Be more careful about updating refs

This makes write_ref_sha1() more careful: it actually checks the SHA1 of
the ref it is updating, and refuses to update a ref with an object that it
cannot find.

Perhaps more importantly, it also refuses to update a branch head with a
non-commit object. I don't quite know *how* the stable series maintainers
were able to corrupt their repository to have a HEAD that pointed to a tag
rather than a commit object, but they did. Which results in a totally
broken repository that cannot be cloned or committed on.

So make it harder for people to shoot themselves in the foot like that.

The test t1400-update-ref.sh is fixed at the same time, as it
assumed that the commands involved in the particular test would
not care about corrupted repositories whose refs point at
nonexistant bogus objects.  That assumption does not hold true
anymore.

Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

1 files changed, 19 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/refs.c b/refs.c
index 58f6d17397..c3ffe0393b 100644
--- a/refs.c
+++ b/refs.c
@@ -1119,10 +1119,16 @@ static int log_ref_write(const char *ref_name, const unsigned char *old_sha1,
 	return 0;
 }
 
+static int is_branch(const char *refname)
+{
+	return !strcmp(refname, "HEAD") || !prefixcmp(refname, "refs/heads/");
+}
+
 int write_ref_sha1(struct ref_lock *lock,
 	const unsigned char *sha1, const char *logmsg)
 {
 	static char term = '\n';
+	struct object *o;
 
 	if (!lock)
 		return -1;
@@ -1130,6 +1136,19 @@ int write_ref_sha1(struct ref_lock *lock,
 		unlock_ref(lock);
 		return 0;
 	}
+	o = parse_object(sha1);
+	if (!o) {
+		error("Trying to write ref %s with nonexistant object %s",
+			lock->ref_name, sha1_to_hex(sha1));
+		unlock_ref(lock);
+		return -1;
+	}
+	if (o->type != OBJ_COMMIT && is_branch(lock->ref_name)) {
+		error("Trying to write non-commit object %s to branch %s",
+			sha1_to_hex(sha1), lock->ref_name);
+		unlock_ref(lock);
+		return -1;
+	}
 	if (write_in_full(lock->lock_fd, sha1_to_hex(sha1), 40) != 40 ||
 	    write_in_full(lock->lock_fd, &term, 1) != 1
 		|| close(lock->lock_fd) < 0) {