard to do much useful with that remote. For example, git-annex get
from that remote would not work. (Without setting annex-speculate-present.)
Also some remotes depend on state being stored, like chunking data,
encryption, etc. So setting up networks of repos that know about
one-another but are hidden from the wider world would need some kind of
public/private git-annex branch separation.
If there's a branch such as git-annex-private that should only be pushed
to remotes that know about the hidden repo, it invites mistakes. git push
of matching branches would push it to any remote that happens to have a
branch by the same name, which could even be done maliciously. Avoiding
that would need to avoid using a named branch, and only let
git-annex sync push the information, to remotes it knows should receive it.
A related problem is, git-annex move will update location tracking for the
remote. If the remote is hidden, that would expose its uuid, unless
git-annex move knew that it was and either avoided doing that, or wrote to
the private git-annex branch. So, setting up a network of hidden repos
would need some way to tell each of them which of the others were also
hidden. A per-remote git config is one way, but the user would need to
remember to set them up when setting up the remotes.
Would storing a list of the uuids of hidden repos be acceptable? If there
were a list in the git-annex branch, then it would be easier to support
networks of hidden repos. The only information exposed would be the number
of hidden repos and when they were added. Space used would generally be
small, although in situations where temporary repos are being created
frequently, and are hidden to avoid bloating the branch, there would be a
small amount of bloat.
Alternatively, the UUID of a hidden repo could somehow encode the fact that
it's hidden. Although this would make it hard to convert a repo from/to
being hidden.
None of the above allows for a network of hidden repos, one of which is
part of a *different* network of hidden repos. Supporting that would be a
major complication.
[[!tag projects/datalad]]