Re: Intricacies of submodules

["Avery Pennarun" <apenwarr@gmail.com>]

On 4/17/08, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> writes:
>  > So if we do end up doing a "tracked config file", I'd personally very much
>  > prefer it be limited in some way. For example, we obviously track the
>  > .gitignore and .gitattributes files, but they are much more limited in
>  > their effects. Maybe we could have a "limited config file" that allows for
>  > *some* config options to be set?
>
> Yes, that's all what I have been trying to say ;-)

How about this: we know that *most* options are harmless, at least
from a security point of view.  AFAIK it's really just the ones where
you specify shell commands that are unsafe.

Why not have a list of "safe" config options in git, and when reading
.gitconfig, error out if any of the options in that file are unsafe.
(Alternatively: silently ignore the unsafe ones, or warn and then
ignore the unsafe ones.)  A more advanced variation of the same would
be to have .git/config options that list specific exceptions to the
safe list, so if .gitconfig causes an error, you can *explicitly* git
config set to let .gitconfig override them.

Another possibility would be to have an "unsafe" list instead of a
"safe" list, but that sounds rather error-prone to me.

Have fun,

Avery