git-remote-bsv

A git remote for the Bitcoin Satoshi Vision blockchain.

This works, but is obviously slapped together out of confusion and need. Please hack it up to be right.

Installation

Download node at nodejs.org and install it, if you haven't already.

npm install -g git-remote-bsv

Usage

git-remote-bsv handles bsv repos as pairs of urls, a private push one and a public pull one. The private one is the private key to a BSV bitcoin account, and may upload changes. The public one is the BSV bitcoin account address, and should be distributed to others. The account must have enough coins to upload new changes.

See help and get a new pair of git remote urls:

$ git remote-bsv

New key pair generated in memory.
  Send coins to: 1Kyrm8Gmyb4fcDesTLoCin63iUJiznCwe4

To make a push remote to the new key pair:
  git remote add bsv bsv://Kxu7rmqc4zRw97KmvrA7mDTkXJt3KrM1UpnTc3TReNvKBm4pUpra/path/to/repo.git
To make a fetch-only remote to the new key pair:
  git remote add bsv bsv://1Kyrm8Gmyb4fcDesTLoCin63iUJiznCwe4/path/to/repo.git
To list forks of the current repo:
  git remote-bsv --forks
To list repos on the blockchain:
  git remote-bsv --repos

Import an existing git repository to the BSV blockchain:

$ cd myrepo
$ echo 'myrepo name' > .git/description
$ git remote add bsv bsv://Kxu7rmqc4zRw97KmvrA7mDTkXJt3KrM1UpnTc3TReNvKBm4pUpra/path/to/repo.git
$ git push bsv
# if it fails due to not enough satoshis: send coins to 1Kyrm8Gmyb4fcDesTLoCin63iUJiznCwe4 and try again

Clone a repo off BSV:

# without git-remote-bsv installed:
$ git clone https://bico.media/1Kyrm8Gmyb4fcDesTLoCin63iUJiznCwe4/path/to/repo.git myrepo

# with git-remote-bsv installed:
$ git clone bsv://1Kyrm8Gmyb4fcDesTLoCin63iUJiznCwe4/path/to/repo.git myrepo

Integrate changes from a BSV mirror:

# add remote without git-remote-bsv installed:
$ git remote add bsv https://bico.media/1Kyrm8Gmyb4fcDesTLoCin63iUJiznCwe4/path/to/repo.git

# add remote with git-remote-bsv installed
$ git remote add bsv bsv://1Kyrm8Gmyb4fcDesTLoCin63iUJiznCwe4/path/to/repo.git

# integrate
$ git pull bsv master

Enumerate forks or repos on blockchain:

$ git remote-bsv --forks   # list fork urls
bsv://1FJMa1Ac53zoKg2UrQEnafNqUFSvNRhmaL
bsv://1FJMa1Ac53zoKg2UrQEnafNqUFSvNRhmaL/git-remote-bsv.git
bsv://19HLLuvb6zfAp4w6tijmgLGLBYKjr2nH1c
bsv://19HLLuvb6zfAp4w6tijmgLGLBYKjr2nH1c/git2
bsv://1K15pHmxCNBBq5NhrZXG8E7xaEV62cizs6

$ git remote-bsv --repos   # list git-remote-bsv repo urls

How it Works

This section is a work in progress.

At the moment git-remote-bsv is a hacky wrapper around another piece of software called bsvup. It launches bsvup in a subprocess and automates providing input to it.

• bsvup: Put file/directory on BSV, using D protocol.

git-remote-bsv functions as a gitremote-helpers(1) remote helper program for git, offering the connect functionality to spawn git services that connect to the repo via pipes. To do this easily, it stores a local copy of the bsv repo in GIT_DIR/bsv/<bsvaddrr>/git, and runs bsvup in the parent folder to sync the changes upward. When new changes come in, they are stored using git's default mechanisms, but when a push occurs, they are all condensed into a single packfile to preserve blockchain capacity and wallet balance.

The next advancement to git-remote-bsv should be to connect to a library with a programmatic API, rather than launching a subprocess and scraping its output. This should significantly aid stability.

Integrity Concerns

The output of --forks and --repos uses the '.git/description' file to show the name of each repo. This means changes to the name are not recorded in repository history, and if it is maliciously changed the evidence of it is unobvious. This is true of force-pushes, too.

Although the data is stored in a decentralized blockchain, the APIs currently reference centralized webservers by default. This means for now, to evade real censorship, one must check via their own BSV client and other trustworthy means that the data they uploaded has made it properly to the real blockchain. Once the data reaches the blockchain, it is expected that it can never be irretrievably deleted or altered, ever, unless somebody breaks the currency itself. However, obviously anybody who has the private key can pretend to be the author and submit further updates, even to the git history. Such changes would require investigation to find and undo, but would be very obvious when searched for.

The solution to the history rewriting problem is to advance beyond the D:// protocol of bsvup and bico.media, to something simpler that retains the concept of an append-only log. Integrating the protocol into the client could also provide for the client to ignore or undo history rewrites automatically.

See Also

• https://github.com/xloem/bitfiles provides for exporting D history in a format readable by git, which could be used to make the 3rd integrity concern moot
• https://github.com/xloem/js-gitview has some initial work on making a javascript git repository viewer, which could run on a blockchain

Recovering From Catastrophe

The original repo private key was lost for a bit. The original content is at:

bsv://1K15pHmxCNBBq5NhrZXG8E7xaEV62cizs6/git-remote-bsv.git

The newer repo is at:

bsv://1FJMa1Ac53zoKg2UrQEnafNqUFSvNRhmaL/git-remote-bsv.git

To deter future catastrophe, the newer private push address is listed here:

bsv://KzywA1GLJacYP7EBmAa4Pze2vKnTbYCdfcUkJUWuq8sLR6pHoT9h/git-remote-bsv.git

Please do not steal this particular money.

License

Public Domain