[CentOS-devel] CentOS SIGs and lookaside cache

Mon Feb 28 14:48:30 UTC 2022
Pierre-Yves Chibon <pingou at pingoured.fr>

On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 10:58:58AM -0500, Neal Gompa wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 10:51 AM Pierre-Yves Chibon <pingou at pingoured.fr> wrote:
> The git server and git structure is orthogonal to the lookaside
> problem. Fundamentally, the issue was that the same upload endpoint is
> used for both Red Hat compliance and SIG work. We already have
> authentication/authorization on branches at the Pagure level, so we
> just lacked a way to handle this for the lookaside upload. By
> splitting the endpoint, it should be possible to solve that since you
> can deny access to the Red Hat endpoint to everyone.
>
> However, I'd make a small suggestion: instead of changing the endpoint
> URL for SIGs, change the endpoint URL for Red Hat. RCM uses that
> endpoint through automation (I assume), so changing the endpoint for
> the one service is considerably simpler than dealing with everyone's
> own scripts to adjust for SIGs.

I have just realized something, I don't think we're planning on restricting the
access to the old lookaside upload script (the idea you're talking about in the
first paragraph), so if we are not, we are not breaking backward compatibility,
just introducing/offering another way to do things:
- either you keep your current workflow and upload as you do today with the
  current lookaside upload endpoint
- or you adjust your workflow and upload to the lookaside cache using the new
  endpoint.

Both approach would work equally well.

And this is where it does ties the git server and git structure to the
lookaside, if a SIG keeps using git.centos.org, they will have to keep using the
current branch structure and thus changing their workflow to use the new
lookaside cache endpoint does not bring them anything, they can just keep doing
their work the way they have always been.
If a SIG chooses at some point to start using gitlab, they will have to adjust
their workflow (if only to change the hostname of the git server) and they will
have the choice:
- either keep using the branch structure that git.centos.org imposes (but that
  time it won't be imposed, it'll be by choice) and then they pick which
  lookaside upload endpoint they use
- or they choose a different git branch structure (so another change in their
  workflow) and there, they won't have the choice and will have to use the new
  lookaside upload endpoint.

So it seems simpler to me to keep with the original idea of having two lookaside
upload endpoint, the current one keeping the current structure and a new one
using the structure used by CentOS-Stream and Fedora.


Pierre