[PATCH] Docs: web server must setenv GIT_PROTOCOL for v2

[PATCH] Docs: web server must setenv GIT_PROTOCOL for v2

[Konstantin Ryabitsev]

For the server-side to properly respond to v2 protocol requests, the
webserver must set the GIT_PROTOCOL environment variable to the value of
the Git-Protocol: request header.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/git/YTNtVJy6sCfQ7T3L@coredump.intra.peff.net/
Reported-by: Philippe Blain <levraiphilippeblain@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Konstantin Ryabitsev <konstantin@linuxfoundation.org>
---
 Documentation/technical/protocol-v2.txt | 15 +++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 15 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/technical/protocol-v2.txt b/Documentation/technical/protocol-v2.txt
index 1040d85319..7a0e97cc8d 100644
--- a/Documentation/technical/protocol-v2.txt
+++ b/Documentation/technical/protocol-v2.txt
@@ -81,6 +81,21 @@ A v2 server would reply:
 Subsequent requests are then made directly to the service
 `$GIT_URL/git-upload-pack`. (This works the same for git-receive-pack).
 
+The web server handling the requests must properly set the GIT_PROTOCOL
+environment variable when it finds `Git-Protocol` in the request headers.
+
+Apache example:
+
+   SetEnvIf Git-Protocol ".*" GIT_PROTOCOL=$0
+
+Nginx + uwsgi example:
+
+   uwsgi_param GIT_PROTOCOL $http_git_protocol;
+
+Nginx + fastcgi example:
+
+   fastcgi_param GIT_PROTOCOL $http_git_protocol;
+
 Capability Advertisement
 ------------------------
 

base-commit: e0a2f5cbc585657e757385ad918f167f519cfb96
-- 
2.31.1

Re: [PATCH] Docs: web server must setenv GIT_PROTOCOL for v2

[Jeff King]

On Sat, Sep 04, 2021 at 11:17:21AM -0400, Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:

> For the server-side to properly respond to v2 protocol requests, the
> webserver must set the GIT_PROTOCOL environment variable to the value of
> the Git-Protocol: request header.

Thanks for assembling these examples.

I don't mind having these in the technical documentation, but I think
most users won't find them there (nor would they even know they need to
be looking). Maybe the manpage for git-http-backend would be a better
spot. We can mention v2 in the "description" section, and then there's
some example config near the end that could include it.

Unfortunately there isn't any nginx example config there at all yet. If
you have kernel.org config you could share, that would be great. But
even starting with just the "here's how you do v2" part would be
welcome.

-Peff

Re: [PATCH] Docs: web server must setenv GIT_PROTOCOL for v2

[Junio C Hamano]

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

> On Sat, Sep 04, 2021 at 11:17:21AM -0400, Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:
>
>> For the server-side to properly respond to v2 protocol requests, the
>> webserver must set the GIT_PROTOCOL environment variable to the value of
>> the Git-Protocol: request header.
>
> Thanks for assembling these examples.
>
> I don't mind having these in the technical documentation, but I think
> most users won't find them there (nor would they even know they need to
> be looking). Maybe the manpage for git-http-backend would be a better
> spot. We can mention v2 in the "description" section, and then there's
> some example config near the end that could include it.
>
> Unfortunately there isn't any nginx example config there at all yet. If
> you have kernel.org config you could share, that would be great. But
> even starting with just the "here's how you do v2" part would be
> welcome.

True, true.

In the meantime, I'll queue this as-is.

Thanks.

Re: [PATCH] Docs: web server must setenv GIT_PROTOCOL for v2

[Konstantin Ryabitsev]

On Sat, Sep 04, 2021 at 11:55:11AM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
> Unfortunately there isn't any nginx example config there at all yet. If
> you have kernel.org config you could share, that would be great. But
> even starting with just the "here's how you do v2" part would be
> welcome.

I'll see if I can come up with something to put into
Documentation/git-http-backend.txt, but I can't right away -- hopefully in
early October once a bunch of conferences are over.

Best regards,
-K

Re: [PATCH] Docs: web server must setenv GIT_PROTOCOL for v2

[Jeff King]

On Tue, Sep 07, 2021 at 05:11:28PM -0400, Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:

> On Sat, Sep 04, 2021 at 11:55:11AM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
> > Unfortunately there isn't any nginx example config there at all yet. If
> > you have kernel.org config you could share, that would be great. But
> > even starting with just the "here's how you do v2" part would be
> > welcome.
> 
> I'll see if I can come up with something to put into
> Documentation/git-http-backend.txt, but I can't right away -- hopefully in
> early October once a bunch of conferences are over.

It would be great if you could add nginx examples at some point. But in
the meantime, we can do this much easier patch to make sure we don't
forget about mentioning the protocol bits.

