Updating the guix package triggers a full Git clone of guix.git

While building the package of Guix itself [0], I noticed that Savannah

can't serve cheap "shallow clones" of the commits that these packages

are based on, so users will end up doing full clones (260M on

disk):

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building /gnu/store/ma04vkl42jyr9p2nw5yzlzw61r5s2h3p-guix-1.1.0-31.1c6d985-checkout.drv...

guile: warning: failed to install locale

environment variable `PATH' set to `/gnu/store/378zjf2kgajcfd7mfr98jn5xyc5wa3qv-gzip-1.10/bin:/gnu/store/sf3rbvb6iqcphgm1afbplcs72hsywg25-tar-1.32/bin'

Initialized empty Git repository in /gnu/store/nwf2579gigc9xhnd7i82lpmja854l9fb-guix-1.1.0-31.1c6d985-checkout/.git/

error: Server does not allow request for unadvertised object 1c6d98533153bc8e0e36236e7fbcf1eb5e178d26

Failed to do a shallow fetch; retrying a full fetch...

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I'm reaching out to the Savannah admins to ask them about this, and if

it has any unduly negative affects on the Savannah infrastructure.

Maybe these commits should be tagged?

[0]

That is, while building (@@ (gnu packages package-management) guix)

I poked around a bit and found that Savannah can serve shallow clones of

random commits, but does not allow shallow *fetching*, except for

special things such as Git tags. We fetch instead of clone.

Hi,

Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> skribis:

Weird, what’s the difference between fetch and clone technically? I

believe commit 329dabe13bf98b899b907b45565434c5140804f5 moved to “fetch”

precisely so we could do shallow clones.

Ludo’.

On Tue, Nov 03, 2020 at 10:48:25PM +0100, Ludovic Courtès wrote:

I don't know. It's definitely weird.

Hello,

Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:

I had researched this before and the option the git server is missing is

uploadpack.allowAnySHA1InWant [0]. Unfortunately last I check in

#savannah their machine (vcs0) is using an older Trisquel stuck with git

v2.11.0, one patch version before when the above feature was introduced

(v2.11.1)! If I understood correctly, they have a new VM vcs2 but it

needs to be completely setup before they can switch.

Maxim

[0] https://github.com/git/git/commit/f8edeaa05d8623a9f6dad408237496c51101aad8

On Sun, Nov 29, 2020 at 10:24:18PM -0500, Maxim Cournoyer wrote:

Savannah is now using Git version 2.17.1. I wonder if we can have this

option enabled now? I checked and the problem described by this bug

still exists.

Hi Leo,

Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:

You'd want to check in #savannah, I think. It'd help reduce bandwidth

and hasten 'guix pull' a bit if it were now possible, I think.

Thanks!

Maxim