Re: Auto-repo-repair

[Drew Northup <n1xim.email@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 5:35 PM, Enrico Weigelt <enrico.weigelt@vnc.biz> wrote:
>
>> >> How would the broken repository be sure of what it is missing to
>> >> request it from the other side?
>> >
>> > fsck will find missing objects.
>>
>> And what about the objects referred to by objects that are missing?
>
> Will be fetched after multiple iterations.
> We could even introduce some 'fsck --autorepair' mode, which triggers
> it to fetch any missing object from its remotes.
>
> Maybe even introduce a concept of peer object stores, which (a bit like
> alternates) are asked for objects that arent locally availabe - that
> could be even a plain venti store.

I still think that it would make the most sense to do the following
(if you insist on some sort of automated repair):
(1) Fetch a "good" clone (or clones) into a temporary directory;
(2) Cannibalize the objects from it (them);
(3) Re-run git fsck and check for still-missing / unreachable items;
(4) IF THE RESULT OF (3) IS ACCEPTABLE, run git gc to clean up the
mess, discard / "merge" duplicate objects, and fix up the packfiles.

It is step (4) that requires the most user interaction. I could see
building up a shell script that does all but (4) nearly automatically.
None of this requires modifying Git itself.

-- 
-Drew Northup
--------------------------------------------------------------
"As opposed to vegetable or mineral error?"
-John Pescatore, SANS NewsBites Vol. 12 Num. 59