-- >8 --
Subject: [PATCH] docs/http-backend: mention v2 protocol

There's a little bit of configuration needed at the webserver level in
order to get the client's v2 protocol probes to Git. But when we
introduced the v2 protocol, we never documented these explicitly.

Commit 9181c4a9ac (Docs: web server must setenv GIT_PROTOCOL for v2,
2021-09-04) now mentions them in the v2 docs themselves, but users
configuring git-over-http for the first time are more likely to be
looking in the git-http-backend manpage. Let's make sure we mention it
there, too, and give some examples.

Both of the included examples here have been tested to work. The one for
lighttpd is a little less direct than I'd like, but I couldn't find a
way to directly set an environment variable to the value of a request
header. From my reading of the documentation, lighttpd will set
HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL automatically, but git-http-backend looks only at
GIT_PROTOCOL. Arguably http-backend should do this translation itself.

Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
---
 Documentation/git-http-backend.txt | 13 ++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-http-backend.txt b/Documentation/git-http-backend.txt
index 558966aa83..4797bc8aec 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-http-backend.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-http-backend.txt
@@ -16,7 +16,9 @@ A simple CGI program to serve the contents of a Git repository to Git
 clients accessing the repository over http:// and https:// protocols.
 The program supports clients fetching using both the smart HTTP protocol
 and the backwards-compatible dumb HTTP protocol, as well as clients
-pushing using the smart HTTP protocol.
+pushing using the smart HTTP protocol. It also supports Git's
+more-efficient "v2" protocol if properly configured; see the
+discussion of `GIT_PROTOCOL` in the ENVIRONMENT section below.
 
 It verifies that the directory has the magic file
 "git-daemon-export-ok", and it will refuse to export any Git directory
@@ -76,6 +78,7 @@ Apache 2.x::
 ----------------------------------------------------------------
 SetEnv GIT_PROJECT_ROOT /var/www/git
 SetEnv GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL
+SetEnvIf Git-Protocol ".*" GIT_PROTOCOL=$0
 ScriptAlias /git/ /usr/libexec/git-core/git-http-backend/
 ----------------------------------------------------------------
 +
@@ -203,6 +206,9 @@ $HTTP["url"] =~ "^/git" {
 		"GIT_PROJECT_ROOT" => "/var/www/git",
 		"GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL" => ""
 	)
+	$REQUEST_HEADER["Git-Protocol"] == "version=2" {
+		setenv.add-environment += ("GIT_PROTOCOL" => "version=2")
+	}
 }
 ----------------------------------------------------------------
 +
@@ -264,6 +270,11 @@ a repository with an extremely large number of refs.  The value can be
 specified with a unit (e.g., `100M` for 100 megabytes). The default is
 10 megabytes.
 
+Clients may probe for optional protocol capabilities using the
+`Git-Protocol` HTTP header. In order to support these, the webserver
+must be configured to pass the contents of that header to
+`git-http-backend` in the `GIT_PROTOCOL` environment variable.
+
 The backend process sets GIT_COMMITTER_NAME to '$REMOTE_USER' and
 GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL to '$\{REMOTE_USER}@http.$\{REMOTE_ADDR\}',
 ensuring that any reflogs created by 'git-receive-pack' contain some
-- 
2.33.0.621.ga797e945d8

Re: [PATCH] Docs: web server must setenv GIT_PROTOCOL for v2

[Jeff King]

On Wed, Sep 08, 2021 at 06:48:47AM -0400, Jeff King wrote:

> Both of the included examples here have been tested to work. The one for
> lighttpd is a little less direct than I'd like, but I couldn't find a
> way to directly set an environment variable to the value of a request
> header. From my reading of the documentation, lighttpd will set
> HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL automatically, but git-http-backend looks only at
> GIT_PROTOCOL. Arguably http-backend should do this translation itself.

So having discovered this, I kind of wonder if these documentation
patches are barking up the wrong tree. There is no reason we would not
want v2 to work out of the box (after all, it does for git://).

The patch below does that (and could replace both my and Konstantin's
documentation patches).

This also makes me wonder if we should be documenting the use of
AcceptEnv for ssh (which sadly I don't think we can make work
out-of-the-box).

-- >8 --
Subject: [PATCH] http-backend: handle HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL CGI variable

When a client requests the v2 protocol over HTTP, they set the
Git-Protocol header. Webservers will generaly make that available to our
CGI as HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL in the environment. However, that's not
sufficient for upload-pack, etc, to respect it; they look in
GIT_PROTOCOL (without the HTTP_ prefix).

Either the webserver or the CGI is responsible for relaying that HTTP
header into the GIT_PROTOCOL variable. Traditionally, our tests have
configured the webserver to do so, but that's a burden on the server
admin. We can make this work out of the box by having the http-backend
CGI copy the contents.

Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
---
 http-backend.c          | 4 ++++
 t/lib-httpd/apache.conf | 2 --
 2 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/http-backend.c b/http-backend.c
index b329bf63f0..2f4b4c11de 100644
--- a/http-backend.c
+++ b/http-backend.c
@@ -739,6 +739,7 @@ static int bad_request(struct strbuf *hdr, const struct service_cmd *c)
 int cmd_main(int argc, const char **argv)
 {
 	char *method = getenv("REQUEST_METHOD");
+	const char *proto_header;
 	char *dir;
 	struct service_cmd *cmd = NULL;
 	char *cmd_arg = NULL;
@@ -789,6 +790,9 @@ int cmd_main(int argc, const char **argv)
 	http_config();
 	max_request_buffer = git_env_ulong("GIT_HTTP_MAX_REQUEST_BUFFER",
 					   max_request_buffer);
+	proto_header = getenv("HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL");
+	if (proto_header)
+		setenv(GIT_PROTOCOL_ENVIRONMENT, proto_header, 1);
 
 	cmd->imp(&hdr, cmd_arg);
 	return 0;
diff --git a/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf b/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf
index afa91e38b0..71761e3299 100644
--- a/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf
+++ b/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf
@@ -81,8 +81,6 @@ PassEnv GIT_TRACE
 PassEnv GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM
 PassEnv GIT_TEST_SIDEBAND_ALL
 
-SetEnvIf Git-Protocol ".*" GIT_PROTOCOL=$0
-
 Alias /dumb/ www/
 Alias /auth/dumb/ www/auth/dumb/
 
-- 
2.33.0.621.ga797e945d8

Re: [PATCH] Docs: web server must setenv GIT_PROTOCOL for v2

[Eric Wong]

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 08, 2021 at 06:48:47AM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
> 
> > Both of the included examples here have been tested to work. The one for
> > lighttpd is a little less direct than I'd like, but I couldn't find a
> > way to directly set an environment variable to the value of a request
> > header. From my reading of the documentation, lighttpd will set
> > HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL automatically, but git-http-backend looks only at
> > GIT_PROTOCOL. Arguably http-backend should do this translation itself.
> 
> So having discovered this, I kind of wonder if these documentation
> patches are barking up the wrong tree. There is no reason we would not
> want v2 to work out of the box (after all, it does for git://).

Agreed.

> The patch below does that (and could replace both my and Konstantin's
> documentation patches).

<snip>

> -- >8 --
> Subject: [PATCH] http-backend: handle HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL CGI variable
> 
> When a client requests the v2 protocol over HTTP, they set the
> Git-Protocol header. Webservers will generaly make that available to our

"generally"

> CGI as HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL in the environment. However, that's not
> sufficient for upload-pack, etc, to respect it; they look in
> GIT_PROTOCOL (without the HTTP_ prefix).
> 
> Either the webserver or the CGI is responsible for relaying that HTTP
> header into the GIT_PROTOCOL variable. Traditionally, our tests have
> configured the webserver to do so, but that's a burden on the server
> admin. We can make this work out of the box by having the http-backend
> CGI copy the contents.

Agreed.  I've completely overlooked GIT_PROTOCOL support, so far...

This seems to be the right thing to do; I think I'll add support
for it when I spawn git-http-backend in something I work on.
(I also don't currently pass all HTTP headers in env when
spawning CGI, maybe I should *shrug*)

Re: [PATCH] Docs: web server must setenv GIT_PROTOCOL for v2

[Junio C Hamano]

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

> On Wed, Sep 08, 2021 at 06:48:47AM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
>
>> Both of the included examples here have been tested to work. The one for
>> lighttpd is a little less direct than I'd like, but I couldn't find a
>> way to directly set an environment variable to the value of a request
>> header. From my reading of the documentation, lighttpd will set
>> HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL automatically, but git-http-backend looks only at
>> GIT_PROTOCOL. Arguably http-backend should do this translation itself.

Nice.

These headers get HTTP_* prefixed as a security measure when servers
expose them to their configuration mechanisms because these names
are attacker controlled.  I had a flawed mental model in which the
servers' configuration controls which one of these resulting HTTP_*
headers are passed to CGI and externals selectively, but if servers
pass all HTTP_* environment variables to CGI and externals without
any filtering, the patch you gave here is the most logical solution.

Will queue.

