Re: Error while trying to clone the Emacs git repo (via http)

[Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com>]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> Dani Moncayo wrote:
> > My second try has been to uset the http protocol (since the proxy
> > probably does not allow the git protocol):
> > 
> >   $ git clone http://git.sv.gnu.org/r/emacs.git
> >   Cloning into 'emacs'...
> >   remote: Counting objects: 780227, done.
> >   remote: aborting due to possible repository corruption on the remote side.
> >   fatal: protocol error: bad pack header
> 
> AFAIK, Savannah doesn't (yet) support Git via HTTPS.

If there is a problem with http and if the problem is on the server
then there should be no difference between http and https.  They both
provide exactly the same files.  It is the same web server serving the
same files.  Shouldn't be any difference.

Using http and an http proxy however may be a source of additional
problems however because I have chased down many problems over the
years that were due only to corruption caused by the proxy.  I don't
know why but corporate http proxies seem to have a high error rate
well above any reasonable expectation.  These days, in other work, if
I need any type of reliability, or any type of web form, then I always
force https in order to avoid use of corrupting bad proxies, in order
to avoid those problems.  In some ways it is a shame that bad proxies
have destroyed it for the good ones.  But in other developments we are
trying to encrypt everything and so proxies either good or bad have
been deprecated.

Perhaps counter-intuitively the problems with git-daemon and shallow
checkouts have prevented me releasing https to production.  Or rather
I did previously release git to production.  Thought everything was
working okay.  Announced it.  Hadn't said anything about https being
available "just in case" there were problems because it isn't
available on the old server.  Then after a while started receiving
problem reports.  Argh!  I had to recall git back to the old server
while working through the problems.  Was glad I hasn't said anything
about the availability of https.  Thrashed for a bit.  Decided to push
through the other version control services in order to get as much as
possible off of the old server.  Now I am back to trying to resolve
the git-daemon problem with shallow checkouts.  Unfortunately all git
services are tied to the git.savannah.gnu.org dns name and so it is
all of it or none of it at the same time.

Just to give some visibility into the happenings for those not
following along on the Savannah mailing lists. :-)

Bob