Re: [PATCH 0/2] Optionally support push options on up-to-date branches

["brian m. carlson" <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>]

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On 2024-03-15 at 08:58:35, Christopher Lindee wrote:
> Is this a potential avenue for DoS?

No, it's not.  In our implementation, there is a functional limit on ref
updates and if you exceed it, the operation fails.  We also have rate
limiting that estimates future cost based on the cost of previous
requests and delays or fails requests which are projected to exceed a
reasonable threshold.  (Thus, you can make many more cheap requests, or
fewer expensive ones, your choice.)  All of this is per-repository, so
generally only you (and maybe your colleagues or collaborators)
experience negative consequences if you attempt excessive use.

I can't speak to other implementations, but robust rate limits are
typically common.  I'm sure all major implementations open to the public
have some sort of rate limiting because otherwise they'd be down a lot.

The difference is that failing operations and even well-explained,
well-documented rate limits cause a poor user experience, user
frustration, and user inquiries (e.g., support requests), as well as
possibly noisy alerting and potentially pages for engineers.  Anytime a
user experiences rate limits, they have to make a change in their
behaviour, and people don't like change.

I'd prefer we left the default to do the cheap no-op because, as I said,
that scales much better, and thus we allow users to do the obvious thing
for much longer and it just works for them.  That, in turn, provides
everyone a better experience.

Certainly, if people start using this option by default, then it will be
a problem if they engage in excessive use and server implementations
will probably scale worse, but usually users don't use non-default
options unless they need them, so I don't think your new proposed option
is a problem.
-- 
brian m. carlson (they/them or he/him)
Toronto, Ontario, CA

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