> -- >8 --
> Subject: [PATCH] http-backend: handle HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL CGI variable
>
> When a client requests the v2 protocol over HTTP, they set the
> Git-Protocol header. Webservers will generaly make that available to our
> CGI as HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL in the environment. However, that's not
> sufficient for upload-pack, etc, to respect it; they look in
> GIT_PROTOCOL (without the HTTP_ prefix).
>
> Either the webserver or the CGI is responsible for relaying that HTTP
> header into the GIT_PROTOCOL variable. Traditionally, our tests have
> configured the webserver to do so, but that's a burden on the server
> admin. We can make this work out of the box by having the http-backend
> CGI copy the contents.
>
> Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
> ---
>  http-backend.c          | 4 ++++
>  t/lib-httpd/apache.conf | 2 --
>  2 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/http-backend.c b/http-backend.c
> index b329bf63f0..2f4b4c11de 100644
> --- a/http-backend.c
> +++ b/http-backend.c
> @@ -739,6 +739,7 @@ static int bad_request(struct strbuf *hdr, const struct service_cmd *c)
>  int cmd_main(int argc, const char **argv)
>  {
>  	char *method = getenv("REQUEST_METHOD");
> +	const char *proto_header;
>  	char *dir;
>  	struct service_cmd *cmd = NULL;
>  	char *cmd_arg = NULL;
> @@ -789,6 +790,9 @@ int cmd_main(int argc, const char **argv)
>  	http_config();
>  	max_request_buffer = git_env_ulong("GIT_HTTP_MAX_REQUEST_BUFFER",
>  					   max_request_buffer);
> +	proto_header = getenv("HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL");
> +	if (proto_header)
> +		setenv(GIT_PROTOCOL_ENVIRONMENT, proto_header, 1);
>  
>  	cmd->imp(&hdr, cmd_arg);
>  	return 0;
> diff --git a/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf b/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf
> index afa91e38b0..71761e3299 100644
> --- a/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf
> +++ b/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf
> @@ -81,8 +81,6 @@ PassEnv GIT_TRACE
>  PassEnv GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM
>  PassEnv GIT_TEST_SIDEBAND_ALL
>  
> -SetEnvIf Git-Protocol ".*" GIT_PROTOCOL=$0
> -
>  Alias /dumb/ www/
>  Alias /auth/dumb/ www/auth/dumb/

Re: [PATCH] Docs: web server must setenv GIT_PROTOCOL for v2

[Junio C Hamano]

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

>> @@ -789,6 +790,9 @@ int cmd_main(int argc, const char **argv)
>>  	http_config();
>>  	max_request_buffer = git_env_ulong("GIT_HTTP_MAX_REQUEST_BUFFER",
>>  					   max_request_buffer);
>> +	proto_header = getenv("HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL");
>> +	if (proto_header)
>> +		setenv(GIT_PROTOCOL_ENVIRONMENT, proto_header, 1);

Since this overwrites (I noticed the "1" at the end), the server
operator cannot force a particular protocol with their server
configuration, no?

Would a weaker form to use 0 (set if there isn't any, but keep the
value if somebody else already has set it) work OK?  Would that have
a downside?

Re: [PATCH] Docs: web server must setenv GIT_PROTOCOL for v2

[Jeff King]

On Thu, Sep 09, 2021 at 10:35:51AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:
> 
> >> @@ -789,6 +790,9 @@ int cmd_main(int argc, const char **argv)
> >>  	http_config();
> >>  	max_request_buffer = git_env_ulong("GIT_HTTP_MAX_REQUEST_BUFFER",
> >>  					   max_request_buffer);
> >> +	proto_header = getenv("HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL");
> >> +	if (proto_header)
> >> +		setenv(GIT_PROTOCOL_ENVIRONMENT, proto_header, 1);
> 
> Since this overwrites (I noticed the "1" at the end), the server
> operator cannot force a particular protocol with their server
> configuration, no?
> 
> Would a weaker form to use 0 (set if there isn't any, but keep the
> value if somebody else already has set it) work OK?  Would that have
> a downside?

Yeah, I wondered about that while writing it, but struggled to think of
a reason why the server operator would want to set it at all.

But maybe as a workaround for some misbehaving client (e.g., recognizing
it by a user-agent header). Or we could even perhaps use this in our
tests to test the v2-client-to-v0-server fallback behavior.

I'll re-roll with that change, plus some documentation changes adapted
to this new approach.

-Peff

Re: [PATCH] Docs: web server must setenv GIT_PROTOCOL for v2

[Jeff King]

On Fri, Sep 10, 2021 at 07:39:54AM -0400, Jeff King wrote:

> I'll re-roll with that change, plus some documentation changes adapted
> to this new approach.

Here's what I came up with. I think this should replace both
jk/http-backend-handle-proto-header and kr/doc-webserver-config-for-v2.
The latter does give some specific nginx tips which I didn't carry over,
but they shouldn't be necessary after the change in http-backend. If we
do want to include them, they can be mentioned as optional if we later
add an nginx example config to the http-backend manpage.

