Re: Git cvsserver serious issue

On 09/22/2010 10:26 AM, Magnus Hagander wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 16:23, Tom Lane<tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>> Magnus Hagander<magnus(at)hagander(dot)net> writes:
>>> Any user can point their cvs client at the repository. And check out
>>> an arbitrary branch, tag *or individual commit*. Doing so will create
>>> a 50Mb sqlite database on the server with cache information about that
>>> head.
>>> That basically means that git-cvsserver is completely useless in a
>>> public scenario as it stands. An easier way to DOS our server is hard
>>> to find, really.
>> Ugh.
> Indeed.
>
>
>>> Now, if we can limit this by IP address, that would be ok. I assume we
>>> can do this for the NLS stuff - peter?
>>> As for buildfarm members needing CVS - is it workable to require that
>>> the maintainers of these set up their own git clone with git cvsserver
>>> (over ssh or pserver) and restrict it locally to the IP(s) of their
>>> machines?
>> If we're going to let people in by IP address, maybe we could let legacy
>> buildfarm members in by IP address. It doesn't seem particularly
>> helpful to expect each buildfarm owner to solve this problem for
>> themselves. I'd also note that if they could run git locally, they
>> wouldn't be needing cvsserver in the first place.
> We could. It's currently on a freebsd vm though and I don't think we
> can set per-server IP filters on those. (I was thinking iptables). We
> could move it though - it doesn't *have* to be on the anonymous git
> VM. It's just some extra resources.
>
> Well, the use-case I was thinking of was Stefan. While he can't run
> git on each and every animal, he certainly has *some* machine(s) on
> the correct side of whatever firewall there may be that can run git.
>
>
>
>> Also, couldn't we just set up the cvsserver on its own VM with a limited
>> amount of disk space, and not worry too much about any "DOS threat"?
>> If somebody does do this, block them and reinitialize that server.
> We could do that, but that could end up fighting a losing battle in
> case some bot hits it.
>
> I don't like deploying something with a known issue on it, sandboxed or not.
>

Thinking about this some more, how about we do non-anonymous CVS over
SSH access to the git-cvsserver for the few buildfarm members that can't
currently handle using git (e.g. spoonbill)?

I'm not sure if that would handle other requirements, such as Peter's,
but I hope the residual requirements for CVS support will be pretty rare.

cheers

andrew