Re: Recording archiver origins in git

[Eric Wong <e@80x24.org>]

Konstantin Ryabitsev <konstantin@linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> Hello:
> 
> I'm working away on grokmirror+public-inbox replication, and I'm trying to
> come up with a good solution for passing the "archiver origins" info. In
> examples/grok-pull.post_update_hook.sh, we try to get this information out of
> a curl call to the clone origin, but this may not be reliable for a number of
> reasons:
> 
> 1. we may be cloning from an intermediary location that only serves the git
>    repositories and the manifest file (e.g. erol.kernel.org)
> 2. the call may retrieve information relevant to the intermediary, and not to
>    the origins of the archive
> 
> I'm thinking of including a special location in the git repo itself for
> passing some of the same info currently found in the config snippet, e.g. in
> refs/meta/origins.

> Imaginary code snippet:
> 
> $ git show refs/meta/origins:i
> [metadata]
> source = smtp

Is "source" necessary?  It seems like something that could be
in the "description" file or noted in the contents of
publicinbox.$NAME.infourl.

> listaddress = linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
> listid = linux-kernel.vger.kernel.org
> archive-url = https://lore.kernel.org/linux-kernel
> archive-contact = postmaster@kernel.org

I think the keys should match what we use in the config file, at
least.  So s/listaddress/address/ and s/archive-url/url/

I'm not sure if "contact" is necessary if the aforementioned
"infourl" exists.

> This way, even if the archive gets mirrored around a bunch of times, it's
> still possible to track where it originated, and if the original archive info
> becomes obsolete, someone can update the information without it affecting the
> rest of the archive.
> 
> Does that sound sane?

I think so.  Only the latest epoch would be taken into account,
I suppose.