  [1/5]: t5551: test v2-to-v0 http protocol fallback
  [2/5]: http-backend: handle HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL CGI variable
  [3/5]: docs/http-backend: mention v2 protocol
  [4/5]: docs/git: discuss server-side config for GIT_PROTOCOL
  [5/5]: docs/protocol-v2: point readers transport config discussion

 Documentation/git-http-backend.txt      | 26 ++++++++++++++++++++++++-
 Documentation/git-upload-pack.txt       |  8 ++++++++
 Documentation/git.txt                   | 15 ++++++++++++++
 Documentation/technical/protocol-v2.txt |  8 +++++++-
 http-backend.c                          |  4 ++++
 t/lib-httpd/apache.conf                 |  7 +++++--
 t/t5551-http-fetch-smart.sh             |  9 +++++++++
 7 files changed, 73 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

-Peff

[PATCH 1/5] t5551: test v2-to-v0 http protocol fallback

[Jeff King]

Since we use the v2 protocol by default, the connection of a v2 client
to a v2 server is well covered by the test suite. And with the
GIT_TEST_PROTOCOL_VERSION knob, we can easily test a v0 client
connecting to a v2-aware server (which will then just speak v0). But we
have no regular tests that a v2 client, when encountering a non-v2-aware
server, will correctly fall back to using v0.

In theory this is a job for the cross-version tests in t/interop, but:

  - they cover only git:// and file:// clones

  - they are not part of the usual test suite, so nobody ever runs them
    anyway

Since using v2 over http requires configuring the web server to pass
along the Git-Protocol header, we can easily create a situation where
the server does not respect the v2 probe, and the conversation falls
back to v0.

This works just fine. This new test is not about fixing any particular
bug, but just making sure that the system works (and continues to work)
as expected.

Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
---
Not strictly necessary for this series, but it seemed like a good chance
to beef up test coverage, and make sure the setenv() overwrite flag in
the next patch was set sensibly. :)

 t/lib-httpd/apache.conf     | 5 +++++
 t/t5551-http-fetch-smart.sh | 9 +++++++++
 2 files changed, 14 insertions(+)

diff --git a/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf b/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf
index afa91e38b0..1321357d8b 100644
--- a/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf
+++ b/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf
@@ -117,6 +117,11 @@ Alias /auth/dumb/ www/auth/dumb/
 	SetEnv GIT_EXEC_PATH ${GIT_EXEC_PATH}
 	SetEnv GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL
 </LocationMatch>
+<LocationMatch /smart_v0/>
+	SetEnv GIT_EXEC_PATH ${GIT_EXEC_PATH}
+	SetEnv GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL
+	SetEnv GIT_PROTOCOL
+</LocationMatch>
 ScriptAlias /smart/incomplete_length/git-upload-pack incomplete-length-upload-pack-v2-http.sh/
 ScriptAlias /smart/incomplete_body/git-upload-pack incomplete-body-upload-pack-v2-http.sh/
 ScriptAliasMatch /error_git_upload_pack/(.*)/git-upload-pack error.sh/
diff --git a/t/t5551-http-fetch-smart.sh b/t/t5551-http-fetch-smart.sh
index 4f87d90c5b..cffc47a8e3 100755
--- a/t/t5551-http-fetch-smart.sh
+++ b/t/t5551-http-fetch-smart.sh
@@ -558,4 +558,13 @@ test_expect_success 'http auth forgets bogus credentials' '
 	expect_askpass both user@host
 '
 
+test_expect_success 'client falls back from v2 to v0 to match server' '
+	GIT_TRACE_PACKET=$PWD/trace \
+	GIT_TEST_PROTOCOL_VERSION=2 \
+	git clone $HTTPD_URL/smart_v0/repo.git repo-v0 &&
+	# check for v0; there the HEAD symref is communicated in the capability
+	# line; v2 uses a different syntax on each ref advertisement line
+	grep symref=HEAD:refs/heads/ trace
+'
+
 test_done
-- 
2.33.0.731.g24eb83922d

[PATCH 2/5] http-backend: handle HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL CGI variable

[Jeff King]

When a client requests the v2 protocol over HTTP, they set the
Git-Protocol header. Webservers will generally make that available to
our CGI as HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL in the environment. However, that's not
sufficient for upload-pack, etc, to respect it; they look in
GIT_PROTOCOL (without the HTTP_ prefix).

Either the webserver or the CGI is responsible for relaying that HTTP
header into the GIT_PROTOCOL variable. Traditionally, our tests have
configured the webserver to do so, but that's a burden on the server
admin. We can make this work out of the box by having the http-backend
CGI copy the contents of HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL to GIT_PROTOCOL.

There are no new tests here. By removing the SetEnvIf line from our
test Apache config, we're now relying on this behavior of http-backend
to trigger the v2 protocol there (and there are numerous tests that fail
if this doesn't work).

There is one subtlety here: we copy HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL only if there is
no existing GIT_PROTOCOL variable. That leaves the webserver admin free
to override the client's decision if they choose. This is unlikely to be
useful in practice, but is more flexible. And indeed, it allows the
v2-to-v0 fallback test added in the previous commit to continue working.

Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
---
 http-backend.c          | 4 ++++
 t/lib-httpd/apache.conf | 2 --
 2 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/http-backend.c b/http-backend.c
index b329bf63f0..92ceb31f9a 100644
--- a/http-backend.c
+++ b/http-backend.c
@@ -739,6 +739,7 @@ static int bad_request(struct strbuf *hdr, const struct service_cmd *c)
 int cmd_main(int argc, const char **argv)
 {
 	char *method = getenv("REQUEST_METHOD");
+	const char *proto_header;
 	char *dir;
 	struct service_cmd *cmd = NULL;
 	char *cmd_arg = NULL;
@@ -789,6 +790,9 @@ int cmd_main(int argc, const char **argv)
 	http_config();
 	max_request_buffer = git_env_ulong("GIT_HTTP_MAX_REQUEST_BUFFER",
 					   max_request_buffer);
+	proto_header = getenv("HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL");
+	if (proto_header)
+		setenv(GIT_PROTOCOL_ENVIRONMENT, proto_header, 0);
 
 	cmd->imp(&hdr, cmd_arg);
 	return 0;
diff --git a/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf b/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf
index 1321357d8b..180a41fe96 100644
--- a/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf
+++ b/t/lib-httpd/apache.conf
@@ -81,8 +81,6 @@ PassEnv GIT_TRACE
 PassEnv GIT_CONFIG_NOSYSTEM
 PassEnv GIT_TEST_SIDEBAND_ALL
 
-SetEnvIf Git-Protocol ".*" GIT_PROTOCOL=$0
-
 Alias /dumb/ www/
 Alias /auth/dumb/ www/auth/dumb/
 
-- 
2.33.0.731.g24eb83922d

[PATCH 3/5] docs/http-backend: mention v2 protocol

[Jeff King]

Historically there was a little bit of configuration needed at the
webserver level in order to get the client's v2 protocol probes to Git.
But when we introduced the v2 protocol, we never documented these.

As of the previous commit, this should mostly work out of the box
without any explicit configuration. But it's worth documenting this to
make it clear how we expect it to work, especially in the face of
webservers which don't provide all headers over the CGI interface. Or
anybody who runs across this documentation but has an older version of
Git (or _used_ to have an older version, and wonders why they still have
a SetEnvIf line in their Apache config and whether it's still
necessary).

Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
---
I used the vague "older versions of Git" here, which might not be as
helpful as we could be.  But it seemed presumptuous to say "before
2.34", since we don't know the fate of the topic, nor even that we for
sure will call the next version 2.34.

I guess we could swap out "older versions" for "before 2.34" later,
after the topic graduates and the release gets closer, but it does seem
like something that we'd easily forget to do. I dunno.

 Documentation/git-http-backend.txt | 26 +++++++++++++++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 25 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-http-backend.txt b/Documentation/git-http-backend.txt
index 558966aa83..0c5c0dde19 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-http-backend.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-http-backend.txt
@@ -16,7 +16,9 @@ A simple CGI program to serve the contents of a Git repository to Git
 clients accessing the repository over http:// and https:// protocols.
 The program supports clients fetching using both the smart HTTP protocol
 and the backwards-compatible dumb HTTP protocol, as well as clients
-pushing using the smart HTTP protocol.
+pushing using the smart HTTP protocol. It also supports Git's
+more-efficient "v2" protocol if properly configured; see the
+discussion of `GIT_PROTOCOL` in the ENVIRONMENT section below.
 
 It verifies that the directory has the magic file
 "git-daemon-export-ok", and it will refuse to export any Git directory
@@ -77,6 +79,18 @@ Apache 2.x::
 SetEnv GIT_PROJECT_ROOT /var/www/git
 SetEnv GIT_HTTP_EXPORT_ALL
 ScriptAlias /git/ /usr/libexec/git-core/git-http-backend/
+
+# This is not strictly necessary using Apache and a modern version of
+# git-http-backend, as the webserver will pass along the header in the
+# environment as HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL, and http-backend will copy that into
+# GIT_PROTOCOL. But you may need this line (or something similar if you
+# are using a different webserver), or if you want to support older Git
+# versions that did not do that copying.
+#
+# Having the webserver set up GIT_PROTOCOL is perfectly fine even with
+# modern versions (and will take precedence over HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL,
+# which means it can be used to override the client's request).
+SetEnvIf Git-Protocol ".*" GIT_PROTOCOL=$0
 ----------------------------------------------------------------
 +
 To enable anonymous read access but authenticated write access,
@@ -264,6 +278,16 @@ a repository with an extremely large number of refs.  The value can be
 specified with a unit (e.g., `100M` for 100 megabytes). The default is
 10 megabytes.
 
