[Gnu-arch-users] interaction between signing rules and direct mirror access

[Miles Bader]

Sometimes I want to perform an operation directly on a mirror, e.g., tla
cacherev (I _don't_ want to cache revisions in my `real' archive, for
reasons previously discussed at length on this list).

However, this seems to not work entirely well with a `copy' entry in the
mirror's .arch-params/signing entry:

   $ tla archives miles.*gnu-2004
   address@hidden
       /home/m/miles/arch/address@hidden
   address@hidden
       sftp://arch.linuxguru.net/home/miles/public_html/address@hidden

   $ cat ~/.arch-params/signing/address@hidden
   address@hidden

   $ tla cacherev address@hidden/emacs--cvs-trunk--0--base-0 gpg: Signature 
made Mon Dec 29 19:25:41 2003 EST using DSA key ID 96BE5053
   gpg: Good signature from "Miles Bader (fencepost) <address@hidden>"

   ********************************
   NO CHECKSUMS FOUND FOR REVISION
    (unsigned archive, continuing anyway)

     archive: address@hidden
     revision emacs--cvs-trunk--0--patch-139

   ********************************

   * from revision library: address@hidden/emacs--cvs-trunk--0--patch-138
   * patching for revision: address@hidden/emacs--cvs-trunk--0--patch-139
   * patching for revision: address@hidden/emacs--cvs-trunk--0--base-0


   ********************************

   ARCHIVE SIGNING RULE SAYS TO COPY
   CHECKSUMS FROM address@hidden

   THE CHECKSUM FILE IN THAT ARCHIVE FOR

     emacs--cvs-trunk--0--base-0

   IS MISSING OR INAPPROPRIATE.

     your rule file: /home/m/miles/.arch-params/signing/address@hidden

   ********************************

This error makes sense -- the checksum file in the original file of
course doesn't contain an entry for cached revision (and I don't want it
too) -- but I assume the resulting state is not good: the mirror's
checkfile doesn't contain it either.

In this case, I'm not sure _what_ the proper action would be; a human
would probably just independently generate a checksum for the new tar
file and append it to the checksums files in the mirror, but I'm not
sure whether this would be easy for tla to do automatically or not.

Thanks,

-Miles
-- 
"I distrust a research person who is always obviously busy on a task."
   --Robert Frosch, VP, GM Research