read-cache: add index.skipHash config option

The previous change allowed skipping the hashing portion of the hashwrite API, using it instead as a buffered write API. Disabling the hashwrite can be particularly helpful when the write operation is in a critical path. One such critical path is the writing of the index. This operation is so critical that the sparse index was created specifically to reduce the size of the index to make these writes (and reads) faster. This trade-off between file stability at rest and write-time performance is not easy to balance. The index is an interesting case for a couple reasons: 1. Writes block users. Writing the index takes place in many user- blocking foreground operations. The speed improvement directly impacts their use. Other file formats are typically written in the background (commit-graph, multi-pack-index) or are super-critical to correctness (pack-files). 2. Index files are short lived. It is rare that a user leaves an index for a long time with many staged changes. Outside of staged changes, the index can be completely destroyed and rewritten with minimal impact to the user. Following a similar approach to one used in the microsoft/git fork [1], add a new config option (index.skipHash) that allows disabling this hashing during the index write. The cost is that we can no longer validate the contents for corruption-at-rest using the trailing hash. [1] https://github.com/microsoft/git/commit/21fed2d91410f45d85279467f21d717a2db45201 We load this config from the repository config given by istate->repo, with a fallback to the_repository if it is not set. While older Git versions will not recognize the null hash as a special case, the file format itself is still being met in terms of its structure. Using this null hash will still allow Git operations to function across older versions. The one exception is 'git fsck' which checks the hash of the index file. This used to be a check on every index read, but was split out to just the index in a33fc72fe91 (read-cache: force_verify_index_checksum, 2017-04-14) and released first in Git 2.13.0. Document the versions that relaxed these restrictions, with the optimistic expectation that this change will be included in Git 2.40.0. Here, we disable this check if the trailing hash is all zeroes. We add a warning to the config option that this may cause undesirable behavior with older Git versions. As a quick comparison, I tested 'git update-index --force-write' with and without index.skipHash=true on a copy of the Linux kernel repository. Benchmark 1: with hash Time (mean ± σ): 46.3 ms ± 13.8 ms [User: 34.3 ms, System: 11.9 ms] Range (min … max): 34.3 ms … 79.1 ms 82 runs Benchmark 2: without hash Time (mean ± σ): 26.0 ms ± 7.9 ms [User: 11.8 ms, System: 14.2 ms] Range (min … max): 16.3 ms … 42.0 ms 69 runs Summary 'without hash' ran 1.78 ± 0.76 times faster than 'with hash' These performance benefits are substantial enough to allow users the ability to opt-in to this feature, even with the potential confusion with older 'git fsck' versions. Test this new config option, both at a command-line level and within a submodule. The confirmation is currently limited to confirm that 'git fsck' does not complain about the index. Future updates will make this test more robust. It is critical that this test is placed before the test_index_version tests, since those tests obliterate the .git/config file and hence lose the setting from GIT_TEST_DEFAULT_HASH, if set. Signed-off-by: Derrick Stolee <derrickstolee@github.com> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

Derrick Stolee committed Jan 6, 2023 at 16:31 UTC ee1f0c242efc022c185e9be9f672289d5420a664
3 files changed +37 -1
Documentation/config/index.txt
+11
@@ -30,3 +30,14 @@ index.version::
30 Specify the version with which new index files should be
31 initialized. This does not affect existing repositories.
32 If `feature.manyFiles` is enabled, then the default is 4.
33 +
34 +index.skipHash::
35 + When enabled, do not compute the trailing hash for the index file.
36 + This accelerates Git commands that manipulate the index, such as
37 + `git add`, `git commit`, or `git status`. Instead of storing the
38 + checksum, write a trailing set of bytes with value zero, indicating
39 + that the computation was skipped.
40 ++
41 +If you enable `index.skipHash`, then Git clients older than 2.13.0 will
42 +refuse to parse the index and Git clients older than 2.40.0 will report an
43 +error during `git fsck`.
read-cache.c
+12 -1
@@ -1817,6 +1817,8 @@ static int verify_hdr(const struct cache_header *hdr, unsigned long size)
1817 git_hash_ctx c;
1818 unsigned char hash[GIT_MAX_RAWSZ];
1819 int hdr_version;
1820 + unsigned char *start, *end;
1821 + struct object_id oid;
1822
1823 if (hdr->hdr_signature != htonl(CACHE_SIGNATURE))
1824 return error(_("bad signature 0x%08x"), hdr->hdr_signature);
@@ -1827,10 +1829,16 @@ static int verify_hdr(const struct cache_header *hdr, unsigned long size)
1829 if (!verify_index_checksum)
1830 return 0;
1831
1832 + end = (unsigned char *)hdr + size;
1833 + start = end - the_hash_algo->rawsz;
1834 + oidread(&oid, start);
1835 + if (oideq(&oid, null_oid()))
1836 + return 0;
1837 +
1838 the_hash_algo->init_fn(&c);
1839 the_hash_algo->update_fn(&c, hdr, size - the_hash_algo->rawsz);
1840 the_hash_algo->final_fn(hash, &c);
1833 - if (!hasheq(hash, (unsigned char *)hdr + size - the_hash_algo->rawsz))
1841 + if (!hasheq(hash, start))
1842 return error(_("bad index file sha1 signature"));
1843 return 0;
1844 }
@@ -2915,9 +2923,12 @@ static int do_write_index(struct index_state *istate, struct tempfile *tempfile,
2923 int ieot_entries = 1;
2924 struct index_entry_offset_table *ieot = NULL;
2925 int nr, nr_threads;
2926 + struct repository *r = istate->repo ? istate->repo : the_repository;
2927
2928 f = hashfd(tempfile->fd, tempfile->filename.buf);
2929
2930 + repo_config_get_bool(r, "index.skiphash", &f->skip_hash);
2931 +
2932 for (i = removed = extended = 0; i < entries; i++) {
2933 if (cache[i]->ce_flags & CE_REMOVE)
2934 removed++;
t/t1600-index.sh
+14
@@ -65,6 +65,20 @@ test_expect_success 'out of bounds index.version issues warning' '
65 )
66 '
67
68 +test_expect_success 'index.skipHash config option' '
69 + rm -f .git/index &&
70 + git -c index.skipHash=true add a &&
71 + git fsck &&
72 +
73 + test_commit start &&
74 + git -c protocol.file.allow=always submodule add ./ sub &&
75 + git config index.skipHash false &&
76 + git -C sub config index.skipHash true &&
77 + >sub/file &&
78 + git -C sub add a &&
79 + git -C sub fsck
80 +'
81 +
82 test_index_version () {
83 INDEX_VERSION_CONFIG=$1 &&
84 FEATURE_MANY_FILES=$2 &&