+Clients may probe for optional protocol capabilities (like the v2
+protocol) using the `Git-Protocol` HTTP header. In order to support
+these, the contents of that header must appear in the `GIT_PROTOCOL`
+environment variable. Most webservers will pass this header to the CGI
+via the `HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL` variable, and `git-http-backend` will
+automatically copy that to `GIT_PROTOCOL`. However, some webservers may
+be more selective about which headers they'll pass, in which case they
+need to be configured explicitly (see the mention of `Git-Protocol` in
+the Apache config from the earlier EXAMPLES section).
+
 The backend process sets GIT_COMMITTER_NAME to '$REMOTE_USER' and
 GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL to '$\{REMOTE_USER}@http.$\{REMOTE_ADDR\}',
 ensuring that any reflogs created by 'git-receive-pack' contain some
-- 
2.33.0.731.g24eb83922d

[PATCH 4/5] docs/git: discuss server-side config for GIT_PROTOCOL

[Jeff King]

The v2 protocol requires that the GIT_PROTOCOL environment variable gets
passed around, but we don't have any documentation describing how this
is supposed to work. In particular, we need to note what server admins
might need to configure to make things work.

The definition of the GIT_PROTOCOL variable is probably the best place
for this, since:

  - we deal with multiple transports (ssh, http, etc).
    Transport-specific documentation (like the git-http-backend bits
    added in the previous commit) are helpful for those transports, but
    this gives a broader overview. Plus we do not have a specific
    transport endpoint program for ssh, so this is a reasonable place to
    mention it.

  - the server side of the protocol involves multiple programs. For now,
    upload-pack is the only endpoint which uses GIT_PROTOCOL, but that
    will likely expand in the future. We're better off with a central
    discussion of what the server admin might need to do. However, for
    discoverability, this patch adds a pointer from upload-pack's
    documentation.

Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
---
 Documentation/git-upload-pack.txt |  8 ++++++++
 Documentation/git.txt             | 15 +++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 23 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-upload-pack.txt b/Documentation/git-upload-pack.txt
index 9822c1eb1a..070fc78008 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-upload-pack.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-upload-pack.txt
@@ -44,6 +44,14 @@ OPTIONS
 <directory>::
 	The repository to sync from.
 
+ENVIRONMENT
+-----------
+
+`GIT_PROTOCOL`::
+	Internal variable used for handshaking the wire protocol. Server
+	admins may need to configure some transports to allow this
+	variable to be passed. See the discussion in linkgit:git[1].
+
 SEE ALSO
 --------
 linkgit:gitnamespaces[7]
diff --git a/Documentation/git.txt b/Documentation/git.txt
index 6dd241ef83..e4b82599fc 100644
--- a/Documentation/git.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git.txt
@@ -894,6 +894,21 @@ for full details.
 	Contains a colon ':' separated list of keys with optional values
 	'key[=value]'.  Presence of unknown keys and values must be
 	ignored.
++
+Note that servers may need to be configured to allow this variable to
+pass over some transports. It will be propagated automatically when
+accessing local repositories (i.e., `file://` or a filesystem path), as
+well as over the `git://` protocol. For git-over-http, it should work
+automatically in most configurations, but see the discussion in
+linkgit:git-http-backend[1]. For git-over-ssh, the ssh server may need
+to be configured to allow clients to pass this variable (e.g., by using
+`AcceptEnv GIT_PROTOCOL` with OpenSSH).
++
+This configuration is optional. If the variable is not propagated, then
+clients will fall back to the original "v0" protocol (but may miss out
+on some performance improvements or features). This variable currently
+only affects clones and fetches; it is not yet used for pushes (but may
+be in the future).
 
 `GIT_OPTIONAL_LOCKS`::
 	If set to `0`, Git will complete any requested operation without
-- 
2.33.0.731.g24eb83922d

[PATCH 5/5] docs/protocol-v2: point readers transport config discussion

[Jeff King]

We recently added tips for server admins to configure various transports
to support v2's GIT_PROTOCOL variable. While the protocol-v2 document is
pretty technical and not of interest to most admins, it may be a
starting point for them to figure out how to turn on v2. Let's put some
pointers from there to the other documentation.

Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
---
 Documentation/technical/protocol-v2.txt | 8 +++++++-
 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/technical/protocol-v2.txt b/Documentation/technical/protocol-v2.txt
index 1040d85319..a703d37e08 100644
--- a/Documentation/technical/protocol-v2.txt
+++ b/Documentation/technical/protocol-v2.txt
@@ -42,7 +42,8 @@ Initial Client Request
 In general a client can request to speak protocol v2 by sending
 `version=2` through the respective side-channel for the transport being
 used which inevitably sets `GIT_PROTOCOL`.  More information can be
-found in `pack-protocol.txt` and `http-protocol.txt`.  In all cases the
+found in `pack-protocol.txt` and `http-protocol.txt`, as well as the
+`GIT_PROTOCOL` definition in `git.txt`. In all cases the
 response from the server is the capability advertisement.
 
