76 lines
3.2 KiB
Markdown
76 lines
3.2 KiB
Markdown
The git-annex assistant uses XMPP to communicate between peers that
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cannot directly talk to one-another. A typical scenario is two users
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who share a repository, that is stored in the [[cloud]].
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### TODO
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* Prevent idle disconnection. Probably means sending or receiving pings,
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but would prefer to avoid eg pinging every 60 seconds as some clients do.
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* XMPP pairing
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* git pushes over XMPP (needed for pairing, but also awesome on their own)
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## design goals
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1. Avoid user-visible messages. dvcs-autosync uses XMPP similarly, but
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sends user-visible messages. Avoiding user-visible messages lets
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the user configure git-annex to use his existing XMPP account
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(eg, Google Talk).
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2. Send notifications to buddies. dvcs-autosync sends only self-messages,
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but that requires every node have the same XMPP account configured.
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git-annex should support that mode, but it should also send notifications
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to a user's buddies. (This will also allow for using XMPP for pairing
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in the future.)
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3. Don't make account appear active. Just because git-annex is being an XMPP
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client, it doesn't mean that it wants to get chat messages, or make the
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user appear active when he's not using his chat program.
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## protocol
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To avoid relying on XMPP extensions, git-annex communicates
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using presence messages (which always mark it as extended away),
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and chat messages (with empty body tags, so clients don't display them).
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To these messages, it adds its own tag as
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[extended content](http://xmpp.org/rfcs/rfc6121.html#presence-extended).
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The xml namespace is "git-annex" (not an URL because I hate wasting bandwidth).
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To indicate it's pushed changes to a git repo with a given UUID, a message
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that should be sent to all buddies and other clients using the account (no
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explicit pairing needed), it uses a broadcast presence message containing:
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<git-annex xmlns='git-annex' push="uuid[,uuid...]" />
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Multiple UUIDs can be listed when multiple clients were pushed. If the
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git repo does not have a git-annex UUID, an empty string is used.
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To query if other git-annex clients are around, a presence message is used,
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containing:
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<git-annex xmlns='git-annex' query="" />
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For pairing, a chat message is sent, containing:
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<git-annex xmlns='git-annex' pairing="PairReq|PairAck|PairDone uuid" />
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### security
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Data git-annex sends over XMPP will be visible to the XMPP
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account's buddies, to the XMPP server, and quite likely to other interested
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parties. So it's important to consider the security exposure of using it.
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Even if git-annex sends only a single bit notification, this lets attackers
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know when the user is active and changing files. Although the assistant's other
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syncing activities can somewhat mask this.
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As soon as git-annex does anything unlike any other client, an attacker can
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see how many clients are connected for a user, and fingerprint the ones
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running git-annex, and determine how many clients are running git-annex.
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If git-annex sent the UUID of the remote it pushed to, this would let
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attackers determine how many different remotes are being used,
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and map some of the connections between clients and remotes.
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An attacker could replay push notification messages, reusing UUIDs it's
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observed. This would make clients pull repeatedly, perhaps as a DOS.
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