Re: [Gnu-arch-users] one more feature needed for signing

[Jason McCarty]

Tom Lord wrote:
>    A simple fix is:
> 
>       i) when creating a revision directory, create and store
>            an additional file containing the lines:
> 
>               <fully-qualified revision name>
>                 <hash of CONTINUATION, if present>
>                 <hash of changeset, if present>
>                 <hash of full-text, if present>
>                 <hash of log>
> 
>            and sign that.
> 
>       ii) when creating an archive-cached revision, create
>             and store an additional file containing the lines:
> 
>               <fully-qualified revision name>
>                 <hash of archive-cached tar bundle>
> 
>             and sign that.

It seems to me that this scheme would remove the need to sign each file
individually, while being just as strong security-wise. For archive
verification purposes, it's probably not necessary to sign cachedrevs,
since they can be regenerated at will. But it's a good idea to do so
anyway, for future versions of "tla get" that know about signatures.

>       iii) supplement the signature checker with a tool that
>              verifies the contents of those files:  both that
>              the hashes are correct and that the fully-qualified
>              revision name is the right one.

And indeed, I think this tool would be sufficient without the other
signatures.

Jason