 Git Transport
@@ -58,6 +59,8 @@ SSH and File Transport
 
 When using either the ssh:// or file:// transport, the GIT_PROTOCOL
 environment variable must be set explicitly to include "version=2".
+The server may need to be configured to allow this environment variable
+to pass.
 
 HTTP Transport
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@@ -81,6 +84,9 @@ A v2 server would reply:
 Subsequent requests are then made directly to the service
 `$GIT_URL/git-upload-pack`. (This works the same for git-receive-pack).
 
+The server may need to be configured to pass this header's contents via
+the `GIT_PROTOCOL` variable. See the discussion in `git-http-backend.txt`.
+
 Capability Advertisement
 ------------------------
 
-- 
2.33.0.731.g24eb83922d

Re: [PATCH] Docs: web server must setenv GIT_PROTOCOL for v2

[Junio C Hamano]

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

> On Fri, Sep 10, 2021 at 07:39:54AM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
>
>> I'll re-roll with that change, plus some documentation changes adapted
>> to this new approach.
>
> Here's what I came up with. I think this should replace both
> jk/http-backend-handle-proto-header and kr/doc-webserver-config-for-v2.
> The latter does give some specific nginx tips which I didn't carry over,
> but they shouldn't be necessary after the change in http-backend. If we
> do want to include them, they can be mentioned as optional if we later
> add an nginx example config to the http-backend manpage.

All look sensible.  This topic will appear in the next round of
integration, not today's.

Thanks.

Re: [PATCH] Docs: web server must setenv GIT_PROTOCOL for v2

[Philippe Blain]

Hi Peff,

Le 2021-09-08 à 06:57, Jeff King a écrit :
> On Wed, Sep 08, 2021 at 06:48:47AM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
> 
>> Both of the included examples here have been tested to work. The one for
>> lighttpd is a little less direct than I'd like, but I couldn't find a
>> way to directly set an environment variable to the value of a request
>> header. From my reading of the documentation, lighttpd will set
>> HTTP_GIT_PROTOCOL automatically, but git-http-backend looks only at
>> GIT_PROTOCOL. Arguably http-backend should do this translation itself.
> 
> So having discovered this, I kind of wonder if these documentation
> patches are barking up the wrong tree. There is no reason we would not
> want v2 to work out of the box (after all, it does for git://).
> 
> The patch below does that (and could replace both my and Konstantin's
> documentation patches).

I agree it's nice to make it work out of the box, without the web server
admin having to configure anything. But, I'm not sure we should completely
drop the documentation patches: your patch will only affect future versions
of git-http-backend, and users of previous versions will be left without
any documentation as to how to configure it for protocol v2. So I would think we should
keep the documentation patches, maybe with a mention "this should not be necessary
in Git 2.34 and later versions" or something like that (since your
commit message mentions that it "generally" should work like that depending
on the web servers).

> 
> This also makes me wonder if we should be documenting the use of
> AcceptEnv for ssh (which sadly I don't think we can make work
> out-of-the-box).

I think it would be a good idea to document it, yes. FWIW I found out about
it at https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/administration/git_protocol.html.

Cheers,
Philippe.

Re: [PATCH] Docs: web server must setenv GIT_PROTOCOL for v2

[Junio C Hamano]

Philippe Blain <levraiphilippeblain@gmail.com> writes:

> I agree it's nice to make it work out of the box, without the web server
> admin having to configure anything. But, I'm not sure we should completely
> drop the documentation patches: your patch will only affect future versions
> of git-http-backend, and users of previous versions will be left without
> any documentation as to how to configure it for protocol v2. So I would think we should
> keep the documentation patches, maybe with a mention "this should not be necessary
> in Git 2.34 and later versions" or something like that (since your
> commit message mentions that it "generally" should work like that depending
> on the web servers).

Thanks, exactly my thought on the need for docs.

Re: [PATCH] Docs: web server must setenv GIT_PROTOCOL for v2

[Jeff King]

On Thu, Sep 09, 2021 at 10:39:29PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Philippe Blain <levraiphilippeblain@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > I agree it's nice to make it work out of the box, without the web server
> > admin having to configure anything. But, I'm not sure we should completely
> > drop the documentation patches: your patch will only affect future versions
> > of git-http-backend, and users of previous versions will be left without
> > any documentation as to how to configure it for protocol v2. So I would think we should
> > keep the documentation patches, maybe with a mention "this should not be necessary
> > in Git 2.34 and later versions" or something like that (since your
> > commit message mentions that it "generally" should work like that depending
> > on the web servers).
> 
> Thanks, exactly my thought on the need for docs.

OK. I'll try to cook something up here.

-Peff